Let’s be crystal clear about the double standard at work at Baylor University. University regents and administrators are still running scared of LGBTQ inclusion but they’re perfectly fine with hosting the bigotry of Turning Point USA on campus.
In case you hadn’t yet figured out that Baylor’s leadership is more afraid of conservatives than progressives, here’s your wake-up call.
Mark Wingfield
The Baptist-affiliated school in Waco, Texas, will host the “This Is the Turning Point” tour on campus in Waco Hall April 22. Scheduled speakers include Erika Kirk, Donald Trump Jr., Tom Homan and Benny Johnson. Other speakers on the published tour schedule include JD Vance, Karoline Leavitt, Vivik Ramaswamy and Matt Walsh.
That is an all-star cast of far-right MAGA loyalists. These are people who are actively working to undermine public and private higher education to implement far-right indoctrination. They are the antithesis of what Baylor says it stands for.
And they have a right to be heard. But so do those who hold opposing views.
Yet for the last several decades, Baylor leaders have twisted themselves in knots trying to avoid upsetting conservative pastors and parents who think gays and lesbians are the greatest threat to their precious children. Only in 2022 did the university allow an LGBTQ inclusion group on campus — and not the one that had been petitioning the university forever but one university administrators can more easily control.
That group, called PRISM, is bound by the university’s policy handbook that says Baylor students “will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.” Baylor still considers same-sex relations sinful by biblical standards.
“It sure looks like the ‘biblical standards’ Baylor is concerned about are only about sexuality, not the whole Bible.”
Apparently there is no similar concern for truth-telling as a biblical standard. Turning Point USA, founded by the late Charlie Kirk, is an organization that twists biblical teaching to fit the MAGA mold. It is built on racism, sexism and politicized theology.
It sure looks like the “biblical standards” Baylor is concerned about are only about sexuality, not the whole Bible.
Remember also that conservative pastors and outsider agitators raised such a ruckus over the Baylor School of Social Work accepting a grant to study loneliness among women and LGBTQ Christians in churches that the school was forced to return the money and the dean was removed.
All for merely studying how churches exclude women and gays and lesbians.
And yet hosting a TPUSA event on campus is OK? That’s a seriously flawed double standard.
Here’s the workaround Baylor officials are spouting to justify hosting the Turning Point USA event on campus, as reported by the Baylor Lariat: “The Baylor chapter of Turning Point USA, a registered student organization at the university, will host the event. Student organizations at Baylor may invite outside speakers to campus as long as the events comply with university policies and procedures.”
According to the Lariat, university spokeswoman Lori Fogleman said: “The university continues to work with the sponsoring TPUSA Baylor student organization to align the event with institutional policies and procedures.”
“TPUSA is a political organization that misuses the Bible to advance its agenda.”
That’s like one of the three senior pastors at First Baptist Church of Orlando telling his congregation the TPUSA “Make Heaven Crowded” tour would focus only on Jesus and not on politics. The Orlando tour stop soon after was cancelled by TPUSA.
TPUSA is a political organization that misuses the Bible to advance its agenda.
I don’t like TPUSA at all, but I think they ought to be allowed an open forum at schools like Baylor — so long as others with opposing views also are given the same open forum. That’s not the current situation at Baylor, where LGBTQ Christians do not have the same visibility and access as other campus groups.
Just imagine what would happen if PRISM were allowed to host an event on campus with notable national Christian speakers on inclusion like Matthew Vines, Brandan Robertson or Paula Stone Williams. Such an event would be quashed before it ever was announced.
Tier One research universities like Baylor should be held to a higher standard of dialogue than small parochial Baptist colleges. That means they shouldn’t have double standards that favor conservatives simply because they scream the loudest.
If you think Baylor is misguided, here’s the contact information for Baylor leadership and a list of the members of the board of regents. It’s time university leadership heard loudly from someone other than conservatives.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global.
Related articles:
In an ironic turn, Baylor University mirrors Southern Seminary | Opinion by Marv Knox
Baylor rejects grant to study LGBTQ exclusion in the church
Amid LGBTQ controversy, social work dean ‘steps down’ at Baylor
The long struggle to balance faith and freedom at Baylor | Analysis by Curtis Freeman