Equality Ride
Encyclopedia
| Note: Photos open to media http://www.Soulforce.org |
The Equality Ride is a periodic LGBT rights bus journey across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
led by young adults
Young adult (psychology)
A young adult, according to Erik Erikson's stages of human development, is generally a person between the age of 20 - 40, whereas an adolescent is a person between the age of 13 - 19, although definitions and opinions vary. The young adult stage in human development precedes middle adulthood. A...
and sponsored by Soulforce
Soulforce (organization)
Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action...
, a national LGBT nonprofit organization. Its primary goal is to foster dialogue on issues of faith, sexuality, and gender, and discrimination against lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, bisexual, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
, and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
(LGBTQ) students. The activism typically focuses on conservative Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
colleges, though it has included many military academies
Military academy
A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the army, the navy, air force or coast guard, which normally provides education in a service environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned.Three...
and secular universities.
College policies confronted by the Equality Ride may specifically ban LGBTQ people from attending, contain clauses prohibiting non-heterosexual relationships, or promote an unsafe atmosphere for LGBTQ students. Some policies require the expulsion of LGBTQ students, while others discourage heterosexual students from supporting a viewpoint other than the school's. The Equality Ride also seeks to raise awareness of transgender and gender variance
Gender variance
Gender variance, or gender nonconformity, is behaviour or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female...
issues that are often invisible on these campuses.
2006 Ride
Throughout March and April 2006, thirty-three young adults from the ages of 17-28 rode together on a bus creating the first Equality Ride. Inspired by the Freedom RidesFreedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
of the 1960s, the first Equality Ride traveled to 19 colleges and universities throughout the United States where they confronted policies that they believed to be discriminatory.
The first Equality Ride was the idea of Jacob Reitan
Jacob Reitan
Jacob Reitan is a LGBT activist from Mankato, Minnesota who founded the Soulforce Equality Ride, featured in the film Equality U.. He is currently attending the University of Minnesota Law School. He received his masters from Harvard Divinity School...
, a 23-year-old Christian activist from Minnesota who conducted trial runs prior to the launch. (Spring 2005: Liberty University, Fall 2005: the US Naval Academy.
Before officially launching the journey, the Equality Riders met with Congressman John Lewis
John Lewis (politician)
John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...
—a member of the original Freedom Ride
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
in 1961 and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
(SNCC). He gave the Equality Riders his blessing and told them, “My mother told me growing up, ‘don’t get in the way; don’t get in trouble.’ I’m so glad I got in the way and got in trouble.” He urged the Equality Riders to “make good trouble.”
Sixteen colleges targeted were faith-based institutions in the Christian tradition. Two were military academies. One was a secular university with an ROTC program. The Riders voted on these schools out of a list of over 200 colleges with similar policies.
Under the umbrella of Soulforce
Soulforce (organization)
Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action...
based out of Lynchburg, Virginia, the Equality Ride launched its journey right at home. Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
’s Liberty University
Liberty University
Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Liberty's annual enrollment is around 72,000 students, 12,000 of whom are residential students and 60,000+ studying through Liberty University Online...
, also based in Lynchburg, was the Ride’s first stop. Liberty University arrested 14 Equality Riders and 10 community members who crossed onto campus hoping to speak with students. The university cited protection of students as well as trespassing as the reason for the arrests.
From there, the Equality Ride traveled from coast to coast confronting schools they had been in contact with about their impending—and usually uninvited—arrival. The Equality Riders also rallied outside a conference held once every five years by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities is an organization designed to help primarily Protestant and evangelical Christian institutions of higher education cooperate and communicate with one another...
.
After the first several stops, most schools allowed official forums in large group settings and in classrooms. One presentation by the Equality Riders entitled “A History of Violence” portrayed the modern violence against LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
people in American society in a deeply emotional way, and then encouraged people to stand up against that violence as people of faith.
| Note: Photos open to media http://www.Soulforce.org |
The Equality Ride is a periodic LGBT rights bus journey across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
led by young adults
Young adult (psychology)
A young adult, according to Erik Erikson's stages of human development, is generally a person between the age of 20 - 40, whereas an adolescent is a person between the age of 13 - 19, although definitions and opinions vary. The young adult stage in human development precedes middle adulthood. A...
and sponsored by Soulforce
Soulforce (organization)
Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action...
