06.10.08
Gay Students Fight For Equality On Christian Campus
A dozen LGBT students at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, including student Andy Swenson, have formed an informal gay-straight alliance on campus, Newsweek reports.
Swenson and others are bent on gaining official club status for their GSA, but that may be harder than it sounds. Bethel University is a college founded on strict evangelical Christian theology. A spokeswoman from the college explained to Newsweek that “a student group can’t conflict with our mission or core values.”
Bethel U isn’t the only university taking matters into their own hands. According to Newsweek, the penalties for “homosexual activities” at Southern Baptist Union University in Jackson, Tennessee include a fine, community service, counseling, probation, and parental notification.
The hope for Swenson and others like him lies in activist groups like Soulforce, which travels the nation working with Christian and gay students to combat homophobia on college campuses. According to the LGBT group it is committed to “cutting off homophobia at its source – religious bigotry.”