Our day at Seattle Pacific University began with a breakfast with our morning hosts. The food was superb, and I’ll take this time to mention that SPU’s food quality was voted #1 in the country by the students.

We proceeded from there to a presentation where Haven and Brian took a look at the creation story and gender. The school must have done a great job publicizing the event, because hundreds of people showed up, and some had to stand in the back due to lack of space. There was a short response from an Old Testament scholar and some Q&A time. One of the administrators, Paula, introduced herself to me, because she’s from Fayetteville, AR, my home city, and we found that we both knew some of the same people.

Over lunch, I had a wonderful conversation with Kim Campbell, the school’s chief judicial officer and director of resident life, for over an hour. A short forum on the lives of Riders was next (packed house again), followed by some free conversation time, where I got to meet some really neat people. The impression that I got from the students (and administration, for that matter) with whom I spoke today was really open and affirming toward LGBT people, which made me curious as to why there were not any official safe spaces or a Gay/Straight Alliance on the campus. The problem seems (in my eyes) to be that the students seem to be a little too apathetic about the issue that there are only a tiny handful of people (a lot of whom happen to be freshmen) who feel safe and loved enough to be openly GLBT. I hope that I was able to inspire people to get active at their school, because they certainly have a population that would be able to support such a movement.

When we stepped off the bus in front of Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington—just a few miles outside Seattle’s city limits—Rebecca, the stop organizer, turned to me and said, “This place has an oppressive feeling to it.” Stopping for a moment to gather my thoughts and feelings, I had to concur. Unlike the other schools who had welcomed us onto their campus, no waiting party stood at the sidewalk to usher us inside their walls. My mind recalled the true sin of Sodom.

Inside the administration building—we consulted a map to locate it—we were met by a few administrators, staff, and students for the “Introduction to the Campus Hosts”. Little pretense of hospitality was offered, minus a minute-long afterthought to send us off to our classroom visits; even the students seemed to think this conversation was unnecessary and unimportant.

We were already spread thinly: half our full strength at Seattle Pacific University for a much longer day, both breakfast and dinner included. Rebecca, Cylest, and I walked with our hosts—Kelly and Dani—into the lion’s den that was Professor Blaine Charette’s New Testament History & Literature course. The day’s topic, planned from the beginning of the semester, was “Paul’s Teaching on Human Sexuality”. Did I miss something? Perhaps it is just semantics, but didn’t Paul have more than one teaching on human sexuality? I felt the entire class was a typo. One would think that any discourse on 1st century sexual ethics might begin with some effort to set the stage.

The class introduction concluded that sexual morality was the only subject with which the gentile world was unfamiliar; this morality—obviously, Charette asserted—was an unchanging, unwavering Jewish morality unmatched by any other. And ever so typically, ancient Jewish morality translates perfectly to a modern-day Christian morality. These are of course the same assumptions that lead the everyday Christian to assume that the Bible—both Old Testament and New—is an inerrant, perfect, and profoundly Christian book. Ironically, the word, Bible, suggests something different in the original language: a collection of books, sifted out from hundreds of others by fallible scholars, from ancient Jewish oral and written traditions and mid-1st century through 4th century Christian oral and written traditions, to be passed through the fire of canonization, translation and retranslation, and interpretation down to the present day. In my opinion, such views are, at least, lazy and irresponsible. At worst, they lead us away from God instead of leading us toward God.

I walked away from class heavy. In forty-five minutes, I had been grouped with liars and murders. I had been called a sinner, for being “homosexual” but more so for being resistant to God’s continuous call to change me. According to Professor Charette, I was unnatural, lustful, and disordered: something he reminded me of more than four times as the class went on. Apparently, it was his Christian duty to tell me this. The entire day was a prayer for me to be something I am not.

