Cha. Cha. Charity!
In recognition of National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Catholic Charities Project UNICA visited area nightclubs, including Andrea’s Cha Cha Club, in Portland to host “Nights of Consent” on April 19 and 20. Project UNICA staff greeted patrons at club entry points and used a hand-stamp reading, “Consent is Sexy” to promote and engage them in prevention of sexual assault.
Only Ed Baker gets it right:
“Let me get this straight. A “Catholic” organization is promoting the grave evil of fornication as an alternative to the grave evil of rape. Did it even occur to anyone at Oregon “Catholic” Charities to be courageous enough to promote virtue?”
No Ed, it didn’t.
According to the Catholic Charities press release:
“It’s important for people to know that without consent for sexual contact, it is rape; we are all responsible for keeping night clubs safe environments [?] where women don’t have to guard their drink or feel threatened,” said Project UNICA Program Manager Karen Janes.
Project UNICA staff hosted “Nights of Consent” at the following locations:
• Thursday, April 19 at Andrea’s Cha Cha Club, located at 832 S.E. Grand Ave. in Portland, from 10 p.m. to close
• Friday April 20 at Casa Colima, located at 6319 S.W. Capitol Hwy. in Portland, from 10 p.m. to close
Well, of course, all this doesn’t make sense according to the catechism. But if we Catholics are all now responsible for keeping nightclub’s, like Andrea’s Cha Cha Club a safe environment for patrons, (assuming that means ALL patrons), then I say it’s time to create “Coronary’s Are Cool” stamps for Guy’s like Albert here…
ED NOTE: There is no Catholic edict against social dancing found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The subject herein is the offense of a Catholic organization promoting pre-marital sex, which according to Catholic teaching is fornication–Fornication “is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.” [CCC 2353]
And guess who goes to bars?
END OF POST
fratres.wordpress.com 
I wanted to let you know that once alerted to the scandalous nature of this event/project, Catholic Charities sees that perhaps it was not a prudent idea. Below is the last from Catholic Charities in a lengthy email exchange with the Communications director.
“We understand the use of a tag line “consent is sexy” can be construed in many ways, some which are problematic. It was never our intent to imply that “consent” in any way endorses pre-marital sexual behavior. In fact, the objective of the event was to educate–through distributed educational materials, speeches from survivors of sexual assault and one-on-one conversations with domestic violence staff–that consent prior to any activity is the essential component of a healthy and dignified relationship and the first step in circumventing sexual assault.
Due to the nature of the public feedback we have received, it is apparent we made a poor choice of words; thus we have opted to eliminate the use of this language in outreach and prevention efforts of Catholic Charities.
We are proud of the work of Catholic Charities and work diligently to be good stewards of donor contributions. We do not take this responsibility lightly.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to address your concerns.”