, a national LGBT nonprofit organization. Its primary goal is to foster dialogue on issues of faith, sexuality, and gender, and discrimination against lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, bisexual, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
, and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
(LGBTQ) students. The activism typically focuses on conservative Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
colleges, though it has included many military academies
Military academy
A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the army, the navy, air force or coast guard, which normally provides education in a service environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned.Three...
and secular universities.
College policies confronted by the Equality Ride may specifically ban LGBTQ people from attending, contain clauses prohibiting non-heterosexual relationships, or promote an unsafe atmosphere for LGBTQ students. Some policies require the expulsion of LGBTQ students, while others discourage heterosexual students from supporting a viewpoint other than the school's. The Equality Ride also seeks to raise awareness of transgender and gender variance
Gender variance
Gender variance, or gender nonconformity, is behaviour or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female...
issues that are often invisible on these campuses.
2006 Ride
Throughout March and April 2006, thirty-three young adults from the ages of 17-28 rode together on a bus creating the first Equality Ride. Inspired by the Freedom RidesFreedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
of the 1960s, the first Equality Ride traveled to 19 colleges and universities throughout the United States where they confronted policies that they believed to be discriminatory.
The first Equality Ride was the idea of Jacob Reitan
Jacob Reitan
Jacob Reitan is a LGBT activist from Mankato, Minnesota who founded the Soulforce Equality Ride, featured in the film Equality U.. He is currently attending the University of Minnesota Law School. He received his masters from Harvard Divinity School...
, a 23-year-old Christian activist from Minnesota who conducted trial runs prior to the launch. (Spring 2005: Liberty University, Fall 2005: the US Naval Academy.
Before officially launching the journey, the Equality Riders met with Congressman John Lewis
John Lewis (politician)
John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...
—a member of the original Freedom Ride
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
in 1961 and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
(SNCC). He gave the Equality Riders his blessing and told them, “My mother told me growing up, ‘don’t get in the way; don’t get in trouble.’ I’m so glad I got in the way and got in trouble.” He urged the Equality Riders to “make good trouble.”
Sixteen colleges targeted were faith-based institutions in the Christian tradition. Two were military academies. One was a secular university with an ROTC program. The Riders voted on these schools out of a list of over 200 colleges with similar policies.
Under the umbrella of Soulforce
Soulforce (organization)
Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action...
based out of Lynchburg, Virginia, the Equality Ride launched its journey right at home. Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
’s Liberty University
Liberty University
Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Liberty's annual enrollment is around 72,000 students, 12,000 of whom are residential students and 60,000+ studying through Liberty University Online...
, also based in Lynchburg, was the Ride’s first stop. Liberty University arrested 14 Equality Riders and 10 community members who crossed onto campus hoping to speak with students. The university cited protection of students as well as trespassing as the reason for the arrests.
From there, the Equality Ride traveled from coast to coast confronting schools they had been in contact with about their impending—and usually uninvited—arrival. The Equality Riders also rallied outside a conference held once every five years by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities is an organization designed to help primarily Protestant and evangelical Christian institutions of higher education cooperate and communicate with one another...
.
After the first several stops, most schools allowed official forums in large group settings and in classrooms. One presentation by the Equality Riders entitled “A History of Violence” portrayed the modern violence against LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
people in American society in a deeply emotional way, and then encouraged people to stand up against that violence as people of faith.
| Note: Photos open to media http://www.Soulforce.org |
The Equality Ride is a periodic LGBT rights bus journey across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
led by young adults
Young adult (psychology)
A young adult, according to Erik Erikson's stages of human development, is generally a person between the age of 20 - 40, whereas an adolescent is a person between the age of 13 - 19, although definitions and opinions vary. The young adult stage in human development precedes middle adulthood. A...
and sponsored by Soulforce
Soulforce (organization)
Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action...
, a national LGBT nonprofit organization. Its primary goal is to foster dialogue on issues of faith, sexuality, and gender, and discrimination against lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, bisexual, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
, and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
(LGBTQ) students. The activism typically focuses on conservative Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
colleges, though it has included many military academies
Military academy
A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the army, the navy, air force or coast guard, which normally provides education in a service environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned.Three...
and secular universities.
