What if Missionaries came in to your house to protest? Would you have them arrested? [Archive]

andrewlittle

03-18-2007, 02:22 PM

GOOD - Christianity and Gay just dont go together...What would Gays do if Christians protested in their house?

I think that is a really good question that we should ponder.
Really, you do? People setting foot on the grounds of a college or university is the same as stepping into your house? It strikes me as a very distorted sense of proportion and scale - or an extremely weak reactionary defense. Quite irrational, either way.

We all have experienced Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon missionaries knocking on the door, but what if they walked in your house uninvited? Would you call the police and have them arrested for trespassing?
Like most people, I would ask them to get out of my house. It would show a distinct lack of social skills and respect for that to happen. And yes, I would call the police if they refused.

That being said, how is that even remotely like the E-Riders? They ddn't go uninvited into student rooms - they didn't go to the president's residence and barge in - they didn't even barge into anything that any rational person would consider "personal space".

What if they took the position that they disagree with your values and want to come in your house and talk about it and will come back every year until you change your mind and accept their morals? The distinction between public and private property is an important one. Even Fred Phelps doesn't walk onto private property.
Actually it happens more than once a year - to me at least. Sometimes I let them in, sometimes I don't. Either way we talk about the differences between us. Pretty much the same as when people come onto these boards, actually.

And I do beg your pardon, but I have witnessed the Phelps gang block the entrance to a UCC church until asked to move by the police. The whole time they were holding offensive signs and saying crude and innacurate remarks with their backs against the church doors. It might help if you picked someone - well, more sane, to compare to. For now I won't rocket off into a string of diatribe because you likened the E-Riders to a hate mongering group of nut-jobs.

By the way, I support the Equality Riders, the Ghandi/King model and unlike the responder quoted above, I think Christianity and Gay do go together just as Christianity and Left-handedness go together. But I think the question warrants dialog, because unlike civil rights marches in the South, boycotting salt in India and anti-war rallies today, the Riders are staging their protest on private property. How would you feel if protesters came into your house?
Forgive me if I doubt either your word or your ability to discern logic. If that question deserves discussion in your mind, I hardly see how the above can be correct.

The E-Riders protested on side-walks when they were barred from stepping onto college property, and after a period of time some stepped onto the property knowing they would get arrested. Read your history, will you. The same thing happened over and over again in the other cases you cited. It's how the media get involved and the issues are raised to a larger audience.

Where your argument breaks down, still, is in likening a college to a house. Even if the college is funded with no other governement funds, some of the students receive student loans, guaranteed and partially funded by the government - using tax funds paid by all U.S. citizens regardless of sexuality. Those funds, by freeing up other moneys for upkeep and property maintenance, enable the colleges to exist, and keep them as affordable as they are for students. On top of that, unlike private housing, the property and income of the college is tax-free as a non-profit corporation. Lastly, stepping onto semi-private grounds is not the same as barging into a home. The comparison is ludicrous in the least, intensional dissimulation being most likely.

u-dog

03-18-2007, 02:26 PM

Christians DO protest at people's homes. We had a friend who was hounded for nearly a year because she was Executive Director of a Planned Parenthood Clinic. Anti-abortion Protesters stood in front of her house and chanted and occasionally committed vandalism. She lived in fear much of the time. creating that FEAR is was their primary intention in the hopes that they could force her to step down. She did not.

Contrast that with the quiet and respectful attitude of the Soul force Riders please.

While these colleges and universities may TECHNICALLY be "private" property, they are in fact public instintutions whether they accept public money or not. They function as a part of the "Polis" just as a church or a department store or a restaurant does. When civil rights activists conducted sit-ins at "whites-only" lunch counters in the south they were on private property but were still occupying public space.

People gather at these colleges to do PUBLIC things like worship, study, advocate attitudes and practices that affect society at large, attend performances, plays, lectures, and concerts. the Equality Riders go onto this private/public space knowing that they may be arrested. They go knowing that whether they are welcomed or arrested that the attitudes of these institutions are being raised up for public scrutiny. this is appropriate and necessary, just as it was appropriate in the South in the 1950's

No one's private sanctuary is being invaded. Student dormitories are not being targeted, nor are the homes of faculty, administrators, or board members.

To liken these acts of Civil Disobedience to Home invasion is JUST PLAIN SILLY !!!!!!! (Ok, I should have said something like "specious" or "bogus" or "Sophist" but sometimes you need to call SILLINESS by its true name)

Dave

JacoBison

03-18-2007, 02:38 PM

WOW, you guys need to calm down and cut back on the insults. First of all, read the link in my first post. Read my letter to the OBU student paper asking students to welcome the Riders on to campus. Secondly, I am NOT making any argument, I posed a question. It wasn't even my question, I was just reposting it here. I did not answer that question for myself nor have I presented an opinion on it. I sure hope the Riders are not as reactionary and insulting as you are, because your post is not dialog, its attack.

u-dog

03-18-2007, 02:53 PM

... if we got a little hot under the collar (actually I didn't ... it was Andy ... he can never hold his water in these situations. Forgive him.)

but you DID bring someone elses silly argument into the forum and suggested that you thought it was worth considering. For you to do that and then disavow any responsibility for it's silliness is like bringing dog poop into the house and then disclaiming responsibility because you didn't actually "poop" it.

I appreciated what you put on your myspace and then posted here. I'm glad you did that. Thats all good. I don't even mind your sharing the poster's question with us.

But... its still silly.

You don't like "Grey's anatomy" and you said so bluntly and pissed a couple people off mildly -- they'll survive. I agree with you about that show... but I still like to watch it. We scream at the characters to "get therapy! and to "Stop talking dirty during an operation!" "Get a room" Its all good clean fun.

So is arguing about important stuff like civil rights for GLBT folks

andrewlittle

03-18-2007, 03:03 PM

Actually, I thought my response was quite temporate. Trust me in that, okay, I am quite capable of ranting when I feel inclined. It was out of respect for other things you've posted, that I reserved harsh comment.

Let me see. You claim to support the efforts of E-Riders and Soulforce. Then you post someone else's thoughts, and even state that they deserve consideration. That's sounds like tacit agreement to me.

Then you, not the anonymous person you were quoting, suggested that even Fred Phelps doesn't do what the E-Riders did.

In response to Kara, you got a little hot under the collar yourself, and said her comparison was "outrageous".

E-Riders are worse than Fred Phelps - okay.
Comparing righteous people who consider themselves superior to KKK - outrageous.

I am so very sorry, but I still think you have a distinctly distorted sense of proportion and reality. You seem to recognize in other people those things that you do.

You bring someone else's shit, throw it on the carpet, smear it around and actually add to it with your own by rediculaous comparisons, and then claim it's not your idea and you son't know why we got a tad bristley about it.

Good grief, man, I can't believe you're not bright enough to see a pattern there.

u-dog

03-18-2007, 03:07 PM

Take a deep breath. And keep your hands off of my scatalogical metaphors got it? They are copyrighted.

JacoBison

03-18-2007, 04:29 PM

Thanks u-dog. :-) Yes, the TV post is an example of my opinion. This post is not.

Let me see. You claim to support the efforts of E-Riders and Soulforce. Then you post someone else's thoughts, and even state that they deserve consideration. That's sounds like tacit agreement to me.

Dialog by definition is in fact considering other people's thoughts. Tolerance is considering other people's thoughts. Welcoming and affirming is considering other people's thoughts. Listening is considering other people's thoughts. Being open-minded is considering other people's thoughts.

But considering other people's thoughts is NOT tacit agreement. Listening to other point of views and pondering the questions they pose if NOT tacit agreement. If you cannot have a conversation without getting emotional and throwing insults, then you are not following the Ghandi/King model.

Then you, not the anonymous person you were quoting, suggested that even Fred Phelps doesn't do what the E-Riders did. In response to Kara, you got a little hot under the collar yourself, and said her comparison was "outrageous".E-Riders are worse than Fred Phelps - okay. Comparing righteous people who consider themselves superior to KKK - outrageous.

The distinction is clear to me, let me see if I can explain it to you:

I was not comparing the Riders to Fred Phelps, I was comparing him to Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon Missionaries. (side note: to my knowledge, Phelps has not been arrested for trespassing on private property. If I am wrong about that, I have no problem being corrected).

In talking about the "schools" that the Riders visit, Kara stated: "Like the KKK..." She did plainly compare my alma mater to a terrorist organization that used killing and violence to express their position. OBU has never used violence to enforce its policy. Therefore the comparison is outrageous.

I am so very sorry, but I still think you have a distinctly distorted sense of proportion and reality. You seem to recognize in other people those things that you do.

You bring someone else's shit, throw it on the carpet, smear it around and actually add to it with your own by rediculaous comparisons, and then claim it's not your idea and you son't know why we got a tad bristley about it.

Good grief, man, I can't believe you're not bright enough to see a pattern there.

Your failure to make the distinction between the comparisons and see a pattern that is not there is not a reflection on my brightness. You have accused me of being irrational, distorted and unable to discern logic and not being bright. I have not made any such personal accusations toward you. If this last post is your idea of an apology, you have a long way to go.

If a Rider was speaking to a student and the student asked: "What would Gays do if Christians protested in their house?" would you then call their question "shit" and "ridiculous?" I hope that you do not represent the leadership of Soulforce because if so, the colleges are absolutely justified in not wanting you to visit.

***

Now, you make an important distinction between "in the home" and "on the grounds." I think that is a valid distinction. Perhaps the person who responded to my myspace message should have wrote "front yard" instead of "house." But I didn't want to misquote him for the sake of having a perfectly fair comparison. But for the sake of argument, lets do it anyway. Forget I used "in the house" and lets use "on the front yard" instead. Like you said, the Riders do not enter the residences or offices.

So, What if Missionaries came on your front yard to protest? If you asked them to leave and they refused, would you call the police?

Zerbie

03-18-2007, 05:39 PM

The analogy does not hold. Even moving your theoretical protestors to the front yard leaves a weak analogy. Why? Because central spaces like campus common areas are not private homes. Personal space is not invaded by a protest on a sidewalk outside a public building.

A better analogy might be christian conservatives demonstrating on public school property. Which THEY DO. They are quite insistent that everyone change their values to adhere to their particular understanding of the Bible. I attend graduate school at a public university and at least twice a week in order to reach class I must walk past a "sidewalk preacher" screaming his head off about how we are all destined for hell, and waving about a humongous sign with a list of those hellbound, including: "Uppity women, sodomites, dikes (sic)" and many other insulting epithets. You know what I do? I glance over, sigh, and walk right on past. Before and after class, typically twice a week. I'm free to choose to stop and take it in, or ignore it.

JacoBison

03-18-2007, 10:12 PM

Zerbie, like I said in my second post, private colleges are private property. It might be an institutional private property vs. an individual's private property, but nevertheless, the analogy to a home is very fair.

U-dog's comparison to a department store or restaurant is not accurate because they are open to the public, serve the public and pull revenue from the public. OBU students and employees (and I assume every other private college) have to go through an application process before being granted permission to be on campus. They are given photo IDs and thus are entitled to be on that property.

A private college or church does not have to follow anti-discrimination laws in hiring in the same way that a business like a department store does. Separation of Church and State laws keep the government out of the church's business. The only exceptions are safety issues such as fire codes, building inspections, labor laws and so on. The Waco situation for example - the ATF intruded on private church property because there were complaints of safety law violations, pretty serious ones in fact.

A public university is NOT a better analogy because it is a public university, not a private institution.

The Equality Riders are completely aware of this. They knew exactly where the lines were between the public streets and sidewalks and private university property.

andrewlittle

03-18-2007, 10:59 PM

Let’s start with the original post.

Here is one response I got from sending the message to alumni on myspace:
GOOD - Christianity and Gay just dont go together...What would Gays do if Christians protested in their house?

I think that is a really good question that we should ponder. We all have experienced Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon missionaries knocking on the door, but what if they walked in your house uninvited? Would you call the police and have them arrested for trespassing? What if they took the position that they disagree with your values and want to come in your house and talk about it and will come back every year until you change your mind and accept their morals? The distinction between public and private property is an important one. Even Fred Phelps doesn't walk onto private property.

By the way, I support the Equality Riders, the Ghandi/King model and unlike the responder quoted above, I think Christianity and Gay do go together just as Christianity and Left-handedness go together. But I think the question warrants dialog, because unlike civil rights marches in the South, boycotting salt in India and anti-war rallies today, the Riders are staging their protest on private property. How would you feel if protesters came into your house?

“I think this is a really good question” followed up with your examples and then “even Fred Phelps doesn’t…” expresses tacit approval of the original question. You then replied:
Thanks u-dog. :-) Yes, the TV post is an example of my opinion. This post is not.
If this is not your opinion, you go to great lengths to validate someone else’s. You even stated that you think the Riders were on private property in your original post. What part of this isn’t your opinion?
I was not comparing the Riders to Fred Phelps, I was comparing him to Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon Missionaries.
You stated Phelps doesn’t walk onto private property, followed by the statement that the Riders do. How is that not a comparison?
In talking about the "schools" that the Riders visit, Kara stated: "Like the KKK..." She did plainly compare my alma mater to a terrorist organization that used killing and violence to express their position. OBU has never used violence to enforce its policy. Therefore the comparison is outrageous.
Like the KKK, they promote a view of superiority over other people.
Kara did not liken your school to the KKK, she said they had something common with them – namely, “they promote a view of superiority.”
You then responded with:
And the KKK comparison is outrageous - the college has never lynched anyone.
If Kara had said that the college had lynched somebody, or even that they were terrorists using killing and violence, I would agree that would be outrageous. She did not, however. You, sir, reacted emotionally and with some hostility towards Kara.
WOW, you guys need to calm down and cut back on the insults. First of all, read the link in my first post. Read my letter to the OBU student paper asking students to welcome the Riders on to campus. Secondly, I am NOT making any argument, I posed a question. It wasn't even my question, I was just reposting it here.I did not answer that question for myself nor have I presented an opinion on it. I sure hope the Riders are not as reactionary and insulting as you are, because your post is not dialog, its attack.
First “insults”. I questioned your sense of proportion and scale; I question whether you can perceive logic or whether you are true to your word. Perhaps I could have chosen better ways of phrasing my doubts about why you posted what you did, but these are hardly insults. U-dog’s violation seems to be his use of the word “silly”.

You use the word outrageous in regard to Kara’s statement, but ours are insults. Proportion seems to be an issue, again.

If this last post is your idea of an apology, you have a long way to go.
It wasn’t.
Dialog by definition is in fact considering other people's thoughts. Tolerance is considering other people's thoughts. Welcoming and affirming is considering other people's thoughts. Listening is considering other people's thoughts. Being open-minded is considering other people's thoughts.
Correction – dialogue is engaging in discussion about your own thoughts, not hiding behind someone else’s, adding a considerable amount of your own editorial content, and then disavowing that these in any way represent your own.

