Here are the news articles from The Baylor Lariat, Baylor University’s student newspaper from the last couple of days:
Equality ride preaches open dialogue
March 20, 2007
By CLAIRE ST. AMANT
Staff writer
Twenty-six members from the Soulforce Equality Ride visited campus Monday to dialogue with students and the community about issues of homosexuality and faith. Baylor marks the fourth stop at private Christian universities and colleges across the Eastern United States for the group, which also has a Western counterpart.
The group’s mission is to “encourage reconciliation between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and faith communities,” said equality rider Mandy Matthias, an alumna of Eastern University.
Group members attended Chapel with students Monday morning and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around campus and meeting people, she said.
“We do feel that God loves and affirms us just as we are as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people,” Matthias said. “The writers in the Bible didn’t necessarily understand the issue of orientation and they just saw it was deviant behavior.”
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Baylor, Soulforce tackle Christianity, homosexuality
March 20, 2007
By CLAIRE ST. AMANT nd MELISSA LIMMER
Staff writers
Dub Oliver, vice president for Student Life and Amanda Harris, a Soulforce Equality Ride member from Lonoke, Ark., who attended Baylor in the fall of 2003, answered a series of questions for the Lariat.
Read the full Q&A
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Soulforce members arrested on campus
By CLAIRE ST. AMANT and MELISSA LIMMER
Staff writers
Six members of the gay advocacy group Soulforce Equality Ride were arrested Tuesday at Baylor on charges of criminal trespassing after they refused to stop chalking on campus.
The members congregated in front of Waco Hall around 2 p.m. and began chalking what they called “messages of love and hope.”
Baylor Police Chief Jim Doak said officers asked the Soulforce members to stop chalking before arresting them, but they refused. He said none of the six people arrested was a Baylor student. [The police chief lied, one person arrested was a Baylor student named Shawn].
Read full article.
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Baylor uses hypocritical approach to homosexuality conversation
March 21, 2007
By KATIE SWEETEN
I attended the Soulforce Equality Ride rally, Monday dinner and worship service out of curiosity about the message they were sharing.
As a third-year law student and the fifth member of my family to attend Baylor, I was saddened and embarrassed by the e-mail that went out to the student body from Dr. Dub Oliver, vice president for student life.
In one breath, it touted Baylor as a place that is “comfortable with conversations regarding human sexuality,” but in the next breath, it denied Soulforce’s requests for university-approved dialogue. The e-mail was a thinly veiled attempt to let the group know they’re not welcome on our campus. As I understand it, one of the goals of the Equality Ride is to come in the spirit of non-violence to promote dialogue in the Baylor and Waco communities. Contrary to what many students think, the goal of this group is not to “make you gay” or to get you to turn your back on the Bible, but rather to open up lines of communication between gay and straight communities in a Christian context.
Technorati Tags: Soulforce, Equality Ride, Waco, Texas, Baylor University