College policies confronted by the Equality Ride may specifically ban LGBTQ people from attending, contain clauses prohibiting non-heterosexual relationships, or promote an unsafe atmosphere for LGBTQ students. Some policies require the expulsion of LGBTQ students, while others discourage heterosexual students from supporting a viewpoint other than the school's. The Equality Ride also seeks to raise awareness of transgender and gender variance
Gender variance
Gender variance, or gender nonconformity, is behaviour or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female...
issues that are often invisible on these campuses.
2006 Ride
Throughout March and April 2006, thirty-three young adults from the ages of 17-28 rode together on a bus creating the first Equality Ride. Inspired by the Freedom RidesFreedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
of the 1960s, the first Equality Ride traveled to 19 colleges and universities throughout the United States where they confronted policies that they believed to be discriminatory.
The first Equality Ride was the idea of Jacob Reitan
Jacob Reitan
Jacob Reitan is a LGBT activist from Mankato, Minnesota who founded the Soulforce Equality Ride, featured in the film Equality U.. He is currently attending the University of Minnesota Law School. He received his masters from Harvard Divinity School...
, a 23-year-old Christian activist from Minnesota who conducted trial runs prior to the launch. (Spring 2005: Liberty University, Fall 2005: the US Naval Academy.
Before officially launching the journey, the Equality Riders met with Congressman John Lewis
John Lewis (politician)
John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...
—a member of the original Freedom Ride
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
in 1961 and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
(SNCC). He gave the Equality Riders his blessing and told them, “My mother told me growing up, ‘don’t get in the way; don’t get in trouble.’ I’m so glad I got in the way and got in trouble.” He urged the Equality Riders to “make good trouble.”
Sixteen colleges targeted were faith-based institutions in the Christian tradition. Two were military academies. One was a secular university with an ROTC program. The Riders voted on these schools out of a list of over 200 colleges with similar policies.
Under the umbrella of Soulforce
Soulforce (organization)
Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action...
based out of Lynchburg, Virginia, the Equality Ride launched its journey right at home. Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
’s Liberty University
Liberty University
Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Liberty's annual enrollment is around 72,000 students, 12,000 of whom are residential students and 60,000+ studying through Liberty University Online...
, also based in Lynchburg, was the Ride’s first stop. Liberty University arrested 14 Equality Riders and 10 community members who crossed onto campus hoping to speak with students. The university cited protection of students as well as trespassing as the reason for the arrests.
From there, the Equality Ride traveled from coast to coast confronting schools they had been in contact with about their impending—and usually uninvited—arrival. The Equality Riders also rallied outside a conference held once every five years by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities is an organization designed to help primarily Protestant and evangelical Christian institutions of higher education cooperate and communicate with one another...
.
After the first several stops, most schools allowed official forums in large group settings and in classrooms. One presentation by the Equality Riders entitled “A History of Violence” portrayed the modern violence against LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
people in American society in a deeply emotional way, and then encouraged people to stand up against that violence as people of faith.
While most schools chose to allow the Equality Riders onto campus, some have arrested Equality Riders for trespassing as they crossed onto campus property, including Liberty University
Liberty University
Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Liberty's annual enrollment is around 72,000 students, 12,000 of whom are residential students and 60,000+ studying through Liberty University Online...
, Regent University
Regent University
Regent University is a private coeducational interdenominational Christian university located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States. The school was founded by the American televangelist Pat Robertson in 1978 as Christian Broadcasting Network University. A satellite campus located in...
, Oral Roberts University
Oral Roberts University
Oral Roberts University , based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the United States, is an interdenominational, Charismatic Christian, comprehensive university with an enrollment of about 3,790 students from 49 U.S. states along with a significant number of international students from 70 countries...
, Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
and the United States Military Academy
United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
.
The military institutions cited their position as enforcement of federal law. Prior to the 2010 congressional repeal of don't ask, don't tell
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...
, military institutions were forced to comply with the discriminatory federal policy signed into law by President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
in 1993. Through this policy, gay service members were unable to be open about their sexual orientation; the Equality Ride maintained this was government-sanctioned discrimination, claiming that over 10,000 gay and lesbian soldiers were discharged between 1993-2005 at a cost of $364 million. The military justified its position as enforcement of federal law and stated it was an issue of “unit cohesion
Unit cohesion
Unit cohesion is a military concept, defined by one former United States Chief of staff in the early 1980s as "the bonding together of soldiers in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other, the unit, and mission accomplishment, despite combat or mission stress"...
