Styling themselves after the famous Freedom Riders of the civil-rights era, a group of gay-rights activists is targeting Baptist and other Christian colleges with a cross-country bus trip that is part teach-in, part protest.
The “Equality Ride,” organized by the religious gay-rights group Soulforce, began March 10. That day, about two dozen participants were arrested for trespassing after they tried to walk onto the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg.
Liberty, founded by Southern Baptist pastor and Religious Right leader Jerry Falwell, had refused to allow the riders on its property. Soulforce is headquartered in Lynchburg and was co-founded by Mel White, who, before revealing the truth about his sexual orientation, worked as a ghost writer for Falwell and other prominent Christian conservatives.
Falwell earlier released a statement saying he opposed allowing the group on campus because he believes Soulforce “is not acting in good faith and is simply trying to use such encounters on Christian college campuses as a media attraction and for their ultimate purpose of fundraising.”
According to Soulforce, there are approximately 30 young adults participating in the trip, which was inspired by the 1961 Freedom Rides that protested segregated interstate bus travel in the South. The Equality Riders are protesting Christian colleges, a Mormon school, two military academies and the ROTC program at a state school — all of which have policies the group considers anti-gay.
“At military and religious colleges around the nation, bans on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender enrollment force students into closets of fear and self-hate,” said the website equalityride.org.
The statement said the group would attempt to educate students and school administrators at each stop on the seven-week tour. “Through dialogue with administrators and discussions with students, the young activists of the Equality Ride will make clear the harmful effects of the false notion that homosexuality is a ‘sickness and a sin,' and ‘a threat to the nation and the military,' ” it said.
The tour's first two stops have apparently provided little opportunity for such dialogue. Following the March 10 arrests at Liberty, the group ran into similar opposition March 13-14 at Regent University in Virginia Beach. That school, founded by conservative broadcaster Pat Robertson, refused to allow the riders to set foot on campus.
According to an Equality Ride press statement, officials from the group struck a deal with Regent administrators to set up tables on public property in front of the school and hand out materials or have discussions there. But campus security guards then prevented students from leaving campus to talk to the Equality Riders.
On March 14, six protesters reportedly were arrested after attempting to enter the Regent campus. However, beforehand, the group met at a restaurant across the street with Regent students who oppose the school's policy.
Several of the Baptist schools targeted by the ride plan less confrontational ways of dealing with the group
— ranging from polite indifference to a series of dialogues with administrators, faculty and student leaders.
At Union University in Jackson, Tenn., which is affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention, President David Dockery said the school would not bar the riders from the campus but also will not sponsor any official interactions. Likewise, a spokesman for Oklahoma Baptist University said the institution would neither bar nor legitimate the group.
Bethel University, a Baptist General Conference-related school in St. Paul, Minn., will host a series of campus events surrounding the ride's April 18 visit.
Other Baptist-related schools on the route are California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif., and the American Baptist-related Eastern University in St. Davids, Penn. The ride is scheduled to end with an April 26 trip to the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.