Month: March 2006

A school district cancelled a diversity day because an ex-gay asked for some time. Perhaps, the school should consult the First Amendment Center’s Guidelines regarding sexual orientation and public schools.

My middle school aged daughter was assigned to read this book. I read through it and thought it was a step up from a comic book, not much literary value that I could discern. Actually, I think I would rather her read Fantastic Four comics over the Guide. Maybe I am missing something?

Lengthy op-ed by Charles Haynes in USA Today about the First Amendment Center’s Guidelines regarding discussions of sexual orientation schools. My perception is that these are not being well received on the hard right or hard left.

From a Gay365.com article regarding Equality Ride’s visit to the media, I mean campus of Union University:

Dawn Davridge said that she and her partner, Kathryn Davridge, were expelled from Union two years ago after administrators found out they are lesbians; and in a relationship.
“I fell in love with my best friend,” Davridge told about a dozen students who gathered to hear from the riders. “I am not sick, and I am not a sinner. Two years ago, our story was suppressed.”

The terms sick and sinner have been in numerous quotes from Equality Riders. I assume that this is one message designed to be a take away point from the entire effort. Seems strange to hear someone who is claiming to come from a Christian perspective saying, “I am not a sinner.” To anyone who reads this blog and is up to date on gay integrative theology: When did homosexually attractions come into the human condition, before Adam and Eve fell or after?

In an email Mark Yarhouse, detailed his account of the E Ride visit:

We had Equality Ride come to the campus on Monday and Tuesday. The university had made arrangements to hold three forums with ER: one meeting in one of my classes, one panel discussion, and one training through the institute I direct. However, due to the way the university was being portrayed on their web page the week prior to the visit, the administration withdrew the offer, in part because they were dealing with a number of questions from the media based upon how the university was being portrayed.

Several students from the School of Psychology and Counseling went out to engage and dialogue with the ER participants. That led to an invitation by the students to have some of the ER folks attend a worship service that evening. I understand that five ER participants attended that time of worship.

On Tuesday six of the ER folks crossed over the property line and were arrested by VA Beach police. Several university students continued to interact with the ER participants and they shared a meal that evening at a local restaurant before they left for Lee University. I interacted with several of the ER folks. They were quite young (18-27, I believe), and were consistent in their use of non-violent protest. I think they admitted that much of their concern was to raise awareness of what they viewed as discriminatory policy, but it became clear that the university does not have any admissions restrictions based upon whether a person has a homosexual orientation or identifies as gay or lesbian.

I think the media coverage has been fairly accurate. The focus was more on the arrests than on the informal interactions and dialogues, but some of the media coverage did capture that as well.

Mark Yarhouse

I didn’t see media coverage of anything except the arrests. Perhaps Mark meant the local media.