"That truth should be silent, I had almost forgot," quips a sarcastic character in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. That line gets more relevant all the time. Take the story of the Catholic professor who was fired for presenting Catholic objections to homosexuality — in a class about Catholicism.

It happened at my alma mater, the University of Illinois. Kenneth Howell had been a well-regarded religious-studies professor here since 1998, repeatedly recognized for excellence in teaching. That is, until one day late in the spring semester, when he delivered a lecture on "The Question of Homosexuality in Catholic Thought." The essence of it, to quote the summary from his attorneys:

In this lecture, he explained how the Catholic Church distinguishes between same-sex attraction and homosexual conduct. And he outlined how the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual conduct is morally wrong, framing the issue in the context of natural moral law. Thus, he taught the Catholic belief that homosexual conduct violates the inherent meaning of human sexuality (i.e., to unite husbands and wives), disregards the complementary structure of men and women, and ignores the procreative purpose for sexuality.

Howell has delivered that lecture for years, and he's had civil exchanges with students who disagreed. This time, though, some of them got, in his words, "vociferous." So he wrote an e-mail the next day explaining the view further and urging for them to try to understand the position they're supposed to be studying, not simply to dismiss and denounce it. He explained the argument's basis — that "Morality must be a response to REALITY" (emphasis his), and that "sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same."

Well, that did it. A student — not one of Howell's, but someone who knew one of them — e-mailed the Religious Studies department to accuse him of "hate speech." In the next few weeks, the campaign against him spread: Gay activists, naturally, got involved. One dean suggested he be fired for violating "university standards of inclusivity." And since Howell didn't have tenure, that made him a candidate to be canned. Which, in short order, he was.

That's not the end, though. The story has gone national., and Howell's legal help, the Alliance Defense Fund, specialize in cases like this. Now the UI has appointed a panel to reconsider the decision. So fairer, wiser heads may yet prevail.

Here's hoping. This looks a lot like a clear-cut case of academic freedom. "I tell my students I am a practicing Catholic, so I believe the things I'm teaching," Howell says, but "I have always made it very, very clear to my students they are never required to believe what I'm teaching and they'll never be judged on that." No one seems to be disputing that claim: There's no "he lowered my grade because we disagreed" claims. Their only charge against Howell is that he said things they didn't want to hear.

This isn't just a collegiate trend, it's a cultural one. We're moving fast toward a society where people not only don't know why certain things are wrong, but don't even know why anyone thinks (or ever thought) they were wrong.

More than that, they don't want to know.

Howell's e-mail strives to make his class understand moral reasoning. But he has to walk them through the most basic things. For example, he writes,

we have to remind ourselves of the ever-present tendency in all of us to judge morality by emotion. The most frequent reason I hear people supporting same-sex marriage is that they know some gay couples or individuals. Empathy is a noble human quality but right or wrong does not depend on who is doing the action or on how I feel about those people, just as judging an action wrong should not depend on disliking someone. This might seem obvious to a right thinking person but I have encountered many well-educated people who do not (or cannot?) make the distinction.

He goes on to explain a few other basic things. He talks about why morality can't simply be reduced to hollow standards like "mutual consent." He talks about how the morality of an act depends on the nature of the act itself, not on whether you like the results. He talks about how that relates to the nature of sexuality, uniting the genders and creating children, and how it's not just about personal desires. In short, he talks about things Christians in general — not just Catholics — have known about for, practically, ever.

And yet Howell must plead for his students even to understand these points, never mind embracing them.

All I ask as your teacher is that you approach these questions as a thinking adult. That implies questioning what you have heard around you. Unless you have done extensive research into homosexuality and are cognizant of the history of moral thought, you are not ready to make judgments about moral truth in this matter. All I encourage is to make informed decisions.

Some of them, at least, aren't interested. They're not even trying to construct intelligent counter-arguments to his position. They're short-circuiting the process of moral reasoning altogether. It's as if they're saying, "What we desire is by definition right. Those who say we're wrong are by definition guilty of hate and bigotry."

Read a story like this and it's easy to get frustrated. I did, and I'm used to this sort of story. But when I asked myself if I could find anything positive here, several things came to mind.

First, we can safely assume that some of the other students did get the point. We're talking about a religious-studies class, after all, and it stands to reason there are people in it who actually want to think seriously about these matters. The people who don't like it are naturally noisy out of proportion to their numbers.

Second, we have a professor who cares — about his subject and his students — enough to take the heat. He may or may not regain his job at the UI, but regardless, he'll probably teach somewhere. That's a blessing to who knows how many students.

And finally, there's something affirming even about the tactics of Howell's assailants. Their eagerness not to refute him, but to silence him, is a reminder of how much the darkness hates the light. Is that how people secure in their convictions act? Or is it the sign of insecure people, aware on some level just how shaky their stand is?

I said something about this in an earlier column, and this is as good a place as any to repeat it.

It all comes down to conscience. God has written His law onto every human heart (Romans 2:15). And that means all of us know deep down that things like abortion and homosexuality are wrong. Sometimes that knowledge gets buried very deeply, under many layers of justification and denial. And yet, that knowledge won't stay buried. The more outraged people get when they're reminded of it, the more desperately they're trying to suppress it.

That's why Christians should take a certain comfort in efforts to silence our voices. When we're speaking the truth in a civil, respectful way and still getting attacked for it, that doesn't mean we're being too provocative. It may just mean we're doing our job. We're setting the truth before as many people as possible, and letting them respond as they will. (He who has ears to hear, let him hear.)

That truth should not be silent, let us never forget.