Dear Editor:
Baylor University has had quite the summer! A steady cavalcade of news has emanated from Waco regarding the awarding of, then rescission of, and now damage control of, an academic grant from the Baugh Foundation to the Baylor School of Social Work to study how today’s church can be more welcoming to women and the LGBTQ community.
The mere mention of that acronym ignited acrimony, while the correction elicited converse lamentation. And just when the dust appears to have settled, the PR maelstrom cauterized, comes the proclamation that Jon Singletary has been removed from his long-time position as dean of the Garland School of Social Work. The Baylor community is aggrieved across all corners in a rare feat of discontent that surpasses even the 2023 football season.
It is amidst this recent backdrop that I think back on the ways Baylor has blessed my life, including laying the groundwork for how I think about and love the neighbors in my life who happen to be a part of the LGBTQ community.
Growing up amid the Ozark Mountains in a nearly homogenous culture of white evangelical Protestants, I had minimal exposure to or interaction with the LGBTQ community. I blindly went along with the crowd, ridiculing with pejorative words and actions the few classmates who were brave enough to live as their authentic selves in high school. My limited worldview was unable to empathize, but I remember a feeling of discomfort and an inclination that my behaviors were wrong.
As I headed off on the nine-hour drive to freshman year in Waco, one could almost hear the words penned by my fellow Missourian Mark Twain, “Nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people.”
“To this day I bleed green and gold due to the wonderful experiences and opportunities I had as a student.”
Baylor was a sublime experience. To this day I bleed green and gold due to the wonderful experiences and opportunities I had as a student and feel so fortunate now to be able to give back in both time and money. Baylor is my alma mater in the truest sense of the Latin, nourishing me and setting a course in life for which I will be eternally grateful.
It was in those classrooms that I first heard a Baylor Interdisciplinary Core peer give a heartfelt testimony to the class about how chartering an LGBTQ student group would provide important community and space for students.
It was in a campus gymnasium at yell leader practice where I first heard the stories of a former captain, who before graduation was told to obfuscate their personality and mannerisms to not appear “too gay,” not unlike guidance given to my contemporary Brittney Griner.
It was in fraternity SING practices and homecoming float builds where I first got to know fraternity brothers, a half dozen of whom coincidentally all came out mere months after graduation when free from the fear of undesired academic consequences.
It was on a trip to a Baylor football game as a recent graduate when a close friend first shared he was gay and was walking through how to embrace who God made him.
It was in a café last year where I shared cups of coffee with the Truett Seminary-trained residential hall chaplain who has nurtured and supported my faith for nearly two decades, and whose partner is a remarkable minister of music and author.
Across these anecdotes was not some centralized function of Baylor determined to push an agenda onto my experience, but organic friendships and relationships spawned by joint pursuit of an educational and religious foundation for our lives.
It was easy for me to judge those within the LGBTQ community when they were caricatures portrayed as a foreign other, but it is impossible not to love the individuals who are my friends, my peers, my teammates, my colleagues and my brothers in Christ. These are people with whom I have laughed with over Dr Peppers tailgating in the shadow of McLane Stadium, with whom I have shared jalapeno kolaches during homecoming parades, and with whom I have sung “That Good Old Baylor Line” at countless Baylor weddings.
We are all in different spots when it comes to how the Baylor and LGBTQ communities can best engage together. I do not envy the administration’s Herculean task of threading a needle that makes the most people the least upset, but amid the philosophical and theological discourse, amid the shifted political landscape, amid financial realities and amid the online provocateurs, may we never lose sight of the individuals within the Baylor family who are fearfully and wonderfully made, and whose experiences and personalities and paper degrees are every bit as valid and wonderful and worthy of recognition as our own.
I am forever thankful that the tapestry of my Baylor experience includes such vibrant and beautiful strands from within the LGBTQ community. A tiger cannot change its stripes, but fortunately for bears it is never too late to shift toward a future community where all students are valued, loved and supported regardless of how they were made.
Steven Follis, Charlotte, N.C.