The LGBT Politics of Christian Colleges
Some of these same schools are now attempting to separate sexual identity from sexual behavior in their policies and campus customs. However awkwardly, they’re trying to welcome gay students while preserving rules against same-sex “behavior.”
.. This fall, two conservative Christian colleges, Eastern Mennonite University and Goshen College, added sexual orientation to their nondiscrimination policies. Ultimately, this move forced both of them towithdraw from the nation’s most prominent membership organization of evangelical universities.
.. Baylor, the nation’s largest Baptist university, quietly removed its policy forbidding “homosexual acts” last year. But the college’s spokesperson, Lori Fogleman, didn’t say whether this change means legally married gay students can now enroll at Baylor.
.. this posture often effectively creates two sets of rules: one for gay students, and one for straight students. For example, at College of the Ozarks, ranked by U.S. News as the No. 4 regional college in the Midwest, the student handbook explicitly forbids “touching, caressing, and other physical conduct of a sexual nature with a person of the same sex.” Yet heterosexual students at the same school are allowed to date and show affection as long as they abstain from sex.
.. Likewise, at Messiah College, ranked by U.S. News as the No. 5 regional college in the North, heterosexual couples are expected to refrain from sexual intimacy, but they can openly date. Meanwhile, gay students have to follow different rules.