Villanova University Abruptly Cancels Workshops By Gay Performance Artist Tim Miller

Villanova University abruptly cancelled a weeklong workshop by a gay performance artist whose stage shows are often laced with nudity and simulated sex but who has taught and lectured at numerous colleges, including the nation's largest Catholic university, DePaul, in Chicago. Tim Miller, who the Los Angeles Times once called the "patron saint of the gay performance world" and who was one of four envelope-pushing artists to have funding yanked by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990, said he was told Sunday night by the professor who booked the workshop that Villanova President, Rev. Peter M. Donahue, had cancelled the event. No reason was given. Miller told The Philadelphia Inquirer he wasn't totally surprised since Catholic blogs had picked up on his appearance and were spreading "this bizarre lie that I'm anti-Catholic ... People tell these lies and it gets people who read these blogs worked up." While the cancellation was not "unimaginable", he noted that Villanova once staged Angels in America, the groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the AIDS epidemic. "Times have changed," he said. "We're in a much more coercive, censorious time." Heidi Rose, the assistant professor of communications who booked the residency months ago and is a member of the university's Gay Straight Coalition, said Monday morning that she had been told by university officials not to talk about the event and to refer inquiries to the communications office. Miller said it was Rose who told him the workshop was cancelled. Rose was quoted by CatholicCulture.org as saying the April 16 to 21 workshops would "take you through an intimate process of self-discovery and exploration, focusing on identity and culture, questions of diversity and difference, knowledge of self and others, etc." By Monday afternoon, the university put out a statement that read: "Villanova University embraces intellectual freedom and academic discourse. Indeed, it is at the very heart of our University and our Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition. With regard to the forthcoming residency and performance workshops by Tim Miller, we had concerns that his performances were not in keeping with our Catholic and Augustinian values and mission. Therefore, Villanova has decided not to host Mr. Miller on our campus. Villanova University is an open and inclusive community and in no way does this singular decision change that."