Dialogue is honest, forthright, first person. Dissimulation is what I would what you did.

As to the rest of it – it strikes me as absurd. Please feel free to ramble as much as you like and then blame it on someone else.

Zerbie

03-19-2007, 12:06 AM

Zerbie, like I said in my second post, private colleges are private property. It might be an institutional private property vs. an individual's private property, but nevertheless, the analogy to a home is very fair.

.

No. It does not work. A college campus is not analogous to a private residence. They serve entirely different functions.

You don't need to tell me that a private school is private and a public school, public. Obviously. Point being, if students enroll in a private religious-based school out of a preference for that environment over a more "secular worldview," consider that folks such as myself enroll in public institutions for the same reason, inverted. Therefore, the analogy between E Riders visiting a private religious school and a street preacher visiting mine is FAR more apt than comparing a college campus to a private home.

As Andrew points out you spend an inordinate amount of time defending a viewpoint to which you say you do not adhere. All manner of intelligent, thoughtful and reasoned responses were refuted in a tone that to my eye appears disrespectful. I've lost interest in following this particular thread any further as it has become ridiculous.

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 12:43 AM

Andrew, your questions have already been answered. Zerbie, I am sorry you don't understand the difference between public and private property.

Let me share my last Thursday with you: First, I called the President of OBU and this is the conversation I had with his secretary:

May I speak to President Brister?

He is in a meeting, may I take a message?

Yes, my name is Jacob Zimmer, I am an OBU alumni, my parents went to OBU, my grandparents went to OBU and my great-grandparents went to OBU. I am calling about the arrests on campus yesterday. I find the actions of the university to be embarrassing, shameful, and deplorable. That visitors were arrested on their way to Chapel is absolutely outrageous.

Would you like to receive a call back?

No thanks, just make sure he gets the message.

How do you spell your last name?

I then called Marty O'Gwynn, the director of Public Relations. I told him the same thing I told the President's secretary. We spoke for over half an hour. He went into detail giving me the play by play of the day.

I then collected all the information I had gathered about that day and spread it all over the internet from emails to family and friends to multiple message boards including this one. I did a myspace search of other OBU alumni and messaged my report to over 100 people. I had a photo job to do that night and I canceled it so that I could tell everyone about the atrocities on Bison Hill.

The next day I got a message back from a guy who I have never met (we were not at OBU at the same time) and he wrote back: " GOOD - Christianity and Gay just dont go together...What would Gays do if Christians protested in their house?"

Well, I don't know what they would do. So I posted the question here. Did people react with an answer? Did dialog occur? Was the Ghandi/King model used? No, no and no. Instead personal insults were thrown at me, people reacted defensively and just argued.

You guys are completely changing my mind about Soulforce and the Equality Ride. If the people on the bus are like you, then they should not be welcomed. Right now I want to email Marty back and tell him: "WOW, you would not believe what these people are like - you were right to have them arrested for trespassing. If the kind of argument I had on line were to happen on campus, it would have been a disaster. Thank God you stopped it before it got out of hand."

Please someone tell me these posters do not represent the riders, please.

dewdrop_world

03-19-2007, 07:39 AM

Please someone tell me these posters do not represent the riders, please.
No, these posters do not represent the riders. There are some pretty significant differences between the Equality Ride and this, or any other, web forum.

The Riders go as a group and can support each other as a group. If one feels threatened or angry, or is just having a bad day, others can help restore him/her to balance before there is an eruption. That kind of support isn't instantly available to a person sitting alone at a computer at home.
The Riders are chosen for the task and go through non-violence training before setting foot on the bus. The forum is open to anybody, and we have all levels of "practice" of non-violence here. Some people's styles here are not overtly Ghandian but that should not, reasonably, be taken as a measurement of the Ride (just because both are under the Soulforce banner).

So I don't think it's fair to say "these people" when there are totally different dynamics on the Web vs. on the bus.

As to the main topic, I find often that conservatives, not just Christians, have difficulty distinguishing between the ethical and the legal. It seems rather obvious to me that some things are legal but not ethical, while others are ethical but not legal. But, if I had a nickel for every right winger who thought his actions were justified because there's no law or scripture against it, I could quit my job today.

Not a lot of time this morning to analyze in depth, so let me just make a couple of statements and ask if you agree or disagree.

When anti abortion activists protested on the sidewalk in front of the planned parenthood director's home, even if they never left the sidewalk (and, in u-dog's telling, they did not), what they did was legal (because they did not trespass onto private property) but not ethical (because they destroyed the director's feeling of security in her own home). (This is ignoring the vandalism u-dog reported that those protesters committed, which is obviously both illegal and unethical.)

When some of the riders stepped onto University property, what they did was not legal, but it's difficult to argue that this is an ethical violation on the same scale as protesting at someone's home.

If you wish to make such an argument, you have to prove that the laws protecting property rights are as ethically serious as the basic human right to a secure home. I don't believe it's possible to make this argument without making a fool of oneself, but if the fellow who wrote you would like to try, I'd be happy to read it. (You can have a stab at it too, but why, since you already said you don't agree with him.)

In the absence of such an argument, I would have to conclude that it's a red herring to make "public vs. private" the central deciding factor -- and a devious one at that, because it upsets one's moral compass and confuses legality with integrity.

James

suzer1013

03-19-2007, 09:10 AM

No, OBU does not receive public money. It is a private university and all of its financial support comes from private donations through the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, individuals and tuition.

Just a quick question. Are there no students there, then, that receive federally funded financial aid? If they do, then federal funds are used to pay tuition at that school, and the school does indeed receive public money.

Susan

kara speltz

03-19-2007, 09:35 AM

Please someone tell me these posters do not represent the riders, please.

O my Jacob you sound like the Pharasee in the temple saying, "thank God, I'm not like this publican."

In my humble opinion, you could use a little Micah in your life at this point and walk humbly with your God. Every one of these posters is a person of deep faith, and I'm proud to be associated with them, just as I am proud to be associated with the Riders. I suggest you take a moment and stop insulting people on this thread.

Zerbie

03-19-2007, 11:06 AM

Andrew, your questions have already been answered. Zerbie, I am sorry you don't understand the difference between public and private property.

You guys are completely changing my mind about Soulforce and the Equality Ride. If the people on the bus are like you, then they should not be welcomed. Right now I want to email Marty back and tell him: "WOW, you would not believe what these people are like
.

Oh my!! :rofl: Do you ever read your own posts?!?

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 11:06 AM

James, thanks for your post. I have to run to work, so I can't reply in detail now. But thank you.

so let me just make a couple of statements and ask if you agree or disagree.

This is my biggest point: This may come as a great surprise to some of you, but I honestly was putting the question out there to see what kind of answers people had. I was not making a statement and trying to back it up. I was not making an argument at all. On the issue of the question I posed, I do not know yet if I agree or disagree because until he asked me, I had never thought about it. Maybe every other thread by every other poster is making a statement that they believe in and that is why you assumed I was also. It was a question that someone asked me and since I am not a gay man who has had Christians protest in his house, I put the question out here. Instead of pondering the question, you all argued with the messenger. You all failed to take me literally. But you succeeded in ganging up on me and putting me down.

Susan, Yes, there are students there (over 1600) and some if not many of them receive federally funded financial aid. But that aid is given to the student regardless of where they choose to attend college. So since that money comes from the student and is based on their family income, not their choice of college, the government is not giving federal funds directly to the school. Therefore, the university remains a private institution on private property. Here is a comparison: After Katrina I received over $4000 from FEMA. I gave some of that money to my church. But that does not mean that the church is being financially supported by the government and therefore public property.

Kara, you do not know me and have no right to pass judgment on me.

andrewlittle

03-19-2007, 11:34 AM

... Susan, Yes, there are students there (over 1600) and some if not many of them receive federally funded financial aid. But that aid is given to the student regardless of where they choose to attend college. So since that money comes from the student and is based on their family income, not their choice of college, the government is not giving federal funds directly to the school. Therefore, the university remains a private institution on private property. Here is a comparison: After Katrina I received over $4000 from FEMA. I gave some of that money to my church. But that does not mean that the church is being financially supported by the government and therefore public property.

Not so small point.

Many receive federally funded financial aid.

The financial aid is NOT given directly to the student, and IS given directly to the school. The school then, deducts its tuition, housing and any other expenses allocated to the student and then gives the remainder to the student, if any is left.

The school directly receives the benefit of the financial aid, in that it allows students to attend. It is the recipient of the financial aid and gets the first dollars, before the rest goes to the student.

While the student and/or parent has borrowed the money, they cannot do so with federally subsidized funds without the process I outlines above. These funds are paid to the college, to pay college tuition and housing.

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 11:49 AM

James, I am going to be a little late to work and reply because I appreciate your response to the question. Thanks for explaining the process through which the riders are chosen. Good point that a poster on their computer does not have the support or training as the riders and that they are simply under the same banner. As I am the "newbie" and the outsider to this forum, what may be obvious about the organization to everyone else is not clear to me. There is no way for me to know if I am chatting with someone in Alaska on their home PC or a Rider with a laptop and wireless connection on the bus.

I think you make a valid distinction between legal and ethical. The example of the doctor's sidewalk is a great example. There is no doubt a huge difference between protesting with signs just outside someone's front door and simply stepping off a public sidewalk into a private drive on the way to chapel.

However, it is important to note that not only is the campus private university property, but with dorms and apartments, it is also people's homes. While the bus parked off campus, the place where the arrests took place were about 50 feet from one dorm and about 100 yards from a women's dorm and 150 yards from the men's dorm. The ground is flat and each of the buildings has an unobstructed view of the area where the arrests took place. Its a small campus, just several square blocks. Having been a student who lived on that campus, I will attest that we think of Bison Hill as our home. I am pretty sure the riders understand and respect that, even if the posters here do not.

Zerbie, I have not yet replied to the other alum who asked me the question on myspace because I have not yet formed my own opinion. I was hoping that by posting the question here, the topic could be discussed and I could gain more insight. But most of the discussion has been ragging on me instead. Of course I read my own posts. Instead of incorrectly assuming that I am making an argument and then going to back it up, you should read them in chronological order and see what they are: a process of forming an opinion. If your goal is to find opposing statements out of context, that will be very easy to do when I am not arguing a single point.

***

I play a VERY important and unique role in this discussion. As an alum, I carry a lot of weight with the university - not as much as a trustee, but they will listen to me more so than someone not connected to the college. The director of PR said that he spent more time on the phone with me talking about this topic than any other individual. The student paper published my letter in full.

Since I am not in fact homosexual, I do not have the inherent bias. If this were the sixties and a civil rights march, I would be called a n***** lover. While my mother is a lesbian (and retired ordained Baptist pastor) the fact remains that I did not call Marty out of respect for my rights, but for others.

When I was a freshman, everyone assumed I was gay because I stood up against the policy (having a girlfriend who loved to make out in public helped). I led Bible studies on those six verses in the Bible and wrote a paper twice as long as Mel's book explaining that the Bible condemns idolatry, not orientation.

When I spoke with one of the bus riders before the trip to OBU, she thanked me for my support. Scott thanked me for my support. I don't know what else I could possibly could have done (from 700 miles away) to stand by the Riders and against my alma mater following the arrests. Then I come to this thread with a simple question and am treated with hostility. Why are you trying to make an enemy of one of the very few OBU folks trying to support your cause?

kara speltz

03-19-2007, 11:51 AM

Kara, you do not know me and have no right to pass judgment on me.

Jacob, I'm not the one passing judgements, your remarks about people on this thread was judgmental. I don't know you. Neither do you know any of us. I responded specifically to a remark you made about the people on this thread. You said, "You guys are completely changing my mind about Soulforce and the Equality Ride. If the people on the bus are like you, then they should not be welcomed. Right now I want to email Marty back and tell him: "WOW, you would not believe what these people are like"

I didn't say you were a pharasee, I said you were sounding like a pharasee with your remarks. There is a difference Jacob, just as there is a difference in the way we perceive this disagreement.

We all fall short of the mark, and one of the places you have, is in your remarks about other people who have posted on this thread. You are absolutely closed to see the possibility that because federal monies (our taxes) are supporting your school, it means that it is not the same as someone's home. People have tried, and tried, to help you see that, but you refuse to even look at the possibility.

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 12:24 PM

I am not a lawyer or an expert on financial aid. I know what I went though when I was a student. Regardless of how federal grants pay for tuition, the FACT remains that the OBU campus IS IN FACT private property. You do NOT have the right to trespass just because through a series of indirect loopholes tax money makes its way to campus. If you want to make a case that you have the right to walk on campus because you pay taxes and students receive Federal aid, then hire a lawyer and go for it. But until a judge grants you the legal precedent, fact remains that the college campus includes homes on private property. Disagreeing with me will not change that fact.

Kara, you absolutely judged me and my faith.

In my humble opinion, you could use a little Micah in your life at this point and walk humbly with your God.
There is nothing humble about your opinion. I am not suggesting how you live your faith and you should not tell me how to live mine.

u-dog

03-19-2007, 12:26 PM

Honestly, JB, buck up! be a big boy and stop whining!

Ok. You posted a point of view which is not your own. You seem to be expending a good deal of passion defending it, but I believe you. its not yours. OK?

Now, to the core of the issue. JB? Private property is irrelevant to the sitiuation at hand. Everybody else? Federal funding is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

This is a democracy. because of that there exists something which can be referred to as "Public space" it is VIRTUAL space. It is referred to by political scientists and political philosphers as the "Polis" or the center of public and economic discourse.

When I rent or buy a store front and establish a lunch counter, that lunch counter is my private property. If I only use it to feed my friends and my family it is private space. It is NOT part of the "Polis" or public space. If I establish a business and offer food for sale then the lunch counter is no longer private space EVEN THOUGH IT REMAINS PRIVATE PROPERTY. I used my lunch counter to enter the public realm. Now Civil rights advocates are justified in using my private property to make a statement in the public sphere even though doing so may be technically illegal.

When the Baptists established a Private College on private property they AUTOMATICALLY entered the "Polis". They began to teach their ideas and to promote their values in the virtual public arena -- in the polis. In this case they are producing graduates who enter the public debate, they hire professors who participate in the public debate, They sponser publications and lectures that are part of the public debate and exist within the "Polis". When the Riders "invited themselves" to OBU they were engaging with OBU in the virtual public space of the "polis". When OBU refused them entry, they were declining to be engaged. When the Equality Riders insisted on engaging OBU by breaking the law and committing trespass they were violating private property but were doing so within the public space of the polis.

