Statements by colleges, universities and organizations. Authors who address the issue of the Bible and GLBT. Barthold v. Gordon College - ACLU Massachusetts. This is a civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of tenured philosophy professor Lauren Barthold charging Gordon College, a Christian liberal arts college, with retaliating against her because she made public statements disagreeing with Gordon’s president who had asked President Obama to allow federal contractors, on the basis of religion, to discriminate against LGBTQ people in hiring.
Barthold was threatened with termination and later disciplined because she wrote a letter to a newspaper and was quoted in a newspaper article as a critic of the president’s action. Although the administration backed down from the threat to terminate Professor Barthold after receiving a warning letter from one of her attorneys, they subsequently imposed discipline on her – removing her from faculty leadership positions, denying her the scheduled right to apply for a promotion, and removing her from serving as director of the gender studies minor.
'Ask Me': What LGBTQ Students Want Their Professors to Know - Students. By Julia Schmalz Students The federal law known as Title IX is meant to protect students from discrimination based on their gender identity.
But many gay, lesbian, and transgender students say they face an array of challenges and safety issues on their campuses. The Chronicle interviewed more than a dozen of them to hear more about what keeps them from thriving in college. Here’s a glance at some of the many issues they talked about: ‘More Shades of Lavender’ Shane Windmeyer, executive director of the advocacy group Campus Pride, says research data are driven by binary thinking that does not reflect the increasingly varied identities that students are embracing.
What’s in a Name? D.A. Housing Concerns. 2/15/19: A Pair of Christian Colleges Quietly Cracking Down on LGBTQ Acceptance - Rewire.News - Religion Dispatches. As America reels from the exposure of a massive child sexual abuse scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, recently uncovered by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, we should pause to take stock of the culpability of the broader conservative, mostly white evangelical subculture—not just churches in other evangelical denominations, but also educational institutions, parachurch ministries, parallel information and entertainment industries, and political lobbying organizations.
As I have argued at RD and elsewhere, evangelicalism is essentially authoritarian, its defining doctrine of “biblical inerrancy” (or at least “infallibility”) serving to uphold a usually implicitly white supremacist—and usually explicitly patriarchal—theology and power structure. Where inequality and the “right” to discrimination are defended as, respectively, “God’s will” and “religious freedom,” abuse—sexual, physical, spiritual, and emotional—prevails.
Subscribe to our daily or weekly email. 12/13/18: NAE and CCCU boards back LGBT compromise for religious freedom exemptions. Two prominent Christian groups are backing the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity as categories to federal nondiscrimination law in exchange for religious exemptions, a move that is dividing Christians.
The boards of the National Association of Evangelicals and the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities have both recently approved motions as part of a long-term effort to preserve religious freedom, World magazine reported Wednesday. In October, the NAE passed a motion called "Fairness for All" which asks Congress to consider laws that regard human beings as made in God's image and that sexual relations be reserved for the marriage of a man and a woman; that long-standing civil rights laws and First Amendment protections guaranteeing the free exercise of religion be supported; and that no one should be discriminated against, face harassment or violence because of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
12/12/18: Boards back SOGI compromise. Two major evangelical organizations have formally endorsed principles that would add sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to federal nondiscrimination law.
The boards of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) quietly passed similar motions in recent months, advancing a multiyear effort they say is necessary to preserve religious freedom. “As Christian higher educators, we are increasingly persuaded that the most viable political strategy is for comprehensive religious freedom protections to be combined with explicit support for basic human rights for members of the LGBT community,” Houghton College President Shirley Mullen—one of several people who sit on both boards—wrote in a position paper provided to NAE board members. CCCU President Shirley Hoogstra announced her board’s vote to member presidents in August, but did not publicly announce the move. Supporters say those conclusions are premature. 10/1/18: Azusa Pacific University reinstates code of conduct clause that bans same-sex romance. 10/1/18: After One Week, University Brings Back Ban on Same-Sex Relationships.