My only respite: two conversations and a private prayer of my own. I must thank Dani, Kelly, and Sarah for those conversations. They were beautiful moments of true dialogue where I felt I could be myself, fully, and be listened to and accepted with equal voice. I must also thank God. After Charette’s class and the chapel service—where the Evangelical Christian, who holds in this country the largest voting majority, prayed for the “Persecuted Church”—I felt terrible: voiceless, diminished, dehumanized, and undelivered. I went behind the chapel building, alone, and prayed. And I felt peace again: suddenly I had a human voice that was strong enough to reach my Creator. God answered me with a resolve that carried me through the rest of the day. But those moments were the only time I felt God on this campus.

Ironically, the assumptions that lead us to accept the Bible as inerrant and perfect are the same assumptions that stop us from fully including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals into our churches and schools. At its base is the assumption that our worldview is shared, unchanging and unwavering, throughout all time and every category we would claim for our own. It is a form of prejudice. And the foundation of it all is fear: fear of our ability to cope with change, fear of having to wrestle with new ideas and situations, fear of losing our Self, fear of being alone, fear of being wrong.

Faith cannot grow in concrete ground. It needs good, tilled earth. So we must wrestle with the earth we are blessed with, to sift it and question it, to tug at its roots and examine them, to prepare its branches for the grafting of new truths and revelations, to water it with thought, and nourish it with fervent study. Uncertainty cannot scare us, and—like Scripture asserts—we must prepared to submit our deepest truths to the ways of God. If we are to become the new creature, transformed, we cannot fear. There is no fear in love; that is the lesson—Northwest University included—must learn.

“I don’t know how to thank you for coming here. My friends and I have been talking about [faith and identity] ever since your presentation this morning, and we are going to keep talking about it.”

“Thank you.”

Hearing myself say “it’s my pleasure” for the umpteenth time in just half an hour, I paused to reflect inwardly on the truth of that sentiment—truly, it is my pleasure to converse with students so genuinely eager to learn, to challenge themselves and others, and to grow in truth as a community.

The responsiveness of the Seattle Pacific University student body, and the strength of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population on campus, has unequivocally confirmed the need for a genuinely safe and affirming space at SPU, where LGBT voices are not merely tolerated, but celebrated. After speaking with administrators who conceded that no policy exists precluding the creation of such a space, with faculty and staff who identified themselves as allies, and with students who expressed an overwhelming desire to continue the conversation about faith and identity, I believe that change is forthcoming.

In his morning presentation, an SPU faculty member described change within the church as “glacial”. The April 11th issue of the school paper certainly had a glacial quality in many of its articles, including a cartoon suggesting that recognition of the worth and dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people is equivalent to a failure to think and reason critically (I would argue that just the opposite is true – that recognition of heterosexual privilege is a function of critical thinking of the highest order). Nevertheless, couched between assertions of heterosexual superiority, and shifting the “burden” of equality to the shoulders of those of us who live without it—a classic move in regard to oppression of all kinds—I felt the pulse of a people standing firm in their LGBT and allied identities. These are the people for whom glacial change is unacceptable.

When morality is at stake—recognizing that equality and human dignity are at the heart of morality; when the family is at stake—recognizing that condemnation of LGBT people has undermined and even destroyed families; when safety is at stake—recognizing that Scriptural justification for anti-gay and anti-trans violence is commonplace; when community is at stake—recognizing that sanctioned exclusion of any person on the basis of that person’s identity undermines the strength of the community and opens the door for Othering of many varieties; a swift response is not optional or debatable—it is imperative. I cannot and will not “agree to disagree” on the value of my own life or on the space allotted to me and to the people I love most.

I leave Washington and head toward Idaho inspired by the gratitude and resolve of people who are ready and able to move forward. With a challenging route ahead, the open hearts and minds that we encountered at Seattle Pacific University serve as a motivation for what I know is possible–open dialogue and real change.

In Seattle, we plan to meet on April 11th with Seattle Pacific University and Northwest University, both of whom are located in a city which was ranked 10th for gay cities by Syracuse University. Seattle is surprisingly “more gay” than my hometown Philadelphia which boasts a gayborhood and has GLBT-affirming high schools.