When the Baptists chose to enter the public arena with their values and opinions (which I for one am glad they did and do) they gave up the possibility of retreating behind the screen of "Private property" Their private property rights remain intact and they are perfectly within their rights to call the police but that action also becomes part of the public debate and is not private.

The dormitories and faculty houses on a private college (or the home of the owner of a lunch counter) is NOT within the public sphere and is NOT part of the "Polis". To involve the private residence of another in the polis is an act of violence against both the person AND against the polis itself.

When the Mormons or the JW come to my home to share their version of the truth with me they are asking to be invited into my home as a guest. I have, more than once, extended that invitation and had fun arguing with them. Most times I have declined to offer that invitation and they have always gone politely away. There is no violation of my privacy in their doing that. If they tried to force their way into my home, that would be an act of violence and I would call the police. This is consistent with the political and philosophical principles stated above because my home is NOT PART OF THE PUBLIC ARENA ... it is my home. It is where I go to retreat and enjoy my family in privacy and safety.

Do you understand? It is not a matter of private property... it is a matter of PUBLIC DISCOURSE. Both the openess of the POLIS and the sanctity of the HOME is necessary for democracy to function. OBU can either participate in the public discourse that takes place in the the "POLIS" or they can withdraw from it. but they can't do both.

The analogy between the private property of a College and the private property of my home is a false analogy and does not hold up to scrutiny. I stand by me first opinion which was that your respondant is BEING SILLY.

Have I been both clear and respectful?

Dave

NathanATX

03-19-2007, 04:59 PM

Hi Jacob,
I am very impressed and grateful for the steps you have taken to enage the hearts and minds at OBU. I attended ORU and then OSU after coming out. I dated several OBU guys, one of whom is a family member of one of Tulsa's most prominent pastors.

Welcome to the Soulforce forums.

If you want to be challenged, to grow, to expand your faith, to be called on your mess, to be loved by wonderful people, to be celebrated, to be encouraged, to be prayed for, to be taught, to be a teacher, to minister and to be ministered to... the Soulforce forums are the place to be.

I do understand the points you've made, and I have some different opinions.

What I want you to realize is though there may be disagreement here, there is love. Though there may be correction, there is affirmation.

Many of our members are very significant, accomplished, annointed and gifted people. Many are very well known. Many have dedicated their lives to this work. Please consider that maybe some of the people here have some wisdom or some gifts that you may not have. I know that you also bring your unique wisdom and gifts here.

Share with the intention of being fully known and building intimate relationships.

And, yes, there are people here who may not be as "credentialed" or experienced in this path as others. Some may use intense language. Some may take offense. Some may cause offense.

We are all human and we all make mistakes. I can provide you with a v-e-r-y long list of my mistakes, if you'd like. :)

When your first emotion is hurt, anger, or frustration: Respond with grace, wisdom and integrity. Be curious. Don't take anything personally.

I'm looking forward to getting to know you. I thank God for you and pray that you are filled with courage, wisdom and discernment. Your mother is a blessed woman to have you as a son.

Peace,
Nate Black
Moderator, Soulforce Forums
Deacon, MCC Austin
Young Adult Ministry Leader, MCC Austin

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 05:18 PM

Let me see if I understand you correctly: The posts on this thread have focused on two entities: Public and Private. You are suggesting that OBU is neither and both by being part of the "polis." Since I am not a lawyer, I cannot agree or disagree with your assertion.

My first step into this discussion was writing a Letter to the Editor of the OBU Student Newspaper. The issue published the week before the riders arrived had both a front page article (http://www.okbu.edu/campuslife/bison/News_P1_17.pdf) and editorial (http://www.okbu.edu/campuslife/bison/OpEd_P4_17.pdf) which stated that "as a private property owner, OBU has every right to decide who has the privilege of entering the property." Are you saying that is not a true statement? If so, write your own letter to the editor to explain the "polis."

The fact that the Riders were arrested indicates that the Shawnee Police believe the law supports that statement. So I trust the police were correctly enforcing the law. The fact that the Riders on the bus called the Shawnee Police and told them how many people would be trespassing suggests that the Riders understood the law.

So if the OBU administration believes they are on private property, the police believe they are on private property and the Riders themselves believe they will be on private property, why do you all choose to disagree? At the time of the arrest, there were no lawyers, politicians, ethicists, philosophers or internet posters explaining the notion of "polis" to anyone.

If the only reason no one will answer the question is because they don't think a home is analogous to the OBU campus, then come up with a fair comparison rather than fuss at me for reposting an imperfect question and judge my walk with God for trying to explain something I'm not trying to defend. It seems to me that a person's front yard is analogous to institutional private property, certainly more so than a business open to the public like a lunch counter or a public university which is government owned.

Emproph

03-19-2007, 05:42 PM

"as a private property owner, OBU has every right to decide who has the privilege of entering the property."

Did someone from the Equality Ride voice opposition to this?

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 05:47 PM

Did someone from the Equality Ride voice opposition to this?
No, but posters on this thread are.

Thanks Nate for the kind words. :-)

NathanATX

03-19-2007, 06:06 PM

You're welcome, Jacob.

I think there is some dissonance between what everyone is saying.

I hear what you're saying as this: OBU says they have the right to dictate who goes on their private property. And you asked "How would you feel if protesters came into your house?"

I hear what others have said as this: The term "private property" may only be accurate to the extent that the school and the students receive no income/payment/tax subsidies/etc. from the government. The comparison to entering a house isn't a good comparison because the school is "public" in that the public are invited to attend school there, schools are part of their communities, and possibly it is "public" because of it's receipt of federal & state monies.

I think the question "How would you feel if protesters came into your house?" does reveal that the administration and possibly the students of OBU do feel as though their "house" has been invaded by protestors.

Overall, it seems most of the energy in this thread is being spent on the question of whether it is valid/good/ok/wrong/harmful/etc. to participate in a protest that goes onto a school's property.

If the discussion can stay focused on that topic and not on the individual persons, I think this thread will be less heated.

Peace,
Nate

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 06:12 PM

James, getting back to you finally:

let me just make a couple of statements and ask if you agree or disagree.

When anti abortion activists protested on the sidewalk in front of the planned parenthood director's home, even if they never left the sidewalk (and, in u-dog's telling, they did not), what they did was legal (because they did not trespass onto private property) but not ethical (because they destroyed the director's feeling of security in her own home). (This is ignoring the vandalism u-dog reported that those protesters committed, which is obviously both illegal and unethical.)

Agree. Not sure if its legal even, depending on how noisy they were.

When some of the riders stepped onto University property, what they did was not legal, but it's difficult to argue that this is an ethical violation on the same scale as protesting at someone's home.

Agree, it is difficult to argue - especially when I am not even trying to argue it. I mentioned this in reply to u-dog, but I want to stress again that for those who live on campus, from their perspective it is their home and the grounds outside the chapel is their front yard.

What is not defined is the level of "protest." In the case of last Wednesday, the protest consisted of merely walking down the sidewalk and making a right turn toward the chapel. They were not yelling chants or holding signs. It can hardly even be called a protest.

But, the Riders were intent on going inside the chapel. So if we want to make the house/indoor vs. outdoor comparison, it was their goal to go inside, event though they did not make it that far. The arrests were a preventative measure as I explained in my post in the other forum. Marty told me that at one of the other colleges Riders laid down in front of doors prevent students from coming and going in the building. It was out of fear of that sort of civil disobedience and type of protest that OBU chose not to give the Riders a room in the student center like they did the previous year (among other reasons laid out in previous links).

Emproph

03-19-2007, 06:25 PM

No, but posters on this thread are.

I understand that but you posited the question originally:
What would Gays do if Christians protested in their house?

Posters in question notwithstanding, I quess I'm wondering what relevance this question has.

marutidas

03-19-2007, 06:40 PM

.
I hear what you're saying as this: OBU says they have the right to dictate who goes on their private property. And you asked "How would you feel if protesters came into your house?"

I hear what others have said as this: The term "private property" may only be accurate to the extent that the school and the students receive no income/payment/tax subsidies/etc. from the government. The comparison to entering a house isn't a good comparison because the school is "public" in that the public are invited to attend school there, schools are part of their communities, and possibly it is "public" because of it's receipt of federal & state monies.

I think the question "How would you feel if protesters came into your house?" does reveal that the administration and possibly the students of OBU do feel as though their "house" has been invaded by protestors.

Overall, it seems most of the energy in this thread is being spent on the question of whether it is valid/good/ok/wrong/harmful/etc. to participate in a protest that goes onto a school's property.

If the discussion can stay focused on that topic and not on the individual persons, I think this thread will be less heated.