10/1/18: Azusa Pacific Reverses Approval for Gay Student Couples...... 6/5/18: Conservative Christian Bakers, LGBT Couples and the Supreme Court – SpokaneFāVS. 4/16/18: Nonbinary gender and the diverse beauty of creation. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
As a kid, I would read these first words in my children’s Bible over and over again—not because I found them particularly interesting, but because I was the kind of person who always started books from the beginning, and I could never seem to get any further into the Bible than Noah and the ark before I lost interest. I also liked the first story in my Bible because it had some of the best illustrations. On one page was a friendly orange sun, and on the opposite page a shining yellow moon and twinkling stars. Next came an ocean with big waves, across from a page depicting mountains and forests. Even in a children’s Bible the distinctions God made when creating the universe were obvious.
This kind of structure in scripture was something that I appreciated up until my teen years, when I began to get a sense of the way life sometimes falls outside black-and-white categories. 4/5/18: Author discusses his new book on gay student activism on Christian college campuses. 3/30/18: A season to celebrate love, despite differences. If you Google “the meaning of Easter” you quickly learn that theologians over the centuries have written volumes of competing explanations.
They go beyond a basic Christian understanding that the season marks salvation and the forgiveness of our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Implicit, though, in most of the theories that debate atonement, mercy and why God came to earth in human form is the concept of love — God’s love of humanity. Doesn't that mean all of us? As we celebrate that love, it’s worthwhile to think about how Abilene Christian University (ACU) and other private, religious colleges are squaring their spiritual mission with their policies that treat LGBTQ students and faculty differently. Abilene Christian,150 miles west of Fort Worth, recently generated headlines when it expanded a policy barring faculty and staff from dating members of the same sex to include student employees. This is not solely about sexual relations. 3/30/18: AACU professor and parent's plea for understanding and openness. One of my sons is gay.
That’s the first time I’ve said so in this space, because it didn’t seem like my story to tell about a vulnerable kid. But Sam’s just a few months shy of 21 now and says to write away. This was no secret when he was at Abilene High, where I think he was an asset. He befriended dozens of his pregnant classmates, went to state three times in gymnastics and successfully made his case for a spot on the varsity cheer squad.
It was no secret when he graduated to Abilene Christian University, either. 3/27/18: Christian Colleges Are Tangled In Their Own LGBT Policies. Calvin College in Michigan is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, which holds that "homosexual practice ... is incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture.
" Noah PreFontaine/Calvin College hide caption toggle caption Noah PreFontaine/Calvin College Calvin College in Michigan is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, which holds that "homosexual practice ... is incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. " Conservative Christian colleges, once relatively insulated from the culture war, are increasingly entangled in the same battles over LGBT rights and related social issues that have divided other institutions in America. Students and faculty at many religious institutions are asked to accept a "faith statement" outlining the school's views on such matters as evangelical doctrine, scriptural interpretation and human sexuality.
"You've got those two values," says Mary Hulst, senior chaplain at Calvin. Abilene 3/23/18: Christian University bans same-sex relationships for some student employees. 2/26/18: 6 Common Ways Christians Stereotype Transgender People. As a transgender person, one of the biggest myths I see in the media today is that transgender people live sad, dangerous, and lonely lives.
We’re often defined by our gender dysphoria, and stories about us, especially in Christian circles, are all about how we come out to — and in most cases, are rejected by — our families and our churches. But while we do face discrimination and rejection, many of us are moving toward joy and community in other ways. So many of us love who we are, and wouldn’t trade it for the world! That’s why I was deeply upset, but not surprised, when I read Nancy Pearcey’s most recent article in Christianity Today. Pearcey argues that transgender people rely on stereotypes about expression to determine our gender. At first glance, Pearcey’s argument seems like a great one.
