The Waltonian

This week, April 9-13, Refuge, Eastern’s club for LGBT+ students and allies and Political Activism Club are hosting several events focused on LGBT+ issues at Eastern. Each event has a specific purpose, and the hope is that, through these events, the whole campus will have many opportunities to engage in this ongoing conversation. Tuesday’s event, the Rainbow Pancake Open House, is a time for students to come enjoy food and music and have the opportunity to learn what Refuge does on campus and ask questions about the club and the week’s events. On Wednesday evening, Eastern professor, Dr. Pete Enns is giving a lecture about what the scriptures have to say about LGBT+ issues. He will be addressing several of the “clobber passages,” or passages that are often used to shame and reject LGBT+ people, and offering his perspectives. Dr. Enns’ lecture will be accompanied by a video compilation of interviews from members of Eastern’s community speaking about their perspectives and experiences. Thursday’s event is “Poster-Making Night.” All students are invited to Gallup Lounge to create posters for the culminating event of Solidarity Week on Friday. The Solidarity Stand will take place on Friday on the lawn in front of Andrews Hall at 11:00am. Many members of Eastern’s community, including students, faculty, staff and alumni will be praying and sharing their thoughts and experiences surrounding LGBT+ issues at Eastern.

The members of Refuge and Political Activism Club have spent the last months planning not only the logistics of these events, but also creating documents that outline the goals for Solidarity Stand: “The purpose of the Solidarity Stand is to advocate for the wellbeing of the LGBT members of the Eastern University community by: 1) Urging the university to make the four specific changes outlined in the “Solidarity Stand 2018 Objectives,” 2) Providing a platform for LGBT people and allies to speak about their experiences and perspectives surrounding LGBT issues at Eastern, and 3) Sharing with the wider Eastern community what we would like to see for Eastern in the future regarding the inclusion and support of LGBT people.”

The “Solidarity Stand 2018 Objectives” is a formal list of four specific changes that the clubs are advocating for the Eastern administration to make to the university’s policies and official language. The most pressing issue on this list is advocating for “the removal of the phrase ‘homosexual conduct’ from the examples of ‘moral turpitude’ in the faculty handbook.” This objective mirrors one of the recommendations put forth by Eastern’s Human Sexuality Task Force in 2015.

Refuge and PAC offer the following statement regarding this objective: “This language is not only vague and unhelpful; there are also several ways in which it harms our community. First, this policy is blatant discrimination against LGBT+ faculty. While this is not technically illegal, it’s still wrong. Professors should not have to choose between their career and the people they love. Second, it is important for LGBT+ students to have mentors who are familiar with their experiences. It’s hard to be out as an LGBT+ person in a Christian community, and it would be amazing for LGBT students to have professors who they could talk to about it. It’s great that there are many professors who are affirming allies, but it’s not the same. Third, even though Eastern is relatively welcoming to LGBT+ students, because of this policy, once students graduate, they are not welcome to return to the school as faculty. Like most students, LGBT+ students at Eastern are invested in the school and want to see Eastern continue to do great things in the future. As it stands now, LGBT+ students would not be able to return to work at Eastern as faculty members, counselors, or certain other types of employees.”

The “Solidarity Stand 2018 Objectives” also calls for Eastern to adopt a neutral stance on marriage equality by “removing the phrase ‘between a man and a woman’ from the definition of marriage in the student handbook,” recognizing the specific housing needs of trans and non-binary students by “adding a ‘non-binary and/or transgender’ option on the housing card,” and “providing LGBT sensitivity training for faculty.”

Sources: Refuge, Political Activism Club, Eastern.edu

The recent LGBT+ Solidarity Week hosted by Refuge and Political Activism Club (PAC) March 13-17 was a huge success. The events were better attended than anyone had anticipated, and especially at the Solidarity Stand on Friday, the love and support poured out by Eastern’s community was tangible. The increased visibility and affirmation of the LGBT+ community at Eastern had a significant impact on how safe and accepted students felt; at least eight people came out of the closet in some way during Solidarity Week and the weeks leading up to it. Although it is too soon to tell how the Board will vote on the Human Sexuality Task Force’s recommendations or how Eastern will address Refuge’s club status and sensitivity training for faculty, there are lots of reasons to be optimistic, and there are several avenues that members of Refuge and others are continuing to pursue to further these causes.

The hashtags for the week were #StandInSolidarityEU and #LetThemTeach. Both of these were displayed over a rainbow background on the rock between Walton and Doane. #StandInSolidarityEU speaks to the growing number of students and faculty in Eastern’s community who stand with LGBT+ individuals as allies and advocates. #LetThemTeach refers to one of the motions put forward by the Task Force that was also one of the five objectives Solidarity Week was advocating for. The motion calls for removing the specific examples of “moral turpitude” that are listed in the Faculty Handbook as grounds for termination, one of which is “homosexual conduct,” in favor of a legal definition such as “conduct that gravely violates the shared moral standards of the community.” This might sound like an inconsequential technicality, but in reality, making this change would make it so that faculty at Eastern could be “out” without being afraid of losing their job: hence, #LetThemTeach.

Making this change is important for several reasons. First, this is a social justice issue. It might not be illegal to discriminate in hiring based on sexual orientation, but that doesn’t change the negative impact Eastern’s current policy has on a marginalized group of people that have been specifically hurt by the Church. Second, LGBT+ students at Eastern need faculty who understand their experience. Faculty members at Eastern do so much more than teach content in their respective fields. They are mentors, advocates and role models for students, and they share with us their wealth of experience and insight on faith, God and living in the Church. It is difficult to be LGBT+ in the Christian community, and it’s difficult to be Christian in the LGBT+ community, yet that is the lived experience of so many students at Eastern. It would be amazing for students at Eastern to have openly LGBT+ faculty to talk with and learn from. Within Refuge, there is a sort of informal knowledge base of which professors and administrators are affirming, but that is not the same. Third, because Eastern is open to LGBT+ students, but not LGBT+ faculty, students are in an uncomfortable limbo. On one hand, LGBT+ students at Eastern don’t have to worry that they will be kicked out of school, which is something that happens at many Christian universities. However, after graduating from Eastern, LGBT+ students would not be able to return here as professors if things remain as they are now. Eastern is cultivating talented professionals in a wide variety of fields but won’t allow those same people to give back to the next generation of Eastern students as faculty.

One of the most common misconceptions/ misunderstandings about the goals of Solidarity Week is that it was about the theological debate over gay marriage. That is an important discussion that Eastern continues to grapple with, but that was not the point of Solidarity Week. None of the five things we are advocating for asks anyone to change their theological stance or adopt a specific belief. The changes to the Handbook recommended by the Task Force call for Eastern to take a neutral stance and to let the official literature of the school reflect the theological diversity that already exists at Eastern. It’s time for Eastern to stop treating the members of our community who happen to be LGBT+ as second-class children of God.