Peace,
Nate
As the law states, a protest can take place in a Public forum like a colledge campus Sidewalk as long as it does not interfere with the schools normal function. If the protesters were to disrupt classes then yes there would be a problem. but since most protest occur outside and not inside the school, One has the right, like Zerbie pointed out to ignor the procedeings. Not everyone is ever going to agree with all that one group has to say. But as far as I know, the E-riders are within their constitutional rights to peacefully assemble whether you or anyone else likes it or not.

~~~Maruti Das:flower::dove:

JacoBison

03-19-2007, 08:00 PM

I quess I'm wondering what relevance this question has.

Someone asked me that question and I did not have an answer so I posted the question here thinking that I would gain some insight and be able to write the guy back with a good answer. No such luck yet.

tdogg

03-19-2007, 08:03 PM

The legal issue can and will be decided at the ER Rider's hearings, trial, whatever is pending a decision on their actions and arrests. I'm not sure legality of the ER actions is what is important here. After all, were all civil rights actions legally enacted? I don't think so. The fight for civil rights - and I say 'fight' in the most non-violent of definitions - often leads to one's breaking the law in an effort to reach a goal of that law being changed.

I'm reading Making Gay History right now - it just amazes me what those who have gone before me have gone through. The arrests, the bad publicity, losing their jobs, risking everything they had including their reputation, harassment, violence (by the very same we trust to uphold the law), yes even murder and suicide. It continues today, but I truly believe it's better if even only a little. I have the utmost respect for anyone who stands up for their belief in the same civil rights for EVERY ONE - not just a selected group of individuals - and risks all that for the cause they believe in. Risks all that to take action that ultimately helps me, and all of us.

I fully support the ER Riders. I applaud them, respect them, pray for them and their endeavors. They are risking it all to promote civil rights for ALL persons, even those who would vandalize their property (bus), have them arrested, etc. They aren't saying special rights for gays - they are saying EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL, including gays, straights, men, women, tall, short, all nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, religions, you name it.

These are learning institutions first and foremost (ok, well they should be but I totally own that opinion), what an enormous opportunity for learning and teaching but instead, they want to keep the dialogue out of the institution, away from the students, and take measures such as arresting the ER Riders to keep them away.

I would assume the Riders understand the possibility of arrest and are willing and ready to deal with the reality. Legality not the issue. But if they reach one person, one student, one college, one rules/regulations, in my opinion, that makes the entire operation worth all the risk. So do the Riders or they wouldn't be on the bus.

honeydoodle

03-19-2007, 11:14 PM

The fight for civil rights - and I say 'fight' in the most non-violent of definitions - often leads to one's breaking the law in an effort to reach a goal of that law being changed.

well, i'm still new to this forum, so forgive me for any mistakes, please.

A private college is being discussed here, correct? So the law you want to break, and thus change, is so that regardless of the property, people have the right to protest? Protesters could walk onto any church property and demand certain rights of the property occupants? Protesters could march on any private college, high school, or elementary school?

No. That's were freedom comes in. Those home owners, colleges, schools, all have the freedom to practice their religion how they so choose. And they have the right to do it in a safe and private enviroment.

If I am reading what you typed correctly, you believe that any college is up for grabs to protesters? (I may not understand correctly, so I hope that's what the discussion is concerning in this thread.)

1. There are better places to fight the good fight for social change. Like, your local government representative or Gov't buildings.
2. If private/religious colleges are forced to accomodate LBGT against whatever doctrine they believe (no matter how messed up :) there are only one or two steps left before all churches would be forced to perform homosexual marriages (one of the steps being legalizing gay marriage)

Emproph

03-19-2007, 11:56 PM

Someone asked me that question and I did not have an answer so I posted the question here thinking that I would gain some insight and be able to write the guy back with a good answer. No such luck yet.

The question as phrased is irrelevant, as the issue is not in regard to the morality of the school’s trespassing policy.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that what you and he are asking is why protesting the policies of a private school is any different from protesting the policies of a private household.

Ergo (from your first post):
What if they took the position that they disagree with your values and want to come in your house and talk about it and will come back every year until you change your mind and accept their morals?

That’s a little bit too objective for my tastes considering the objective. Let’s try it like this. (albeit the violence in question is spiritual/emotional)
What if they took the position that they disagree with your violence toward others values and want to come in your house and talk about it and will come back every year until you change your mind and accept their non-violence-toward-others morals?

Do private schools have the same right to abuse their students as private homes have to abuse their children? I would say yes, in that neither is acceptable.

Though one difference worth considering might be the fact that one abusive policy has been institutionalized (school) and one has not (home). And thus the consequences of the school’s policies are exponentially more publically damaging than that of the home’s.

JacoBison

03-20-2007, 12:10 AM

I honestly just have no idea how to reply to my own quote with someone else's words added in. That's never happened to me before and I am stumped.

Here, take it up with him and leave me out of it.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s21/LouisvilleNiteLife/question.jpg

NathanATX

03-20-2007, 12:26 AM

Jacob,
How would you answer the initial question you asked?
Nate

Emproph

03-20-2007, 12:26 AM

Here, take it up with him and leave me out of it.:lol: :laughing: :rofl:

How 'bout sending him a link to this thread with the same quote (well, virtually the same):

Here, I tried. Take it up with them and leave me out of it. :)

Emproph

03-20-2007, 12:40 AM

I honestly just have no idea how to reply to my own quote with someone else's words added in. That's never happened to me before and I am stumped.

That’s the point. His question was out of context and you expounded on that – out of context.

I just put it back into context.

JacoBison

03-20-2007, 01:00 AM

That's pretty funny Em (post #40), thanks, I needed a good laugh. :)

Jacob,
How would you answer the initial question you asked?
Nate

If I had an answer I would have written him back. But I didn't have an answer and I still don't have an answer. There are some things I am simply undecided on.

Em #41,

I don't think the question was out of context - just hypothetical - and you put it in your own context, not his and not mine.

I can only assume that he feels that a small campus of a private university where most of the building space is in fact residency, is equivalent to his home. Having lived there myself, I can understand that. We can spend all day arguing if for the sake of debate it is analogous to someone's house (in fact, we did) and in the process miss the whole point.

Emproph

03-20-2007, 01:17 AM

I don't think the question was out of context - just hypothetical - and you put it in your own context, not his and not mine. Understood. I think what we're really talking about here then is the definition of morality itself.

One side says that their "Biblical" policies against homosexuality are moral, the other saying that that morality is in itself immoral.

Agreed definition of morality obviously (or hopefully) being whether or not it causes unnecessary harm to others.

JacoBison

03-20-2007, 01:28 AM

One side says that their "Biblical" policies against homosexuality are moral, the other saying that that morality is in itself immoral.

I think that is an accurate observation. Different people have different morals. This is a portion of my Letter to the Editor (http://www.okbu.edu/campuslife/bison/OpEd_P4_18.pdf) of the OBU Student Newspaper that touches on that topic:

...the Bible won't change. But standards do. It’s the difference between principles and values. Principles are unchanging, timeless and universally accepted: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." There is no argument because it is "self evident." The Golden Rule is universally accepted and appears in the scriptures for all seven major world religions. Love and equality are principles.

But most relationship mores are values. In Old Testament times wives were the property of their husbands but Jesus explained that the law against adultery should be about fidelity, not theft. Likewise, Paul presented new values of mutual love and respect that were in contrast to the Hebrew bride-price and concubine culture.

If Christians practiced the law in the Torah, not only would we have to kill homosexuals, but we wouldn’t be able to play football (Lev 22 & Deut 14). The few Bible verses relating to homosexuality have a common theme: idolatry; because the sexual behavior was a characteristic of pagan religions. But they are not an admonition of orientation as we understand it today.

There was a time when OBU policy forbade males and females from holding hands in public and there will come a time when OBU students are not discriminated against for their gender preference. Love is a timeless and unchanging principle. Discrimination is a value and the time has come for a change.

NathanATX

03-20-2007, 01:34 AM

Amazing words, Jacob.

Emproph

03-20-2007, 03:04 AM

BISON VOICES
MARCH 14, 2007

Letter to the Editor (http://www.okbu.edu/campuslife/bison/OpEd_P4_18.pdf)

Biblical principles remain, but standards can change

When I was a student at OBU, the September 28, 1994 staff editorial in The Bison asked: “Can you imagine going to Western Civ everyday and being taught by a homosexual professor, or having to share a bathroom, or even worse a dorm room with a homosexual? If this ever happened, students would transfer out of OBU so fast the school would die…“

Last week’s editorial about the Equality Ride visitors stated that “the administration decided not to re-open the student center, primarily because nothing is going to change the university’s policy on homosexuality.”

They are not visiting Bison Hill to meet with administrators to talk about the Green Book, but rather to talk with students about their life experiences as Christian gays and lesbians.

According to their website, the mission of the Equality Ride is “to open a dialogue about the painful consequences of discrimination and the religion-based prejudice that sustains it.”

Their goal is not to change policy, but to change hearts.

Jesus too encountered political and religious-based oppression.

But he made no attempt to change the Jewish holiness codes or the Roman law.

Rather, he engaged in dialogue and pointed out how some of the practices were inconsistent with the Kingdom and taught how to react to oppression with a transforming initiative.

The editorial goes on to state that “the policy reflects directly Biblical standards which aren’t going to change…“

Correct, the Bible won’t change. But standards do.

It’s the difference between principles and values.

Principles are unchanging, timeless and universally accepted:
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.” There is no argument because it is “self evident.”

The Golden Rule is universally accepted and appears in the scriptures for all seven major world religions.

Love and equality are principles.

But most relationship mores are values.

In Old Testament times wives were the property of their husbands but Jesus explained that the law against adultery should be about fidelity, not theft.

Likewise, Paul presented new values of mutual love and respect that were in contrast to the Hebrew bride-price and concubine culture.

If Christians practiced the law in the Torah, not only would we have to kill homosexuals, but we wouldn’t be able to play football (Lev 22 & Deut 14).

The few Bible verses relating to homosexuality have a common theme: idolatry; because the sexual behavior was a characteristic of pagan religions.

But they are not an admonition of orientation as we understand it today.

There was a time when OBU policy forbade males and females from holding
hands in public and there will come a time when OBU students are not discriminated against for their gender preference.

Love is a timeless and unchanging principle.

Discrimination is a value and the time has come for a change.

Last week’s Editorial was correct in stating that “OBU has every right as a
private property owner to decide who has the privilege of entering the property.” When the Equality Ride visited BYU, 24 of its leaders were arrested for trespassing.

Today they will be visiting Bison Hill. Please welcome them and listen to their stories.

Perhaps you can learn as Peter did in Acts 10, that what God has provided, you shall not call unclean because God shows no partiality.

Imagine sharing Bison Hill with all of God’s children.

-JACOB ZIMMER, OBU Alumnus
Former staff writer for The Bison

Jacob I am blessed to have read that. Thank you.

No wonder you said earlier, “and they printed the whole thing.” Your letter (in the link) looked like an article. I missed it the first time, I was looking for a letter!

(PS. Let me know if that's copywritten, I'll make sure to delete it... ;))

NathanATX

03-20-2007, 04:35 AM

Patrick we are both up way too late. :)

...

I whole heartedly agree with you. Jacob wrote an amazing article... and he is NOT even gay! I think there was some miscommunication and things got heated quickly. Jacob is a great friend and an ally. We should welcome him into our family before expecting him to be perfect.

Emproph

03-20-2007, 04:49 AM

Patrick we are both up way too late. :)
Speak for yourself. ;)

...

I whole heartedly agree with you. Jacob wrote an amazing article... and he is NOT even gay! I think there was some miscommunication and things got heated quickly. Jacob is a great friend and an ally. We should welcome him into our family before expecting him to be perfect.Amazing words, Nathan.

tdogg

03-20-2007, 05:08 AM

Make that 3 up way too late - can't sleep. On the road, normally I sleep like a log in hotel rooms on my travels but alas not tonight.

Great letter/article Jacob. Well done, articulate, opinions laid out well, etc. Very nice job.

When topics are passionately felt by people, they tend to respond with a significant amount of emotion, which I've felt reading through this thread. Once we get to the heart of the matter, it's amazing that often we are in agreement. We just have to sometimes work through the emotional part to get there. I've appreciated everyone's input here, it's been interesting, informative and instructional for me.

I still support the equality riders and what they are doing. It is necessary to take extreme actions at times to get anywhere. We haven't realized the progress so far without extreme actions being done by many who have gone before us. ER Riders certainly aren't the first to get harrassed or arrested. Many activists have been arrested right on public sidewalks, in places we consider public, certainly not the equivalent of a private school and not a home. Arrested for pretty much doing nothing but sitting there and maybe holding up a sign or two. I encourage anyone who wants to get a feel for gay/lesbian activism and what people have gone through to be that change and work for progress, to read Making Gay History. It has given me knowledge and a profound respect for those who would step out and take those risks in order to make this world a better place for us.

NathanATX

03-20-2007, 05:16 AM

I was working on an article about the Anglican church, the anti-gay Nigerian law, etc.

Oh, you might like some of the videos in "The Nonviolence, peace & justice VIDEO & AUDIO thread" located at http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?p=22872

There are some videos of the last few days Equality Ride events. Also, the one about "Teaching peace" the Boeing video has some good teaching about nonviolent protests.

night all,
Nate

tdogg

03-20-2007, 05:32 AM

A private college is being discussed here, correct? So the law you want to break, and thus change, is so that regardless of the property, people have the right to protest? Protesters could walk onto any church property and demand certain rights of the property occupants? Protesters could march on any private college, high school, or elementary school?

No. That's were freedom comes in. Those home owners, colleges, schools, all have the freedom to practice their religion how they so choose. And they have the right to do it in a safe and private enviroment.

If I am reading what you typed correctly, you believe that any college is up for grabs to protesters? (I may not understand correctly, so I hope that's what the discussion is concerning in this thread.)

1. There are better places to fight the good fight for social change. Like, your local government representative or Gov't buildings.
2. If private/religious colleges are forced to accomodate LBGT against whatever doctrine they believe (no matter how messed up :) there are only one or two steps left before all churches would be forced to perform homosexual marriages (one of the steps being legalizing gay marriage)

Hi Honeydoodle

The ER Riders aren't all that interested in changing laws regarding access to private schools - they are conducting non-violent actions in order to initiate change at these schools where GLBT students are discriminated against, harassed, threatened, and even kicked out. Demonstrating at government buildings or discussing this with gov't representatives isn't going to effect the change they are seeking. Their point is to take this directly to the places where students are being oppressed. Sort of like treating the disease and not just the symptom. You can get a better idea of what the Equality Ride purpose and objectives are by searching the website, reading the articles and the bios of the riders. You'll get a much better idea of what they are doing, more so than I could ever explain.

The Equality Ride isn't about preventing anyone in these schools from practicing their religion, it's about ending oppression and discrimination of BGLT students. Two separate issues. As someone who had 'homosexuality is sinful' pounded into my head from a very young age, someone who came out late in life, who is still dealing with issues regarding conservative fundamental religious family/friends (just a few though), I wish an action such as the Equality Ride had happened in my youth - it would have been extremely helpful, affirmative, supportive and assisted me in my own personal journey towards accepting and loving myself just as I was created.

Do I feel any college is up for graps? Well, yes, I do actually. Aside from invading a person's private home, I may even go as far as saying any place is up for grabs, college or otherwise. I wouldn't advocate something like this at a middle school, due to the age of the children and the possible trauma (more so from those who would take actions to oppose the Riders such as arrests, yelling, vandalism, etc.). But I would be open to carefully consider a forum, such as an elder care home, something like that might not be appropriate. But I just can't see how a college would not be appropriate.

Think back on the civil rights movement years ago - Rosa Parks comes to mind. Do you know that what she did was not only not acceptible behavior (was she ever arrested?? anyone??) it was unheard of and she was extremely brave. She put up with a lot to do what she did to ride in the front of those buses. It was not comfortable for her or others in the bus, but it was necessary to affect change. This is a small example - you have to basically read history throughout the centuries. People considered rebels, radicals, took actions that were illegal and made folks uncomfortable and even extremely angry, but their actions helped to make progress.