Here are five misconceptions about transgender people that I want to clear up: 2/22/18: Union of Affirming Christians Condemns the Trump Administration's Dismantling of LGBT-friendly Policies. 2/3/18: Education Department No Longer Pursuing Bathroom Complaints From Transgender Students. 2/18: How the Transgender Narrative Perpetuates Stereotypes. 1/4/18: North Park pastor suspended after officiating same-sex marriage. 10/27/17: A New Website Aims to Tell You Which Churches Are Queer-Inclusive.
10/17/17: Gay and in Love at an Evangelical College. The protagonist of our film, Santiago Gonzalez IV, is a first-generation college student, son of Mexican immigrants, surfer, flamenco dancer, bullfighter, dedicated Christian and a young gay man navigating his first same-sex relationship, with his classmate Austin McKinley. As he graduates from his conservative Christian college in San Diego, Mr. Gonzalez manages to beautifully balance these identity categories, which can often divide communities, families, and individuals. Mr. Gonzalez’s story spoke strongly to both of us, even though we come from strikingly different religious perspectives.
12/21/16: A Generational Schism Over Gay Rights Appears at Evangelical Colleges. The University of Chicago Divinity School. Issues of human sexuality continue to challenge evangelical Christian higher education organizations. As Martin E. Marty discussed in the October 17, 2016, issue of Sightings, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship recently announced a new policy to let go of staff who support same-sex marriage.
Now the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) is implementing a new membership policy which requires full-voting members to affirm that marriage is only to be between a man and a woman. Other “core commitments that guide [the CCCU’s] advocacy” are “sustainability and the preservation of the Earth,” “the well-being of the underserved and marginalized,” “the preservation and advancement of religious freedoms,” and a commitment to “humble and courageous action that honors the unity of the human race, values ethnic and cultural diversity, and addresses the injustices of racism.”
The CCCU, with 117 member institutions in the U. 10/18/16: Inside InterVarsity’s Purge: Trauma and Termination at the Premier Evangelical Student Org. When InterVarsity staff worker Michael Vasquez told two of his supervisors that a man had raped him in a gym locker room, one wondered aloud if he had asked for it. Did Vasquez, a gay Christian, secretly hope for this encounter? The question came out nonchalantly, recalled Vasquez in an interview, “like this was a discipleship conversation about my promiscuity as opposed to a pastoral conversation about how I was just raped.”
Since Vasquez first began working at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of the nation’s largest campus ministries, he had been open about his sexual orientation. He started his staff position at the University of Utah in the fall of 2013; soon after, a male supervisor requested that they meet weekly in the supervisor’s bedroom to practice prayer rituals aimed at changing Vasquez’s sexual orientation. When that didn’t work, the supervisor encouraged Vasquez to date women and, eventually, to watch heterosexual pornography.
10/14/16: InterVarsity Press responds to authors’ protest of controversial gay marriage termination policy. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA (IVCF), an evangelical ministry operating on 667 campuses nationwide, has faced fierce backlash since announcing it would involuntarily terminate any employees who theologically support gay marriage. The most significant outcry has come from a group of more than 50 prominent authors in InterVarsity’s publishing stable who signed a statement lamenting the policy and asking the ministry to revoke it immediately. In the midst of the growing outcry, InterVarsity leadership has holed up and remained silent. Attempts made by Religion News Service to contact IVCF president Tom Lin and Greg Jao, director of campus engagement, have been ignored.
Other religion journalists who have reported on the matter say IVCF leadership has been unresponsive to their interview requests, too. But the publisher at InterVarsity Press (IVP), Jeff Crosby, has now cracked the silence. 10/10/16: Christian college group tries to define membership categories based in part on views on same-sex marriage. For more than a year, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities has struggled with what to do about a split between members that affirm same-sex marriage and are willing to hire people in such marriages, and the majority of member institutions that reject that view. Some of the majority group feel strongly enough that they left the CCCU last year when the organization did not kick out Eastern Mennonite University and Goshen College after those two colleges changed their policies to permit the hiring of people in same-sex marriages.
