NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Fallout continues for Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., over the departure of a women's soccer coach who revealed she and her same-sex partner are expecting a baby.
Nashville's Metro Council is considering revoking an agreement allowing the private Christian university — which until 2004 was formally affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention — to renovate a public park to become home to six of Belmont's athletic teams.
The council member proposing the resolution said the city shouldn't do business with private institutions that don't share its policy of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. The proposal, due to come up at the Dec. 21 council meeting, would halt renovation of E.S. Rose Park, a public park 10 blocks from Belmont's main campus.
The university committed $7 million to renovations that began in August. Current plans call for baseball and softball fields to be ready by mid-February, and games are already scheduled at the facility.
In a statement to media, Belmont President Bob Fisher said he was surprised that council members would want to derail the partnership based on "presumptions about Belmont's employment practices."
Fisher reiterated in a letter to faculty and staff Dec. 10 that sexual orientation is not considered in decisions about hiring, promotion, salary or firing at Belmont. He requested a meeting with leaders of the faculty senate for further dialogue.
Fisher said he could not comment on the departure of Coach Lisa Howe because it is a personnel matter. Howe also isn't talking about her termination, which Belmont says was by mutual agreement but many believe was a firing for violating an assumed "don't ask, don't tell" policy on sexual orientation.
Howe told the Belmont Vision campus newspaper that she never envisioned becoming a champion for civil rights, but because of the national attention her case has received she feels a responsibility to speak out.
"When we see in society that young people are being bullied or when we have gays or lesbians or those perceived as gays and lesbians taking their own lives, I think we have a problem," Howe said.
"So, for me to continue hiding, even when people properly assume that I was a lesbian and in a relationship … perpetuates the bullying and doesn't take a stand against it and say 'We can be accepted and we can be safe.'"
The Vision also quoted recording artist and former American Idol contestant Kimberley Locke expressing disappointment with the controversy surrounding her alma mater. Locke said one of the reasons she chose Belmont was the school's good reputation around the music industry.
"I felt like, if I want to go somewhere that people are going to know when I say the name, 'Belmont University,' this is where I want to go," she said. "I think that now that we're going to have to defend our choice of the school because of this. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it can be rectified."
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean sent a letter Dec. 14 asking eight government boards that function separately from the metropolitan council to adopt non-discrimination policies that protect workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The update did not cover the Nashville Convention Center Authority, which operates independently of the metropolitan government. That board is chaired by Marty Dickens, who also chairs Belmont's board of trustees.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
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