So, I take it you would be opposed to gay marriage? This post of yours is the first I've read that I can remember, so I'm only going on your words here. Anyway, I'm pretty passionate about this subject, so we could go on with it. Let me say it pretty basically and simply - I'm believe that each and every person living in this country should have nothing less than full and equal civil rights than the next person. So, what I'm saying is, I do not condone special rights for heterosexuals (marriage and all the related benefits) that a homosexual would not be entitled to. So in that regards, homosexuals have every basic human right to be entitled to each and every benefit that a married person would have were they hetero. No special rights for heterosexuals, nothing less than full and equal rights for homosexuals.

Whether or not I could get married in your church is irrelevant to me. I personally would not choose to have any ceremony in a church building where my ceremonly would not be welcome. Where is the joy and love in that? I would choose to have it where myself and my partner were welcomed, loved and the ceremony conducted in love. By the way, this isn't mean to be personal - I don't even know if you go to church. My point just being, I doubt if marriage finally became a full and equal right to gays, they would all run out and get married in churches that consider them to be an abomination. Having a ceremony in a church doesn't entitle the wedded persons married rights - having the marriage certificate does. That's what give heterosexuals all the hundreds of special rights that gays and lesbians are not given.

Another thought is, the ER Riders participate in the ride knowing full well they are subject to possible arrest for coming onto the school grounds. The school administrators know they have the right to call the authorities (local PD) and try to have the riders arrested, and often they do. This isn't ground breaking news. However, at many of the schools last year (and I'll assume this year as well), they were welcomed into the schools, dialogue was allowed, many of the students (and faculty) connected and it was a very positive exprience for all. Just an example of how this action could be worked into something positive even at these private religious-based schools that have anti-gay policies and rules. I'm not sure if all the articles from last years ride are still on their web site, but I bet you could get hold of them by contacting the Ride coordinators or someone on the web site. It was all quite positive at many of the schools.

u-dog

03-20-2007, 07:51 AM

Ok Jacob, let me try this one more time. NO LEGAL TRAINING IS REQUIRED TO UNDERSTAND THIS ARGUMENT OR RESPOND TO IT

Your respondant is implying that private property and private space are the same thing; that invading the private property of a private religious school is the same as home invasion.

I am trying to say that there is a DISTINCTION between PRIVATE PROPERTY and PRIVATE SPACE. Our homes are BOTH private property AND Private space. A store, a church, a private college or university may be private PROPERTY but are NOT private SPACE.

Your respondant is implying that Baptist students and faculty not only have the right to call the police to protect their private property rights but have the RIGHT TO EXPECT THAT NO ONE WILL COME AND BOTHER THEM ON CAMPUS.

I am saying that they absolutely have the right to call the authorities to come and protect their property rights but DO NOT have the right to EXPECT OTHERS TO LEAVE THEM ALONE because while the OBU campus is private property... it is NOT private space.

If the ER were barging into the President's home or Student housing then your respondant's question would make sense ("How would you like it if we came barging into YOUR home?")

when Baptist worthies created a College founded (at least in part) on the idea that Gay people are sinners and unworthy to participate openly in the life of Faith, they brought that idea and their college and its private property out into the public space ... into the marketplace of ideas ... into the "Polis" where it could rightly be contested by those who disagree. The Equality Riders have chosen under certain circumstances to contest those public ideas and values by violating private property and committing trespass and willingly and knowingly opening themselves to arrest.

Daniel

03-20-2007, 09:23 AM

Hello dear friends,

I'm late to this discussion, and having read through the thoughts expressed so far am wondering myself what the issue actually is about here.

Yes- I get the whole public and private matter- and the letter by Jacob is remarkable. That said, the original question, as it is proffered strikes me as a little strange. It's internal 'logic' seems to arguing for one thing, the right to be left alone at all costs- no matter what.

This is something I can understand. However, what I do no not understand is how this has anything to do with an institution of higher learning. A place where minds are supposed to expand, not recede into the kind of thinking which only perpetuates the status quo.

Am I biased in how I think institutions of higher learning should conduct themselves? You bet.

It may not be prudent or even possible to know, but I'd like to ask the person who asked this question (not Jacob who has posted it), what's the real issue here?

For it seems to me that, the argument is going round and round the tree without getting at the root.

honeydoodle

03-20-2007, 09:37 AM

So, I take it you would be opposed to gay marriage?

uh, well actually no. I'm not gay myself, but constitutionally speaking, I don't see how the gov't can prohibit it.
The faith that was taught to me since birth says it's a sin, wrong, etc. but the citizen in me says it's not my business. If two people want to marry, that's fine. I just wouldn't want a church to be forced to perform the ceremony against their doctrine.

So, what I'm saying is, I do not condone special rights for heterosexuals (marriage and all the related benefits) that a homosexual would not be entitled to. So in that regards, homosexuals have every basic human right to be entitled to each and every benefit that a married person would have were they hetero. No special rights for heterosexuals, nothing less than full and equal rights for homosexuals.

Ok, so it's pretty agreed.

My point just being, I doubt if marriage finally became a full and equal right to gays, they would all run out and get married in churches that consider them to be an abomination

Well, sometimes once people taste a bit of victory, they want to flaunt it, or test it. That's all.

ummm, i think this is really off the topic that was originally in this thread sorry :)

and i think the original topic (whatever it was exactly) is kinda just spinning its wheels. but c'mon. just becuase it is a college does not mean all are welcome. it's not nice, it's not the most god-pleasing thing, but it's the truth. you can't force people to have a discussion, and legally, you cannot trespass on their property. a private college is just like private property, or a home.

JacoBison

03-20-2007, 09:52 AM

I really do have to go to work this time...

Thanks Nate, I apprecaite your comments. That letter along with the other email I sent (that the question was in response to) was posted in the Activism forum with a link in my Letter to the Editor. I guess I assumed everyone would have read that first to gain the context of the initial question. In other words, if you were to click on the link in my OP, then you would understand the context of the question. I guess no one did that.

I wouldn't worry about copyright issues.

I understood his question to be a classic case of "How would you feel if the tables were turned?" The question is also in the context of his initial statement: "Gay and Christian don't go together." I think they go together just fine. Most of the homosexuals I know are Christian and I met them at church or other Christian organizations.

Maybe if he thinks that Christians reject homosexuality than he also assumes that all homosexuals are anti-Christian and therefore would be pretty pissed off about them trespassing. In fact, many of the conservative homophobes feel that the media and liberals are trying to force them to accept an immoral lifestyle as normal. Maybe its from having lived on that campus and knowing many ultra conservative homophobes that the context was already established in my mind.

U-dog, that post does explain things a little better for me.

Your respondant is implying that private property and private space are the same thing; that invading the private property of a private religious school is the same as home invasion.
Yes, I believe so. Considering that the school is his home, I get it.
I am trying to say that there is a DISTINCTION between PRIVATE PROPERTY and PRIVATE SPACE. Our homes are BOTH private property AND Private space. A store, a church, a private college or university may be private PROPERTY but are NOT private SPACE.
That distinction is clear to me.
Your respondant is implying that Baptist students and faculty not only have the right to call the police to protect their private property rights but have the RIGHT TO EXPECT THAT NO ONE WILL COME AND BOTHER THEM ON CAMPUS.
Hmm, perhaps so.
I am saying that they absolutely have the right to call the authorities to come and protect their property rights but DO NOT have the right to EXPECT OTHERS TO LEAVE THEM ALONE because while the OBU campus is private property... it is NOT private space.
I get that. Maybe he would not distinguish between private property and private space. The campus opens to the public for concerts, athletic games and so on. Its not fenced in. In the case of the ER, the issue was that the trespassing was pre-planned.

You all should understand that 90% of discussion on campus is debating religious and political issues. So yes, the community does encourage discourse, analytical thinking and so on. My freshman year was when Clinton beat Bush, so the whole semester revolved around political arguing. No administrator seeks to inhibit the free flow of ideas.

I gotta go to work, I'll come back tonight.

Alecto

03-20-2007, 10:57 AM

Zerbie

03-20-2007, 11:38 AM

uh, well actually no. I'm not gay myself, but constitutionally speaking, I don't see how the gov't can prohibit it.
The faith that was taught to me since birth says it's a sin, wrong, etc. but the citizen in me says it's not my business.

If two people want to marry, that's fine. I just wouldn't want a church to be forced to perform the ceremony against their doctrine.

Neither would I. Though I could hope that churchs someday soon willingly revise that part of their doctrine by their own motivation (see Alecto's post above.)

Well, sometimes once people taste a bit of victory, they want to flaunt it, or test it. That's all.

I hear you as saying gay people are (maybe) going to bring extrenal pressures to religious organizations and force their hands, essentially stripping them of their own freedom. The problem comes in with how we understand freedom. Freedom does not extend to taking steps to interfere with and condemn the lives of innocent people simply for not adhering to a certain doctrine. But the day when a christian person is prohibited from privately practicing (such as private prayer during appropriate break times in school (not coercing others to participate), well the day that happens we have another big problem on our hands.

just becuase it is a college does not mean all are welcome. it's not nice, it's not the most god-pleasing thing, but it's the truth. you can't force people to have a discussion,

Very true.

and legally, you cannot trespass on their property.

Agreed, and the E Riders know that, and more experientially than those of us typing at home.

a private college is just like private property, or a home.

No, disagreed. It is not just like a home. I don't go to college at the end of the day to use it as my own private sanctuary, rightly expecting to be left in peace to recharge for the next day. Yes it's private property. No it's not just like a home. I don't have students and clients running around my house all day, because it is a residence, not a social/intellectual institution. Distinct difference.

I don't dispute that there's a distinction between public and private space (I view it very much the same way as U-dog). My only huge objection on this thread is the analogy to a home. It doesn't fly. Can we dispense with the poor analogy?
If you cared to, you could search this site for posts I've made earlier expressing my ambivalence about the E Ride for precisely the reason that they are stepping onto private space that was created and chosen for certain reasons. I feel supportive of the Ride because I support their goals, and because the Riders are indeed extremely courageous people giving up much of themselves and taking great risk, to express love for others and to make the world a better place, in the best way they know of to make that gift. All the quarrelling on this thread only inclines me to support them more and more whole-heartedly.

u-dog

03-20-2007, 12:09 PM

We have been BICKERING but not quarreling. There's a difference :lol:

keltic63

03-20-2007, 12:14 PM

We have been BICKERING but not quarreling. There's a difference :lol:

it's a Spat, that's what it is! why do you insist on calling it bickering???? :mad: :lol: :lol: :lol:

andrewlittle

03-20-2007, 12:19 PM

it's a Spat, that's what it is! why do you insist on calling it bickering???? :mad: :lol: :lol: :lol:

You folks just seem to be splitting hairs. Oops, sorry keltic ... I really didn't mean anything by that hair comment.

Let me rethink this. I'll be back.

keltic63

03-20-2007, 12:21 PM

*cracking the whip*

put this thread back on topic now! we'll have no more of these hairline fractures in this thread! You want JB to think we're capable of having fun????

tdogg

03-20-2007, 06:01 PM

I've never 'lived' in a college dorm, but from what I've heard of other's experiences, it's about the most unprivate living arrangement there could be.

Honeydoodle, guess we agree on gay marriage but will have to agree to disagree on the topic of the ER Riders showing up at the colleges. I really don't see a significant number of the gay population wanting to deliberately get married in a church that does not welcome or affirm them. Like Zerbie says, wouldn't it be wonderful if some day all churches were welcoming and affirming - this is how I see Jesus wanting it, after all he hung out with the people no one else would have anything to do with - but until then, I just don't think unwelcoming churches would be seeing a tremendous number of gay and lesbian couples demanding to be married there.

For me, nature is my church. I would prefer a ceremony in the middle of nature, it's where I feel closest to my God, not in some man-made building. Guess we are putting the cart before the horse, it certainly isn't legal yet other than MA.

Yes boys, please get this thread back on topic....except, well the little troublemaker in me actually enjoys all your quarrelling...oh, sorry, excuse me, that would be bickering.....:p

JacoBison

03-20-2007, 11:14 PM

Thank you Daniel, t-dogg and Nate for the compliments. :)

It is not just like a home... Yes it's private property. No it's not just like a home. I don't have students and clients running around my house all day, because it is a residence, not a social/intellectual institution. Distinct difference. My only huge objection on this thread is the analogy to a home. It doesn't fly. Can we dispense with the poor analogy?

We are not talking about "a" college campus, we are talking about Oklahoma Baptist University, a very small campus that takes up only a few square blocks with only 1600 students, 1200 of whom LIVE ON CAMPUS. Let me draw you a map. The red dot is where the arrests took place and the yellow highlights are RESIDENCE halls (dorms, apartments and HOUSES) also known as HOMES.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s21/LouisvilleNiteLife/campus.jpg

I lived there for two years. I ate on campus, I slept on campus, I had a mailbox on campus. It was my HOME. For that reason, I think comparing homes on OBU's campus to homes off campus is a VERY GOOD ANALOGY and I will NOT dispense with it. :)

Are dorms less private than a house? Of course, but they are still homes. Last year the ER had a room in the student center on the same hallway as the cafeteria. 99% of diners in the cafeteria live on campus. So last year the Riders were invited inside the house next to the dining room, not just the front yard or sidewalk.

So the analogy DOES fly - as high as a kite in the Oklahoma wind!

keltic63

03-21-2007, 08:04 AM

We are not talking about "a" college campus, we are talking about Oklahoma Baptist University, a very small campus that takes up only a few square blocks with only 1600 students, 1200 of whom LIVE ON CAMPUS. Let me draw you a map. The red dot is where the arrests took place and the yellow highlights are RESIDENCE halls (dorms, apartments and HOUSES) also known as HOMES.

I lived there for two years. I ate on campus, I slept on campus, I had a mailbox on campus. It was my HOME. For that reason, I think comparing homes on OBU's campus to homes off campus is a VERY GOOD ANALOGY and I will NOT dispense with it. :)

Are dorms less private than a house? Of course, but they are still homes. Last year the ER had a room in the student center on the same hallway as the cafeteria. 99% of diners in the cafeteria live on campus. So last year the Riders were invited inside the house next to the dining room, not just the front yard or sidewalk.

So the analogy DOES fly - as high as a kite in the Oklahoma wind!

Jacob, What do you suggest? What would you have the ERiders do? What would you like to have seen happen here that didn't?

You've spent a lot of time and energy defending a position that you claim is not your own. Could we please have your words about this now?

You seem to think that because the ER was invited in last year, near the dining room no less, that this should be satisfactory. You fail to mention that the E riders were turned away from worship. Perhaps there should be a discussion about who is welcome at the Lord's Table. We haven't even touched on the policies in place at OBU that oppress God's LGBT children.

Please, Jacob, aside from arguing about whether a campus is private or public, whether it should be considered a home or not, how could the ER have done better than it did when it visited OBU? How could OBU have handled the visit better?

Daniel

03-21-2007, 09:25 AM

We are not talking about "a" college campus, we are talking about Oklahoma Baptist University, a very small campus that takes up only a few square blocks with only 1600 students, 1200 of whom LIVE ON CAMPUS. Let me draw you a map. The red dot is where the arrests took place and the yellow highlights are RESIDENCE halls (dorms, apartments and HOUSES) also known as HOMES.

Jacob,

I don't think anyone here is going to argue you out of the fact that you felt 'at home' at Oklahoma Bapist Universty. That's really not the point here.

I could put up a map of Evangel College (Springlfield MO) where I went to school. It would show roughly the same amount of area. Yes. I could show you where I lived in the dorm, where I kissed my first girl (that's about as far I went with trying to be straight btw), where I spent inordinate amounts of time practicing the piano and voice, where I went to class, ate breakfast lunch and dinner.

Now. I could also show you where the office where 4 of my classmates were thrown out of school for being gay only two weeks before their graduation. Their crime? Being seen in the parking lot of a gay bar. Who ratted on them? Another gay student of course. A gay student full of fear and self loathing.

I only wish someone like Soulforce would have shown up at my school when I was there. It would have helped me see that being gay and being a christian- a life with faith- was possible- and I wouldn't have spend the next ten years of my life trying to make sense of things on my own.

Sure. I get that there are questions about access and all that. But I really don't think that is the crux of the matter here. This is about people's lives, their everlasting-God-loves-them gay lives, and not having to lurk in the shadows when they can live in the light.