It is surprising that Seattle would even have schools which hold discriminatory policies. In attempting to locate Northwest University’s policy, I came across a document entitled “FAQs On Equality Ride”, which specifies that “sexual intimacy is reserved for heterosexual, monogamous marriage…If a student acknowledges his or her homosexual tendency while at Northwest, he or she will not be asked to leave as long as he or she agrees to engage in ongoing dialogue with our campus ministries staff and live by our Community Life Standards.”

Presumably, a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender student on Northwest’s campus should live a chaste, closeted life and strive to change their innermost being, the intrinsic aspects of their identity. Although being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is not a choice, you should choose differently anyhow. Otherwise, you’ll probably be asked to leave.

Seattle, unlike some of its resident private institutions, does not discriminate. Mayor Nickels supports marriage equality and it is illegal to discriminate in the workplace against sexual orientation or gender identity.

The city council of the city of Seattle welcomed the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride with an official proclamation today. Seattle’s city council officially recognizes and celebrates Wednesday, April 11, 2007, as Soulforce Equality Ride Day.

Although our identities as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and allies are not affirmed by Seattle Pacific University or Northwest University, we have been more than welcomed by the entire city of Seattle.

Entering any campus that is welcoming is always a personal paradox in my heart: relief that these administrators recognize that this is an appropriate conversation, but angst in preparing for the rebuttals, passive condemnations, and the dint of going where no group has gone before by challenging thousands of years of tradition in institutions that breed conservative leaders. This is often a taller mountain to scale then the institutions that choose to arrest us rather than have this dialogue.

As we pulled up to George Fox University, we were greeted by a cluster of faculty, administrators, student hosts and one sign that read FREE HUGS. Misgivings immediately rushed through me as I anticipated an affected group of people just looking to get through this day and “appease the rabble rousers.” No one wants to arrest young gay people, right? Despite my immediate apprehension coupled by my lack of sleep, I was able to lighten up and settle into my mission before introductions began.

We were immediately paired or tripled with our host(s) and began a day of shared meals and deep discussions. For the first time since the ride began, the Equality Riders were formally dispersed throughout the campus. We called on our knowledge, intuition, and stories to address concerns and answer questions. Some Riders served as panelists in formal discussions, some were invited guest speakers in classes, some met with administrators and boldly addressed issues of LGBT inclusion, and some just mingled with the George Fox student body by attending pottery classes and telling their stories of faith and sexual orientation.

Often times, Riders were alone in knots of students who seemed to be drilling for answers. My first two one-on-one conversations happened in succession as one gentleman shared his ex-gay testimony and challenged my stance, followed by another gentleman who shared his story of being abused as a child, and challenged me with logic and scripture. After taking in their accounts, I began to sit with them and listen. I listened with peace and an open mind and did not attempt to defend myself. Throughout the conversations, they kept asking me (indirectly, of course) to reevaluate my position on being gay and Christian, and as the conversations ended, I walked away having heard one request: please help me find peace on this issue. I was called to George Fox University for these two men, to show them that God affirms a gay man and uses a gay man for good. I think every Rider had at least one moment like this. After six Equality Riders shared their coming out and faith stories with a class, one student shared that she saw them as incredible models of what Christians can and should be.

As the day ended, hosts and Riders gathered back into a debriefing room. I sat near a professor who, earlier in the day, cried in front of his Human Development class as he realized the struggle that LGBT Christians experience. During debriefing, we received continual thanks and blessings. One faculty member said that he has been changed by our visit; another student felt overwhelmed with love for us and privileged to have been in our company today. A consensus throughout the hosts was the intention to continually grow in understanding of this issue.

If dialogue was the mountain to scale, the west bus Equality Riders finished the day standing atop Mt. Everest, exhausted, contemplative, triumphant, challenged and satisfied.