An immediate split was averted last year when Eastern Mennonite and Goshen withdrew from the CCCU, saying that they did not want to divide the group. But at the time, CCCU announced that it would appoint a committee to determine membership rules going forward. Those rules have now been adopted by the council's board, effective in July, and they deal with same-sex marriage through multiple categories of membership. 10/6/16: InterVarsity to Dismiss Employees Who Support Gay Marriage. 10/3/16: CCCU adopts new membership policy. Copyright (c) 2016 Baptist Press. Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. The original story can be found at by J.C.
9/1/16: 'Christian' College Gives Heave-Ho To Professor For Supporting LGBT People. So my old alma mater is getting rid of yet another tenured faculty member who doesn’t bend to its narrow understanding of Christianity and dares to publicly support LGBT people. Gordon College, in Wenham, Mass., has been in the news the last couple of years because its president, D. Michael Lindsay, was one of the prominent evangelicals in 2014 who petitioned President Obama for the right to discriminate against prospective employees who happen to be LGBT. 8/15/16: California Legislation to Eliminate Christian Colleges' Exemptions to LGBT Discrimination Fails, but It's Not the End of the Issue. Creating and sustaining a religious community is essential to the educational mission of Christian colleges and universities. 8/5/16: Another University Relinquishes Its Religious Exemption to Title IX – The Ticker.
Loyola University of New Orleans has relinquished its religious exemption from Title IX, a university official said on Thursday, adding that the institution fully supports the federal gender-equity law. The Roman Catholic university’s president, the Rev. 7/31/16: One of America's Least Gay-Friendly Universities Drops Its License to Discriminate (But Why?)
Earlier this month it was revealed that Pepperdine University had notified the U.S. Department of Education in January that it wanted to withdraw the request it made in 1976 to be exempt from certain provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that bans sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funds. 7/27/16: A University Makes a Rare Call to Ditch Its Title IX Exemption. David Bro, ZUMAPRESS.com. 6/14/16: Sacred Spaces: Gay Night Clubs. June 14, 2016 Gay night clubs are SACRED SPACES for many of my LGBTQA friends whose churches, colleges, families, teachers, clergy, and yes, government, have not only failed to protect their queer bodies, but outright rejected their bodies created in YHWH’s image. Let me share something which may offend some of your sensibilities.
6/13/16: Muslims & Queers in a Perverse, Trumpian, Political Culture. 6/9/16: Vanderbilt Adds Sex-Reassignment Surgery to Student Health Plan – The Ticker. Vanderbilt University has added sex-reassignment surgery to its student health-care plan, The Tennessean reported on Wednesday. Cynthia Cyrus, the university’s vice provost for learning and residential affairs, told the newspaper that the change had been made after a routine annual review of the health-care plan.
The expanded care will go into effect this year. The private university’s plan already covers hormone therapy for transgender students. Seventy-two colleges and universities across the United States offer coverage for transgender-related surgeries in their student health-care plans, according to a tally compiled by Campus Pride, a nonprofit advocacy group. Efforts by Tennessee colleges and universities to become more inclusive for transgender and gender-nonconforming students have stirred some controversy over the past few months in the state’s Republican-led legislature. Return to Top. 6/9/16: Academics in Sexual Minorities Can Feel a Need to Stay Closeted. 6/6/16: I’m a Woman Who Got Kicked Out of Women’s Bathrooms. 6/3/16: It’s Time to Speak Up for Your Gay and Transgender Students. Adam Walker Cleaveland One of my colleagues laughs about my "secret identity" as a punk-rock fan. On campus I do my best to be very professional, dressed in business casual, holding office hours and serving on committees.
When I leave the parking lot, though, I have the music turned up so loud in my car it could make your ears ring. How much to keep your personal life and personal beliefs separate from your job is something most of us have pondered, but I have come to realize that these identities should not be as secret or separate as I once thought. 5/27/16: Unconstitutionality is only part of the story - Christian Feminism Today. 5/12/16: Redefining Religious and Academic Freedom: Gordon College Edition.