Yes. I can- and do have- compassion that there are those who feel 'invaded' and 'challenged' by the presence of the Eriders. It's no fun to have someone come and upset the staus quo. But this suffering should not outweigh the suffering of gay persons who do not have the opportunity to hold hands and kiss in the same place that you did because of policies which deny them the basic human right to be happy.

My sense is that the person who proffered the original question doesn't 'get' this. And that is a crying shame.

Vanessa White

03-21-2007, 09:38 AM

I have been thinking and reading and thinking some more about this thread. My head hurts. However, two points that I wish to state about this are: When our ER sign on for their self-proclaimed mission of sorts, they all know the risks of possibly being arrested. Whether private property, as many of these campuses may be, or on a public street in Phila. or other city, Phila. being where my good friend Mia got arrested in the name of Soulforce and LGBTQ persons, for protesting "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" at a recruitment station, the point is that these persons aren't complaining about the grounds for which they were arrested. They expect to get arrested in most cases, I would think. They are all prepared for that possibility. Last year, the ER even had gatherings off the campuses in order to accomodate students when they could. But that is not always an option that works, or is effective. Agreed, challenging the status quo may be unpleasant for some, but in this case, necessary. My other point I would like to make (could you tell I was making a point just now?!?!?) is that the sacrifice seems like a good one for the ER to make, and for me to make in circumstances, when speaking up and speaking out could improve the lives of LGBTQ persons who have to live silent lives on these campuses, or those that may even despise themselves enough to end their lives? To me, getting arrested or even trespassing, as long as I am not committing violence against someone, is worth it if it saves lives. Without any doubt at all in my mind. It is estimated that out of all completed youth suicides, close to 1/3 are committed by youths who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or are unsure of their sexual orientation. This type of civil disobedience is necessary, to bring to light the need to be more loving and embracing of persons that may be different than what people are accustomed to. This has to happen for the world to start changing, and appreciating how totally awesome we are, just the way we are...... Peace all, Vanessa :love: :love: :love: :love:

kara speltz

03-21-2007, 10:09 AM

Jacob,

I don't think anyone here is going to argue you out of the fact that you felt 'at home' at Oklahoma Bapist Universty. That's really not the point here.

I could put up a map of Evangel College (Springlfield MO) where I went to school. It would show roughly the same amount of area. Yes. I could show you where I lived in the dorm, where I kissed my first girl (that's about as far I went with trying to be straight btw), where I spent inordinate amounts of time practicing the piano and voice, where I went to class, ate breakfast lunch and dinner.

Now. I could also show you where the office where 4 of my classmates were thrown out of school for being gay only two weeks before their graduation. Their crime? Being seen in the parking lot of a gay bar. Who ratted on them? Another gay student of course. A gay student full of fear and self loathing.

I only wish someone like Soulforce would have shown up at my school when I was there. It would have helped me see that being gay and being a christian- a life with faith- was possible- and I wouldn't have spend the next ten years of my life trying to make sense of things on my own.

Sure. I get that there are questions about access and all that. But I really don't think that is the crux of the matter here. This is about people's lives, their everlasting-God-loves-them gay lives, and not having to lurk in the shadows when they can live in the light.

Yes. I can- and do have- compassion that there are those who feel 'invaded' and 'challenged' by the presence of the Eriders. It's no fun to have someone come and upset the staus quo. But this suffering should not outweigh the suffering of gay persons who do not have the opportunity to hold hands and kiss in the same place that you did because of policies which deny them the basic human right to be happy.
My sense is that the person who proffered the original question doesn't 'get' this. And that is a crying shame.

Amen, Amen, Amen! I wholeheartely agree with you. I only wish Jacob had eyes to see. The Riders all understand and accept that they will be arrested for trespass; that's not the issue. They accept the arrests as voluntary suffering. Taking on the suffering of the many, many LGBTs who have been expelled simply for who they are. Taking on the suffering of all those who felt it necessary to take their own lives, because they loved God; were gay and were told they couldn't be both. Jacob, please give it a rest. I'm sorry you are feeling uncomfortable, but your discomfort is small in relationship to the young people who lose everything.

Kara

u-dog

03-21-2007, 10:33 AM

Kara, I agreed with 99.9% of what you said to Jacob until you got to the "your suffering is small compared to..." and "give it a rest" One of the bitter ironies of life as a human beings is that change brings hurt. My mind wasn't changed but my heart was moved by Jacob's post that showed OBU's campus and the intimate connections of that place for him. It was a reminder that precious things are at stake for everyone in these turbulent times.

In my opinion there is seldom anything to be gained by the "my hurt is worse than your hurt" game. I saw it all too often played out among the feminists (lesbian), feminists (non-lesbian) feminists (lesbian black), african americans, hispanics, gay men (hispanic), blah, blah, blah ad infinitum when I was in seminary in New York. it leads nowhere at all.

Changes (in the law, in the church, and in human hearts) need to happen and the Equality Riders are advocating powerfully for all of those changes. People experience pain and alienation because of it. I wish it were not so. But ... Mothers experience pain in childbirth as well, but most of them think its worth it . Fathers experience pain watching their beloved experience pain. a lesser pain -- a different pain -- but pain nonetheless -- and most of us think that was worth it too -- once we hold the new life in our arms.

The next generation of OBU students and alums (or the one after that) will bless the Equality Riders for their work -- once they hold the new life of equality in their arms.

Emproph

03-21-2007, 10:48 AM

I lived there for two years. I ate on campus, I slept on campus, I had a mailbox on campus. It was my HOME. For that reason, I think comparing homes on OBU's campus to homes off campus is a VERY GOOD ANALOGY and I will NOT dispense with it. :)

I think I see what you’re saying now. That for some people it is a private home and that by trespassing on the school’s property – no matter how altruistic the motive – it was an unequivocal invasion of privacy to those who lived there.

And as far as Soulforce and the Equality Ride is concerned – perhaps an unconsidered and possibly unnecessary offense. An act of violence even.

I never lived on campus, in fact I never went to college. But the satellite photo really made me think twice about what campus life might have been like.. I’d heard the term before, I just didn’t realize the reality of the coziness of it all, until now.. :D

That “corporate” private property, so to speak, not only incorporates many individual “private properties,” but is an extension of those “private properties.”

Invade one and you invade the other, that property is their home. I never looked at it like that. Interesting. That is definitely a concern worth looking into/discussing. (I think I got your point right, correct me if I'm wrong.)

how could the ER have done better than it did when it visited OBU?
I realize that it wouldn’t negate the actual invasion of privacy for those living on campus, but Jacob do you think the ER should at least make it more of a point to let it be known that this concern has been carefully considered and that measures have been taken to minimize any potential invasion of privacy to students living on campus.

I think I take it for granted that they’re college kids themselves, so they know what they’re doing. But maybe that at least needs to be explained better?

So the analogy DOES fly - as high as a kite in the Oklahoma wind!Well I've never been that high before, or a kite, so I'll have to trust you on that one.

Zerbie

03-21-2007, 11:25 AM

Jacob, THANK YOU for your illustrative and respectful response. I wish it had appeared a day or so sooner, as I took all your responses to me (and many other respondants) as personal insults, and without your elaboration on why you considered the analogy appropriate, I took it as personal insults based on nothing, and so in my mind I wrote you off as "just a mean person." (run-on sentence, wow.)

From an emotional standpoint I can clearly see what a treasured enivornment OBU was and is for you (and many of your family as well.) They are lucky to have such appreciative alumni. Of the 3 institutions of higher learning I've attended, 2 of them were/are among the largest, with approximately 50,000 and 60,000 students enrolled. One of them sprawled across 5 cities. What I CAN relate to in your annotated map (which I enjoyed, btw) is the close-knit environment of my department. We all spend so much time there, morning through night PLUS weekends, it feels like we "live" there even though most of us do not reside on campus. I can relate to the sense of a 'home' community.

I'll continue to disagree about the analogy, basing that not on emotional perception and the fact that there are dorms, but on the fact of it as an institutional space shared by many, but let's leave it there. We won't convince each other.

I figured your point in starting this thread was to discuss the issues of students feeling "invaded" by outsiders when the Ride comes by. We got really derailed with the question of defending analogies. I was wondering if we would ever get to this point.

Oh and Kara, I had the same concern as U-dog. Jacob has not hurled insults in that post, he has expressed his own feelings about his campus. They are understandable. So are the E Rider's concerns for LGBT students. But saying 'give it a rest' is going too far with regard to what Jacob said in that last post. If he were hurling insults, I could see saying that. But not as a response to his expression of what he feels and values.

kara speltz

03-21-2007, 11:41 AM

Oh and Kara, I had the same concern as U-dog. Jacob has not hurled insults in that post, he has expressed his own feelings about his campus. They are understandable. So are the E Rider's concerns for LGBT students. But saying 'give it a rest' is going too far with regard to what Jacob said in that last post. If he were hurling insults, I could see saying that. But not as a response to his expression of what he feels and values.

Dear Zerbie & Dave: I understand what you're saying, but again, I don't agree. For one thing, I don't believe Jacob has heard anything we've been saying. That's why I used the expression give it a rest. It does sound like whining to me. If in his posts, I felt he had heard some of what we're saying, I wouldn't feel so frustrated.

Secondly, feelings are one thing, and real suffering is another. We Americans have so much privelege in our lives, we can't even see it. And I do worry about that. Yes it's hard being an LGBT here in America, and at times it can be deadly. But relative to being an LGBT in say, Nigeria, or Iraq, it's a piece of cake. To me that's what compassion is, getting past our own feelings and comprehending the suffering of others.

It is this, that I fear most of us will never quite comprehend, because most of us our fairly well off economically, experience white skin privelege on a regular basis without ever even recognizing it, and live comfortable lives from this privelege.

Kara

honeydoodle

03-21-2007, 01:26 PM

can- and do have- compassion that there are those who feel 'invaded' and 'challenged' by the presence of the Eriders.

So it's ok to "invade" someone, to try to tell them they are wrong about christianity not accepting homosexuals? I understand you would like to help, and that's applaudable. But wouldn't it be better to offer help, and not beat down their door with it? (Following the analogy of coming into their home :) )

It's great to try and "educate" people on how one thinks Christ accepts all people regardless of sexual orientation, but they are entitled to their religious views as well. If one likes to promote religious tolerance, wouldn't the greatest tolerance be to accept another's religious views, and move forward?

The Riders all understand and accept that they will be arrested for trespass; that's not the issue. They accept the arrests as voluntary suffering.

Sorry, I support the idea of peaceful visits to promote the acceptance of the ER. But there's a line to be drawn somewhere.

And as far as Soulforce and the Equality Ride is concerned – <b>perhaps an unconsidered and possibly unnecessary offense. An act of violence even. </b>

Thank you. It's not just "sticking it to the college," one has to think of the students. i think you'll be putting a sour taste in these student's mouths, and biasing them against the ER after forcing oneself into their "home."

Zerbie

03-21-2007, 01:38 PM

Yes I understand the distinction between public and private (before I say this.)

But if it's "okay" for the street preachers to "invade" my space by coming to my campus with their egregiously offensive signs about how horrible we all are, then it's "okay" for E Riders to visit a religious college and voice their opposition to anti-gay policy. The difference btwn public and private plays out in that the street preacher on my campus does not get arrested, but the Riders do.

I think the effects of the E Ride will be many and varied. Some might be upset. Still others have already expressed gratitude for their coming. It's a mixed bag.

I think others have already addressed the complexity of tolerance, of tolerating "intolerance," and how on earth do we define those two things and do what is really right. Emproph? Anything to add? (Or anyone else, for that matter, I just know this has been percolating in Emporph's mind lately.) ;)

honeydoodle

03-21-2007, 01:53 PM

But if it's "okay" for the street preachers to "invade" my space by coming to my campus with their egregiously offensive signs about how horrible we all are, then ...

Honestly, I dont think it's ok for these preachers to come either. My hope is that no one tries to offend anyone into believing something else, becuase that's just a poor argument, and no one will be persuaded with vinegar.

And, i asked Zerbie to clarify what she had written earlier in a pm, but Zerbie thought it would fit in the thread as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by honeydoodle
in the missionaries thread, you wrote:
Quote:
Freedom does not extend to taking steps to interfere with and condemn the lives of innocent people simply for not adhering to a certain doctrine.

i thought it would be more appropriate to ask in a private message for you to elaborate on that. Sorry, I'm unsure which innocent people you are referring to, or which doctrine.

Your call for clarification probably ought to be on the forum - it's an important conversation that I think all will want to be in on.

I had in mind scenarios such as we see where people put forward ballot initiatives, such as one that passed in Colorado about 15 years ago (amendment 2), which deny public accomodations to gay people. Fortunately, the US Supreme Court overturned it. Tyranny of the majority, it's called. The people's will to deny housing, employment, hotel accomodations, even the right to eat in a restaurant, to SOME of the population does NOT overwhelm the right of those so persecuted to basic participation in society.

Here in AZ, employers have a legal right to fire an employee for no other reason than if he is gay. An Employment NonDiscrimination Act keeps dying in legislative committee because of an outcry from certain groups that protecting Arizona's workforce from random dismissal for reasons of an employer's personal prejudice (independent of actual job performance) is an infringement of an employer's religious freedom - sadly, we're talking here about freedom to engage in harmful prejudicial actions with impunity. By their logic, were I an employer, I should have the same right to fire someone for being christian (I wouldn't do it, but the argument applies in inverse, being all that I mean). If popular opinion should turn in that direction and make it legal to do so, it still would not make it ethically or morally right. Neither is it when the employee dismissed is gay.

Some people feel that religious freedom needs to extend so far as to allow them to harm others in this way, and do so with impunity.

If we continue this conversation let's move it back to the forum. It could be it's own thread. I have a lot of work today, and might not get back for a while.

Thanks for asking an important question, but let's open it up to the forum.

Z

honeydoodle

03-21-2007, 02:06 PM

And now, to reply to Zerbie, I don't like those laws, I don't feel that discrimination is right. It's terrible. But those are goverment laws. I was talking about churches, religious instituions. I don't agree with "taking steps to interfere with and condemn the lives of innocent people simply for not adhering to a certain doctrine."

It is terrible to force a religion on someone. And that goes for both sides of the fence.
Whether it is some overzealous people invading my house, my "comfort zone," telling me that my God accepts homosexuality, and I am wrong
Or whether it is some overzealous people picketing on my lawn that if I were homosexual I am going to hell, even if I just had a friend who was gay, and that dancing is the work of the devil,

I don't believe that either of those are in good faith. And neither of those are going to work to persuade people.

Now, that's why i asked for a clarification. I agree that the examples you posted are terrible. they are not constitutional. but i had thought that Freedom does not extend to taking steps to interfere with and condemn the lives of innocent people simply for not adhering to a certain doctrine

the quote was directed at the private college/church topic.

u-dog

03-21-2007, 02:28 PM

And neither of those are going to work to persuade people.

Actually, HD, I think you are wrong.

People who are "in the middle" on this issue will see the Soulforce Riders as courageous freedom fighters (which they are) who asked to have a dialogue (which of course they did).

If the college administrations refuse admittance to them they look (to the moderate middle) like closed minded bigots. (which in many cases they are)

If they invite the ERs onto campus they will look like open minded conservatives AND they (or their students) might actually be moved to understand the world in a new and better way by interacting with GLBT young people who don't fit the hideous stereotypes that the religious right is always trying to foist off on the world as "the truth" (which they know that it is not)

NathanATX

03-21-2007, 02:53 PM

o6ykId1TYWY

kara speltz

03-21-2007, 03:09 PM

So much of this thread keeps reminding me of Martin Luther King's profound, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." He talks about how the moderates are always saying, we've gone too far, we're moving too fast, slow down, it will come in time. Just be patient.

His response was, "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men (sic) willing to be co-workers with God and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation."

He goes on to say, "Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are."

And how prophetic is this to what we are facing today, "all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows."