."
Faith-based institutions largely used their interpretations of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
as a reason to bar the Equality Riders. For many of the schools, correct exegesis
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
lends itself to a clearly anti-gay interpretation of seven Biblical passages condemning homosexual conduct. These institutions tend to believe in conversion therapy as a solution for students struggling with their sexual identity and orientation, considering acceptance therein damaging to spiritual well-being. Some responses from these schools follow:
Brigham Young University (2006)
Brigham Young UniversityBrigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
allowed the Equality Riders to come onto campus property and speak to students individually, but prohibited public forums or displays on campus property. The University stated that this was general procedure for any group visiting the campus. At one point the Riders were asked to leave campus for holding what was deemed a public forum and several were later arrested for holding a protest on campus property and refusing to leave.
United States Air Force Academy (2006)
The protesters at the United States Air Force AcademyUnited States Air Force Academy
The United States Air Force Academy is an accredited college for the undergraduate education of officer candidates for the United States Air Force. Its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States...
were allowed on base with the same freedoms of the general public. They were allowed access the public areas, but were not permitted into the private housing or the secured Cadet area. All lawful demonstrators were allowed to protest unharassed, while those who violated the rules (for example, handing out literature or speaking with a portable sound system) were arrested for disorderly conduct. It is important to note that all the service academies are considered military bases which means (especially since September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
) the security has been increased to protect the military personnel.
Dordt College (2007)
Dort College and the community of Sioux Center, Iowa, invited Equality Riders on campus for two days of classroom presentations, dialog, meals with students, Bible study, and community meetings. Equality Riders gave a presentation on "Loving Like Jesus" and passed out informational pamphlets titled "What the Bible Says and Doesn't Say About Homosexuality." While Equality Riders were officially welcomed by the college, their bus was vandalized with paint by unknown perpetrators. The school denounced the activity and washed the graffiti off of the bus.Covenant College (2007)
As Dean of Students at Covenant CollegeCovenant College
Covenant College is a Christian liberal arts college in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, United States.-History:Founded in 1955 in Pasadena, California, Covenant College and Theological Seminary moved its campus to St. Louis, Missouri the following year, and, in 1965, separated from the seminary, moving...
, Bruce Voyles told newspaper reporters, "You have to wonder if they were really interested in dialogue or were just making some sort of statement." He reports disappointment that the Riders did not accept the college's initial offer for a visit under very specific guidelines the Equality Ride believed was intended to restrict their message. Twenty-six Riders arrived just outside the entrance, standing along a public street, and were warned by college administrators that they would be arrested if they set foot on campus property. For nearly three hours, dozens of Covenant students prayed and read the Bible with the Riders, and gave out boxed lunches and water to them. Four Equality Riders were arrested by Dade County police on charges of criminal trespassing after entering school property and reading a compact intended to "encourage Covenant College to become an environment that reflects the wideness of God's grace and diversity of the body of Christ."
Baylor University (2007)
Six Equality Riders were arrested by Baylor UniversityBaylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
police on charges of criminal trespassing when they refused to stop chalking sidewalks, a common practice at Baylor, with what they called "messages of love and hope". Baylor administrators contend that the six were in violation of university policy that allows only school-affiliated organizations to write messages on sidewalks after completing an online application. Baylor e-mailed its faculty and students on the day prior to the Riders' arrival, stating that the university would not allow a dialogue to take place on campus.
Equality U Documentary
Throughout the 2006 Equality Ride, a small film crew documented the journey. Director Dave O'Brien and his team rode with the Riders, filmed important meetings, and watched while the activists made presentations to college groups.See also
- LGBT-welcoming church programsLGBT-welcoming church programsLesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender affirming religious groups are religious groups that welcome LGBT members and do not consider homosexuality to be a sin. They include entire religious denominations, as well as individual churches and synagogues...
- Right to Serve CampaignRight to Serve CampaignThe Right to Serve Campaign was a project of Soulforce, a national organization which counters religious and political oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people...
, a Soulforce campaign that grew out of the Equality Ride