5/9/16: Hope College Board Says It Now Supports President. 5/6/16: Students say Gordon restricting speech. 5/2/16: Hope College Board Chair Will Step Down. 4/29/16: Gordon professor says she was punished for criticizing college's request for exemption to antibias law. 4/26/16: When religion and the LGBT collegiate athlete collide. 4/25/16: Values made clear. 4/24/16: Hope College board chair says no May vote to fire president. 4/22/16: How Choosing a Cabinet Helped Put One College President in Peril. 4/18/16: Hope College moves away from immediate plan to fire president.
Stories of Struggling With Same-Sex Attraction at a Christian School. 4/15/16: Students and faculty members rally behind Hope College president, who may be ousted. 3/14/16: The LGBT Politics of Christian College Campuses. 3/2/2016: Evangelical Christian campuses and their LGBTQ students. 2/23/16: How Wheaton College Turned Against Its Gay Leader. 2/22/16: Wheaton College could face long-term fallout over professor controversy. 2/4/16: Wheaton College Memo: Larycia Hawkins Case 'Discriminatory'
2/3/16: How Christian Universities Are Becoming a Battleground for LGBT Rights. 1/31/16: Evangelical Colleges' Diversity Problem Chronicle of Higher Ed. 12/21/15: Education Department urged to publicize Title IX exemptions granted to religious colleges. 12/18/15: Religious colleges get exemptions to anti-bias law; critics denounce ‘hidden discrimination’ against LGBT students. 12/14/15: Biola U toughens rules on sexuality and gender identity. 12/11/15: A Christian University Toughens Its Anti-LGBT Stances. 12/8/15: Another Christian College Will Hire Gay People.
12/4/15: Four Mennonite colleges update nondiscrimination policies. 12/2/15: ‘Not a Day Care’? Really? 12/1/15: Dozens of Christian schools win Title IX waivers to ban LGBT students. 10/22/15: The Untold Story of Religious Support for Gay Rights. 10/18/15: The Vatican's Synod of Bishops in Rome: What Will Happen on Homosexuality, Gay Marriage, and LGBT Catholics? 10/16/15: Same Sex Hiring Practices. 10/8/15: Fractures & Hope: Reflections on Religious Higher Ed.
10/6/15: Alan Chambers and the Downfall of the Ex-Gay Movement. 9/24/15: Christian college group should not require too many theological litmus tests for members (essay) 9/22/15: 2 colleges leave Christian college group to avoid split over gay marriage. 9/21/15: Sad Day for the CCCU: EMU and Goshen Resign. 9/15/2015: Mennonites, evangelicals and the sexuality debate in Christian higher education. 8/17/15: Essay by a gay faculty member at a Christian college. 8/14/15: For conservative Christian colleges, no middle ground on gay rights (ANALYSIS) 8/13/15: Christian college group faces conflict over its failure to expel institutions that will hire professors in same-sex marriages. 7/14/15: Evangelical Colleges Still Discriminate Against LGBT Students Despite the Supreme Court’s Gay-Marriage Ruling. 7/7/15: Julia Stronks's Essay on future of gay rights and Christian colleges in wake of Supreme Court decision. TEDxWashingtonCorrectionsCenterforWomen. 3/18/15: Schisms Over Same-Sex Marriage in the Mennonite Church.
8/19/14: Essay by anonymous faculty member about being gay at a Christian college as institutions seek exemptions from civil rights laws. 7/23/14: How LGBT Students Are Changing Christian Colleges. 11/21/13: Ironies & Bright Spots for Gays in the Christian College World. 7/8/13: Christian Colleges, Gay Faculty—and the Boy Scouts. 3/18/2013: Essay about being a gay faculty member at a Christian college.