Jacob and Honeydoo, I am sure your hearts are in the right place. You wouldn't be involved in this forum if they weren't. But you need to listen to what is being said to you. Heterosexual privelege is like white-skin privelege - it is something you have to work to avoid. You have to begin to despise that privelege so much that you're willing to give it up. And certainly you have to not support that privelege. Please listen to those of us who have experienced this devastating bigotry and stop trying to maintain the status quo.

Kara

honeydoodle

03-21-2007, 03:13 PM

People who are "in the middle" on this issue will see the Soulforce Riders as courageous freedom fighters (which they are) who asked to have a dialogue (which of course they did).

I don't see them really honestly asking for dialogue. i see them grouping together on the sidewalk, singing.......

might actually be moved to understand the world in a new and better way This is your belief, that it is a new and better way. The college does not feel that way. Did the college have any forewarning that the riders were coming? again, i don't know the procedures of the er, but demanding to come on campus is not exactly polite.

If the college administrations refuse admittance to them they look (to the moderate middle) like closed minded bigots. (which in many cases they are)
are you saying moderate middle as in spiritually? (the first thing I think of when i hear moderate middle is politically. sorry)

who don't fit the hideous stereotypes that the religious right is always trying to foist off on the world as "the truth" (which they know that it is not
I hate for this to sound like a personal attack, but are you reallly thinking about what you are typing? Isn't it generalizing to include all of these as part of a "religious right" that is creating "hideous stereotypes?" I know my college does not promote stereotypes of any kind, but that it would also be hesitant to open it's doors. You are stereotyping.

When you say "the truth" in the quotes, I can only assume that you are reffering again to the stereotypes, right?

----
That was a nice video. But if you meant something specifically by it, I'm sorry, I didn't see it as anything but an update.

honeydoodle

03-21-2007, 03:16 PM

Heterosexual privelege is like white-skin privelege - it is something you have to work to avoid.Ummmm, I'm not sure what you mean by heterosexual privilege as discussed in this topic. sorry, I don't remember saying that it was only a privilege of heterosexuals to picket colleges, and i dont see any other way "Heterosexual privelege" would apply to this thread. Can you elaborate please? :)

kara speltz

03-21-2007, 03:25 PM

You know Honeydoo, your really NOT LISTENING at all. You're simply positing your beliefs, reading enough of what we say to give another response to prove us wrong. Just once why not spend some time thinking about what people are writing on this post.

Heterosexual privelege affects EVERYTHING just as white-skin privelege does. You're blind to it, because you are heterosexual. I personally do not intend to respond to your posts, until I see that you are giving what we write some legitimacy. Did you read at all what King said in my post? Or wasn't that of any interest to you?

NathanATX

03-21-2007, 03:26 PM

The point of the video is to show what actually happens on an EqualityRide visit. Maybe this video will be of interest.

Ua_c7DeI2Y0

Zerbie

03-21-2007, 08:08 PM

kara speltz

03-21-2007, 09:31 PM

With all due respect to our dear Kara, I read Honeydoo's posts quite differently.

I think (feh, maybe I'm mistaken & if so, time will tel,l & Kara can say "told ya so") that Honeydoo hasn't been exposed to conversations like this from "our side" before. I think the vocabulary is new to (?)him (or her.)

Hon' (Can I shorten your name thus?) - you will probably find plenty if you Google on "heterosexual privilege." Kara is correct in saying if you've always lived in it, you're usually unaware of it, as with white-skin privilege. I was DUMBFOUNDED when black friends told me some of the ridiculous s**t they'd experienced thanks to pervasive racism. I'd had NO idea. Similarly, you might be surprised by what gay people experience - I know that most straight folk don't "get it." Even those with many gay friends sometimes hit ya with a whammy.

There is such a thing as an organized Religious Right. It doesn't by necessity include all religious people or all people on the political right. But there is such a thing. Anyone wanna go over it in quick little bulleted points? I don't feel able to do so myself.

Good response Zerbie. I suspect you're right. Our culture teaches us to prove ourselves right and the other wrong. It was only thru the study of nonviolence that I began to comprehend the win-win situation.

It's hard to unlearn our old ways of winning points against another.

Thought folks would appreciate hearing from one of the students at Dordt, who had planned on not having anything to do with the Equality Riders initially. The letter is very moving and can be found on the blogs, which I highly recommend folks reading:

“If someone had told me at the beginning of the week that I would be deliberately making and spending time with LGBT people, I might have told them they were crazy and laughed it off. I admit that I never had any intention of attending any of the presentations or the panel discussion when you guys were here at Dordt. But because one teacher decided that my Sociology class should attend the presentation instead of holding class, my life has been changed, and in an amazing way! My mind and my heart were really truly opened. Never has something really stuck with me this hard or so clear. Everything I experienced in the past couple of days has been so amazing. I met some incredible people and I have come to cherish every second that I spent in their company. God works in mysterious ways. I felt God pulling at my heart and now I understand why….

“I want to encourage you in that no matter what happens, you have friends here at Dordt College that are praying for you the whole way on your journey. You are warriors on a new battlefield. You are a few against many. But your strength is with each other and with God and you will shake the foundations of this nation and the church down to its core. For with God on your side, who will be able to stand against you? Whether you reach an entire campus or just one person, you have made an impact and you have initiated change. And that is something that will stick for life like it will with me. These past two days and the friendships I’ve made will stay with me my entire life.

“What you are all doing is courageous and brave. You face opposition and adversity and yet you continue on. You are all amazing people. I wish you all safe travels and I will pray for your safety as you will probably face communities that were not as pleasant or “accepting” as what you experienced at Dordt. May God watch over you in everything you do and protect you with his loving hands. And may He work in the hearts of those who so strongly stand against you. I love you all and God Bless!”

tdogg

03-21-2007, 09:38 PM

Heterosexual priviledge applies to the entire cause for which the Equality Riders are engaging action. Somewhere on this forum there was a posting identifying many special rights given to heterosexuals but not homosexuals. This is what the ride is all about. Gay and lesbian students being harassed, violated, expelled from school because they are gay, because someone accuses them of being gay, because they are seen around gay people or gay places - they are kicked out of school (read the prior posts). This is not an uncommon occurance.

There are hundreds if not thousands of rights (priviledges really) given to heterosexuals that are not available to homosexuals. This is an unfortunate fact - if it was not true, the ER riders wouldn't need to be ridin'.

Daniel

03-21-2007, 10:08 PM

So it's ok to "invade" someone, to try to tell them they are wrong about christianity not accepting homosexuals? I understand you would like to help, and that's applaudable. But wouldn't it be better to offer help, and not beat down their door with it? (Following the analogy of coming into their home :) )

It's great to try and "educate" people on how one thinks Christ accepts all people regardless of sexual orientation, but they are entitled to their religious views as well. If one likes to promote religious tolerance, wouldn't the greatest tolerance be to accept another's religious views, and move forward?

Sorry, I support the idea of peaceful visits to promote the acceptance of the ER. But there's a line to be drawn somewhere.

How about we look at what you've written from another angle? Ok?

So it's ok to "invade" someone, to try to tell them they are wrong about christianity not accepting blacks/jews? I understand you would like to help, and that's applaudable. But wouldn't it be better to offer help, and not beat down their door with it? (Following the analogy of coming into their home :) )

It's great to try and "educate" people on how one thinks Christ accepts all people regardless of the color of their skin or ethnic background, but they are entitled to their religious views as well. If one likes to promote religious tolerance, wouldn't the greatest tolerance be to accept another's religious views, and move forward?

Sorry, I support the idea of peaceful visits to promote the acceptance of the ER. But there's a line to be drawn somewhere.

Changes in perception regarding black and jews and other minorities did not come because people simply accepted other people's 'religious views'. Baptists in the south had (and in some areas still have) markedly negative views about blacks based on their religious beliefs. Does that mean they should be allowed to discriminate against blacks and jews? Denying them jobs and housing etc? No. I don't thing so. That kind of bigotry is not accepted any more.

It doesn't take a great deal of thought to come to the conclusion that tolerance is the word that is used for those who have hardened their hearts to the suffering of others, which is what unacknowledged privilege is all about.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 11:47 AM

One of the things that frustrates me about messages boards and email is that when I am being serious and literal, people read between the lines and react to things I never even wrote. By contrast, when I am being sarcastic or lighthearted, people take it all seriously!

Anyway, I have been at work and in bed sleeping, so sorry for the delay in replying, but here you go!

Jacob, What do you suggest? What would you have the ERiders do? What would you like to have seen happen here that didn't?
Based on what I have learned, I would have liked to have seen the two groups drop the little issues and get along better. I am going to answer that with a few words from my friend Scott. I am not very good at short answers without giving a lot of history, so bare with me: Scott and his roommate (who came out and moved off campus after his junior year) lived across the hall from me freshman year and were all close friends. This was the Fall when Clinton beat Bush and they being conservative Republicans, hung the American Flag in their window upside down! Over the next ten years Scott slowly converted to a liberal and he credits me with helping change his view on women pastors. Now he is pastor of Cathedral of Hope in OKC and played a very key role as moderator between the ERiders and OBU. Read his blog here (http://escottjones.typepad.com/). Unlike me, he was there and so I trust his perspective and opinion.

Here is the email I sent him:

I talked with Marty for over half an hour. He was very nice.
Basically, his position is that after the experience last year, the ER asked for more and stated that the room and situation was "inadequate."
It seems that there was a shift in position and feeling between last year from a high degree of satisfaction with OBU's hospitality to a "looking back" and deciding OBU really wasn't hospitable enough.
I think OBU's position was that they were nice last year but now ER is saying it wasn't enough and now they want more. I think that kinda pissed off Brister and others.

And here is his reply:

Yeah, I know all of that. Some of the OBU reasoning (and some of the ER reasoning) is petty. I kept trying to break through that, but couldn't bring them to a middle ground they would both accept.

So I would have liked to have seen them talk to each other more rather than the mutual threatening.

You've spent a lot of time and energy defending a position that you claim is not your own. Could we please have your words about this now?
My words were posted last week in the Activism forum and that thread was linked in the original post on this thread. I think it is a good introduction to who I am, my involvement and interest and my opinion. After reading it, let me know if you have any more questions. (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406)

You seem to think that because the ER was invited in last year, near the dining room no less, that this should be satisfactory.
I thought it was amazing! I was so proud of OBU and I thought they sounded great in the Newsweek article. After everything I went through fifteen years earlier, it seemed that they had really moved forward! Turns out I was wrong, but still you gotta realize that there is time and expense in hosting guests (staff are paid to clean the room, set up chairs and tables, administration staff to do the paperwork and so on) and reports from the school suggested it cost over $1000.
Again, I talk about this in my other post. (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406)

You fail to mention that the E riders were turned away from worship.
No, I have not. This is from post 15 on page 1:

May I speak to President Brister?

He is in a meeting, may I take a message?

Yes, my name is Jacob Zimmer, I am an OBU alumni, my parents went to OBU, my grandparents went to OBU and my great-grandparents went to OBU. I am calling about the arrests on campus yesterday. I find the actions of the university to be embarrassing, shameful, and deplorable. That visitors were arrested on their way to Chapel is absolutely outrageous.

Would you like to receive a call back?

No thanks, just make sure he gets the message.

How do you spell your last name?

Perhaps there should be a discussion about who is welcome at the Lord's Table.
Read Scott's blog here about communion (http://escottjones.typepad.com/).

We haven't even touched on the policies in place at OBU that oppress God's LGBT children.
You should have been at OBU with me in the early nineties, I felt like I was the only one taking a stand against those policies. Of course, none of the GLBT would take a stand for fear of being caught. Imagine what its like not getting support from the people you are defending. One time after leading a Bible study on those six verses and saying essentially that they were a condemnation of idolatry and not orientation as we know it today, they assumed I wasn't "saved" and took me into another room to circle me in prayer for my salvation.

I wrote letters to the Editor of the student paper protesting the policy and talked to professors and administrators about it. Unfortunately there was never a forum on it. After I left, Scott and some other protested the dismissal of a gay student. Wish I had been there to help with that.

Please, Jacob, aside from arguing about whether a campus is private or public, whether it should be considered a home or not, how could the ER have done better than it did when it visited OBU? How could OBU have handled the visit better?
LAST YEAR: Based on conversations with one of the Riders last week, emails from Scott and a conversation with the Director of PR at OBU, I think the ERiders should have been more content guests. According to Marty, they called the room their were in last year "ghetto" (there are no rooms in that building that come close to "ghetto") and they said that the generous accommodations last year were "inadequate." I think its a little rude to tell your hosts who have no obligation whatsoever to give you a room that its inadequate. Also, reports indicate that the ERiders passed out literature last year when OBU asked them not to. The ERiders demanded more and that pissed off the administration. Again, I touch on all of this in my original post. (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406)

THIS YEAR: They could have entered campus in small groups or individuals and had individual conversations with students. But they intentionally made a scene, perhaps even a publicity stunt by being arrested. Remember, the ERiders called the police and told them of their intent to trespass. It was scripted and planned out. They worked with Marty telling him the time and place they were going to cross the line. Lets not pretend that they blended in with the crowd and were pulled out of line on their way into the chapel. The arrest was organized by the ERiders themselves.

LAST YEAR: OBU could have allowed them to pass out literature. They could have given them a table in the dining area downstairs next to the post office where there is lots of traffic rather than a room upstairs.

THIS YEAR: As I explained in my original post (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406), OBU could have just let them be and not reacted at all. Marty told me that his fear was that the riders would be disruptive and cited reports of ERiders lying in front of doorways at another college on the tour as an act of civil disobedience. If the OBU administration had allowed that to happen, the profs, students, parents, trustees and supporters would have been very upset. Still, I cite the passage in Acts 5 quoted in my original post (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406), as the best course of direction.

My opinion is what I told Marty on the phone: (which is in my original post (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406)) allow the ERiders on campus to do what they want and IF they were really disruptive, rude and so on, it would look bad on them in the media instead of looking like gays were arrested on their way to church.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 11:51 AM

But this suffering should not outweigh the suffering of gay persons who do not have the opportunity to hold hands and kiss in the same place that you did because of policies which deny them the basic human right to be happy.My sense is that the person who proffered the original question doesn't 'get' this. And that is a crying shame.
Yes, I think you nailed it on the head there. As I stated on this thread already, I have not written him back yet. I was hoping this thread would give me some ideas on what to write.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:03 PM

IMy other point I would like to make (could you tell I was making a point just now?!?!?) is that the sacrifice seems like a good one for the ER to make, and for me to make in circumstances, when speaking up and speaking out could improve the lives of LGBTQ persons who have to live silent lives on these campuses, or those that may even despise themselves enough to end their lives? To me, getting arrested or even trespassing, as long as I am not committing violence against someone, is worth it if it saves lives. Without any doubt at all in my mind. It is estimated that out of all completed youth suicides, close to 1/3 are committed by youths who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or are unsure of their sexual orientation. This type of civil disobedience is necessary, to bring to light the need to be more loving and embracing of persons that may be different than what people are accustomed to. This has to happen for the world to start changing, and appreciating how totally awesome we are, just the way we are...... Peace all, Vanessa :love: :love: :love: :love:
I agree with that, but I don't think anyone saw the arrests and thought about the suicide rate.

While we look back on the sixties and glorify King's non-violent civil disobedience as good and effective, today all too often protests by groups like PETA and the extreme greens that involve vandalism make the news. While I trust the ER to employ the former and not the latter, as I said in my original post (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406), I think the administration was just a little homophobic.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:06 PM

I only wish Jacob had eyes to see. Jacob, please give it a rest. I'm sorry you are feeling uncomfortable, but your discomfort is small in relationship to the young people who lose everything.
Kara
Hmm, I can't find the smilie I am looking for...

Zerbie

03-22-2007, 12:15 PM

