Today, we gathered for breakfast at 7:00 AM followed by a bus boarding time of 7:45 AM, with an 8:00 AM departure for Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. OBU is a repeat university from last year’s Equality Ride because it has not altered its policy in regard to LGBT students. In fact, one female student at OBU requested that the school administration change the policy at the school to include a non-discrimination policy for LGBT students. This student was told to submit the request, but it was ultimately denied. So, we prepared to dialogue further with OBU administration, faculty, and students to ask them to be more inclusive and nondiscriminatory to LGBT students. The OBU administration’s latest communication at the time of boarding the bus stated that we could be on campus but that we were not allowed to attend classes or be in the student union.

Just before arriving at the OBU campus, we were notified that we would not be allowed on campus at all. Our plan was to walk silently with our Bibles to the morning chapel service and attend the service quietly before leaving campus. The ride to OBU’s campus was somber in mood. The quietness pervading the riders matched the morning weather of prevailing fog. All of us Riders semed a bit anxious and reflective about the uncertainty that lay ahead.

Katie Covell and Marina with Fat Xander Productions of Los Angeles were also on the bus with us. They’ve joined us for a week to film a documentary short about the Equality Ride 2007.

After a short press conference near an entrance to campus, we began to march single-file in an attempt to enter the campus for admittance to the chapel service. We walked down University Avenue, a public street that runs through campus, and, when we approached the chapel, the administration greeted us with armed policemen and handcuffs. Each Rider was read a statement making it clear that we were not welcome on campus and that setting one more foot toward chapel would subject us to arrest.

The first five Riders listened to the statement, nodded solemnly, then stepped forward, toward chapel, with Bibles in hand. The were arrested: Angel Collie, Katie Higgins, Rachel Loskill, Robin Reynolds, and Curtis Peterson. Each subsequent Rider stood while the administration’s statement was read to each, then they turned back, and began singing. I asked the man reading the statement why I was not welcome and there was no response given. Only, “are you stepping back, yes or no?”

Today I felt literally like a “Stranger at the Gate.” We were all made to feel like strangers. Never before this morning have I ever been denied the ability to enter into worship or any house of worship. Oklahoma Baptist University made us all feel spiritually abused. By not allowing us to walk to the chapel, and hear the gospel that was led by an OBU student, we were excluded and rejected. We stood outside of the chapel singing and telling our stories, and some of us reading Scripture, until chapel was released, then we went to a vigil that was being held by a pastor at OBU, at a gazebo on campus.

As we approached, Greg Johnson, who was in the front of the line, was stopped by an officer. He asked simply, “may we attend the vigil?” and he was told that it was on private property. We lined up just outside of the white picket fence that lined that property, kneeling on the damp grass to all pray together. Occasionally, Riders would stand up and offer their stories to any who listened, or to offer a prayer. We knelt there for about an hour and a half, until the pastor left, and we went to lunch.

Later in the day, a student named Heather came to us for dialogue and brought us some sunshine of hope by telling us that the current generation of students understand more about homosexuality and that in the future, as leaders, they would not display the inhospitality that we encountered today. I left campus with her wonderful gift of hope.

Marina, from the film crew, then took Amanda Harris and me to the Potawatomie Safety Center (aka the jail), because she wanted to observe and record the paying of the bail for the Riders’ release. At the jail, we were told it was against the law to have cameras in the lobby area of the jail. We therefore immediately removed the cameras. Then Amanda and I paid the required bail money: $124.27 for each of the five arrestees.

We were then told (at 4:30pm) that the Riders were just about finished being processed and that we were to wait around by the back door where they would be released. We were told not to film from that location, and an officer directed us to a point just across the street. About 45 minutes later, another officer came out and told us to move, again, because we were causing a disturbance. The five arrestees weren’t released until 6:15pm, where they were warmly greeted by their fellow Riders. They had spent at least 6 hours under arrest, and were all very tired.

We stopped at a mall for food and returned to the hotel at about 9 PM to prepare for our second day at Oklahoma Baptist University. I can only hope it goes as well or better than today.