You should have been at OBU with me in the early nineties, I felt like I was the only one taking a stand against those policies. Of course, none of the GLBT would take a stand for fear of being caught. Imagine what its like not getting support from the people you are defending.

:lol:

Heheheh! I don't have to!! Heck, I've been cornered by gay folk telling me to get out of activism to protect myself. One refused to ever speak to me again because I told him I thought he and others were worth taking a risk for. :confused: Gee, thanks for the support guys. :rolleyes:

One time after leading a Bible study on those six verses and saying essentially that they were a condemnation of idolatry and not orientation as we know it today, they assumed I wasn't "saved" and took me into another room to circle me in prayer for my salvation.
.

Ew, yuck.

Jacob, the conclusion I came to is that while my motivation in activism is that I want to see things better for others, I really do it for myself. For my own conscience. That is, as opposed to expecting gratitude or thanks, or even basic support. Then, when people DO express gratititude and support, it's a very pleasant experience, like the icing on the cake.

Obviously you have your own convictions and the determination to express them. Continue doing so because it's a moral imperative that drives you, but if you hang on to everyone's reaction, you may wind up upset. Just do what you know to be right.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:17 PM

U-dog, Thanks. :)

I think I see what you’re saying now. That for some people it is a private home and that by trespassing on the school’s property – no matter how altruistic the motive – it was an unequivocal invasion of privacy to those who lived there... the satellite photo really made me think twice about what campus life might have been like.. I’d heard the term before, I just didn’t realize the reality of the coziness of it all, until now.. :D

That “corporate” private property, so to speak, not only incorporates many individual “private properties,” but is an extension of those “private properties.” Invade one and you invade the other, that property is their home. I never looked at it like that. Interesting. That is definitely a concern worth looking into/discussing. (I think I got your point right, correct me if I'm wrong.)
YES, you got it. :) Thanks for understanding. I think u-dog did a good job introducing us to the "polis" and explaining the difference between private property and private space. My point is also that Bison Hill both IS home to its residents and FEELS like home on the grounds even outside of the residence hall buildings.

Jacob do you think the ER should at least make it more of a point to let it be known that this concern has been carefully considered and that measures have been taken to minimize any potential invasion of privacy to students living on campus.
Oh I think they totally did. Like I said in a previous post, the ERiders called the Shawnee police and told them where to arrest them. They carried no signs and made no noise. The bus parked off campus on a side street (is that pizza joint still there?) I don't think they invaded anyone's privacy. The point is that OBU's decision to arrest was a preventative measure out of fear that the riders would have been disruptive.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:27 PM

Jacob, THANK YOU for your illustrative and respectful response. I wish it had appeared a day or so sooner...
From an emotional standpoint I can clearly see what a treasured enivornment OBU was and is for you (and many of your family as well.) They are lucky to have such appreciative alumni. Of the 3 institutions of higher learning I've attended, 2 of them were/are among the largest, with approximately 50,000 and 60,000 students enrolled. One of them sprawled across 5 cities.
You are welcome. Thanks for understanding. Maybe I took it for granted that you all knew I was talking specifically about OBU and not large institutions in general.

I thought much of my position and background was elaborated on in my original post in the Activism Forum (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406). Of course, its has zero replies and only 66 views compared to this thread with 91 replies and 769 views. I was wrong to assume people would go to the link I put in my original post on this thread.

While I didn't discuss property rights in detail in that post, it did link to the view of OBU administration on that topic.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:33 PM

I don't believe Jacob has heard anything we've been saying.

I heard this:

These schools are not homes...

Like the KKK, they promote a view of superiority over other people.

You were completely and totally WRONG on both points and your other points were tangents going off topic.

I found that smilie I was looking for, but I will keep it to myself.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:39 PM

But if it's "okay" for the street preachers to "invade" my space by coming to my campus with their egregiously offensive signs about how horrible we all are, then it's "okay" for E Riders to visit a religious college and voice their opposition to anti-gay policy.
But you don't really think its "okay," do you? If something is wrong, don't imitate it.

On this specific case, as I have already said, the ERiders did not carry offensive signs so I don't think its a direct comparison. I don't think the ERiders did anything that was offensive.

But in general, if we look at protests that are offensive, disruptive and invasive, and we think those are bad things, we should do everything to avoid doing the same.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 12:45 PM

People who are "in the middle" on this issue will see the Soulforce Riders as courageous freedom fighters (which they are) who asked to have a dialogue (which of course they did).

If the college administrations refuse admittance to them they look (to the moderate middle) like closed minded bigots. (which in many cases they are)

If they invite the ERs onto campus they will look like open minded conservatives AND they (or their students) might actually be moved to understand the world in a new and better way by interacting with GLBT young people who don't fit the hideous stereotypes that the religious right is always trying to foist off on the world as "the truth" (which they know that it is not)
Well said.

This is from my original post:

There is a great story in Acts 5 that I have never heard in a sermon or Sunday School lesson about a Pharisee named Gamaliel, "a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people." When Peter and the other Apostles were spreading the Gospel in Israel, the Sanhedrin had them arrested. The high priest wanted to have the Apostles killed, but Gamaliel stood up and reminded his fellow members of the council about other prophets who had a brief stint of power and small group of followers but quickly their movement faded away. He was suggesting that arrest and capital punishment was unnecessary because the movement of a false prophet will die out on its own accord. Gamaliel then stated: "Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

I think Gamaliel's words are an appropriate Biblical standard for guests visiting Bison Hill as well. (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406)

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 01:05 PM

Jacob and Honeydoo, I am sure your hearts are in the right place. You wouldn't be involved in this forum if they weren't. But you need to listen to what is being said to you. Heterosexual privelege is like white-skin privelege - it is something you have to work to avoid. You have to begin to despise that privelege so much that you're willing to give it up. And certainly you have to not support that privelege. Please listen to those of us who have experienced this devastating bigotry and stop trying to maintain the status quo.

Kara
You are so rude and far out of line to make those assumptions and judgments! You have a very, very, very small amount of information about my life and experiences and you can't begin to jump to such conclusions.

What if I told you that I was a missionary kid born in Senegal, Africa (who never lived in the United States until I started college) and I was regularly beaten by the locals for being white? What if I told you that last month I was visiting a friend in a gay bar and was spit on by several guys just for being in the parking lot? What if I told you that ten years ago I broke my legs in a car accident and spent six months in a wheelchair - want to talk to me about privilege toward people who can walk? What if I told you one of my family members was Arab and I was living with him after 9/11 when his house was vandalized?

Don't you dare accuse me of trying to maintain the status quo because you assume you know my life. You don't know about my life, you don't know about my college and you don't know how to participate in one discussion without trying to change the topic to your personal tirade. If you want to talk about straight, white privilege that go and start your own thread about it, but don't post your off-topic and off-color accusations in the middle of another discussion and accuse me of not listening to you.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 01:23 PM

I don't see them really honestly asking for dialogue. i see them grouping together on the sidewalk, singing.......

Honeydoodle, you are unaware of a lot of the background info that most of us are familiar with. Read my post in the other thread (http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2406) and more information about the ER on this site.

JacoBison

03-22-2007, 01:35 PM

The point of the video is to show what actually happens on an EqualityRide visit. Maybe this video will be of interest.

Ua_c7DeI2Y0

THANKS for sharing that video Nate!!!

The first ERider featured, Katie, was the same person who I spoke to on the phone with before this year's visit. At the time, they were not planning to attend chapel and arrive on campus with a tapestry at 5 pm in the afternoon.

Now I am a little concerned that both Riders in the video talk about being surprised at being arrested when they in fact called the police themselves to tell them that they were coming and planning to trespass.

The video confirms what Marty told me about the arrests being a pre-planned event for the media. Marty is the Director of PR and (at one time) a journalism professor. So he knew as I did that the media reports would have limited quotes and not tell the full, complicated story, thus making OBU sound like it arrested gay folks for going to church, when that is not what happened.

I am really sorry to say this, but I am concluding that the arrest was a publicity stunt more than a true attempt to worship and dialog. :(

Daniel

03-22-2007, 01:47 PM

Yes, I think you nailed it on the head there. As I stated on this thread already, I have not written him back yet. I was hoping this thread would give me some ideas on what to write.

May I offer my own perspective on what you might write to this person?

But first I'd like to offer my 'take' on why the Eriders asked for 'more' this year.

First off, from the activist side of things, the question of hospitality is really not the issue here. Why? Any organization like SF that wants to make a difference wants to have direct and unfettered access to make that difference- and is going to do all it can to make that happen. That should be expected. The same thing happens in negotiations between an employer and a union of employee's (I know about this stuff. I'm on the negotiating committee at my place of work for our new contract which took a year to hammer out.) It's the job of the 'union' (SF) to ask for more. It's the 'job' of the employeer (OBU) to say no. When there is no way forward in negotiations, the last resort option on the part of the 'union' (SF) is to strike. In effect, that is what the Erider's have done- and have done nonviolently.

And why would they do so? I can only imagine that they would take this action to address the issue of homophobia and religious oppression itself. Being willing to be arrested isn't a publicity stunt. It's one of the methods of nonviolent reslstance.

I can imagine why Erider's would be unhappy with repeating their experience of being relegated to a room.

It's like having to repeat a mediocre performance (I sing for a living). No fun for anyone. All it really does it keep the administration 'happy'. But that's not very enlightening for anyone. What's been furthered, if anything?

The status quo!

And here's where I get to my point about what you might write to your friend.

Facing one's fears isn't an easy or simple matter. Facing up to what one really thinks and feels about gay people and matters of faith takes sustained concentration. It's all too easy to project one's discomfort on to the party one fears, in essence, making them responsible for that fear. This results, in my opinion, in the kind of question originally proffered here.

Another matter is the subject of nonviolence itself. Your friend might understand things better if he had a better handle on why SF and the Erider's are as passionate about religious oppression as they are. This means learning more about nonviolence itself. The resource is here. All he has to do to read a little bit.

And lastly- sorry to beat a dead horse here- your friend would do well to start thinking and meditating on the suffering of others. On the face of it, his 'why-can't-they-just-leave-us-alone' stance (that's how it comes across to these ears) is the posture of one who has his head in the sand in hopes the thing that bugs him (is he homophobic?) will simply go away.

But guess what? Gay christians are only going to continue coming out of the closet. They want to partake in the community life of the churches they were brought up in just like everyone else does.

How can he go about getting a handle on what gay people are going through? By getting in touch with the ways in which he suffers. The truth is that everyone is suffering in some way or another. Once this is recognized, then progress can be made. If he continues to see himself as somehow separate from gay people, he is splitting the body of Christ in two.

andrewlittle

03-22-2007, 01:51 PM

I stepped out of this discussion because of some good advice by keltic, and the realization that this was playing into a whole lot of underlying issues that function as triggers for me.

I'm not going to address the original topic, except to say that activism in an imperfect world is an imperfect approach - the very act of activism is aggressive, while seeking generally to alleviate aggression - it is frought with inherent tensions that raise emotional responses. It is the nature of the beast, I think. Nuff said about that.

What has become apparent is what happens when assumption meets assumption, when reaction meets reaction, when over-reaction meets over-reaction, and when profound pain meets profound pain. This thread is, in some ways, a microcosm of the world.

I'd love to say, "let's all get along", but that would insipid and trite and nice - and for that I would have to set some some example of acting nicely. Well, I've acted, reacted, over-reacted and pained someone else already. Getting along isn't what it's about.

We each come to this place bearing profound hurts - for many of us that's why we're here - for many, it just happens to be what we bring with us.

When hurts confront each other openly, I think there's reasonable evidence that the bearers can embrace each other in love and hope.

When hurt encounters hurt in the process of discussing emotional issues, those hurts can breed assumptions and reactions that are unwarranted and just add pain on top of pain on top ...

A great many things that have been said in this thread are TRUTHS - unassailable truths. They may, however, be truths that apply to our own circumstances and not directly related to others in the discussion. Privilege is undoubtedly one of those. We all operate from a position of privilege, one way or the other, but to assume someone operates from a specific kind of privileged position that we occupy, or as we see it, is not necessarily accurate.

The result can be pained/hurt people talking to each other out of their pain, as opposed to about their pain.

For what it is worth, I pray that we can step back a little, reassess our assumptions, re-evalute out reactions, and maybe embrace each other as hurt people with different experiences and concerns.

I, for one, am so very, very sorry for my part in inciting diatribe, in insulting Jacob with my assumptions, in playing the devil with the details. I can hear the pain that dwells in Kara, in Jacob, in others - and I know the pain that resides in my own soul - and I pray that we can see into those painful places in each other and recognize our own damage and damaging actions/assumptions for what they are.

What began as an argument about private space has ended being a dance of private pains, erupting and convulsing in ways that just lead to further pain. I don't have a solution - I just wanted to voice my apology for my part - and to pray for the invitation to embrace in each of our pains.

Now, back to the story ...

Alecto

03-22-2007, 02:10 PM

I really wanted to stay out of this, but I thought I'd throw this out there:

I see on my campus once every couple months a military recruiter. He (I haven't seen females; doesn't mean they're not out there) represents to me a government that does not see me as an equal human being. He represents to me everything that I'm "up against" through no fault of my own. And he is fully within his legal, and arguably moral rights to be there. I think that, once your "home" (however we define that word) is big enough, you're going to have people in it who upset some. Morally speaking, the difference comes down to the level of "upset" (it's a lot worse if someone is being really loud and disruptive; worse again if they're committing acts of vandalism or violence) balanced with their reason for being there. Ending systems of oppression is noble. Ending the loss of life caused by said system of oppression, even moreso (and less ambiguously so).

I could build a case about how recruiting kids to an unjust war blah blah isn't noble, but that's not even my point. My point isn't about the recruiter, perse, but just that there are people willingly brought on campus at least on a weekly basis at my school (which was also on the smaller side, and was definitely my home) who definitely upset a significant portion of that campus. (Aside from GLBT people, we are a New York State public liberal arts campus; MOST people oppose this war, many oppose all war).

tdogg

03-22-2007, 02:47 PM

“If someone had told me at the beginning of the week that I would be deliberately making and spending time with LGBT people, I might have told them they were crazy and laughed it off. I admit that I never had any intention of attending any of the presentations or the panel discussion when you guys were here at Dordt. But because one teacher decided that my Sociology class should attend the presentation instead of holding class, my life has been changed, and in an amazing way! My mind and my heart were really truly opened. Never has something really stuck with me this hard or so clear. Everything I experienced in the past couple of days has been so amazing. I met some incredible people and I have come to cherish every second that I spent in their company. God works in mysterious ways. I felt God pulling at my heart and now I understand why….

“I want to encourage you in that no matter what happens, you have friends here at Dordt College that are praying for you the whole way on your journey. You are warriors on a new battlefield. You are a few against many. But your strength is with each other and with God and you will shake the foundations of this nation and the church down to its core. For with God on your side, who will be able to stand against you? Whether you reach an entire campus or just one person, you have made an impact and you have initiated change. And that is something that will stick for life like it will with me. These past two days and the friendships I’ve made will stay with me my entire life.

“What you are all doing is courageous and brave. You face opposition and adversity and yet you continue on. You are all amazing people. I wish you all safe travels and I will pray for your safety as you will probably face communities that were not as pleasant or “accepting” as what you experienced at Dordt. May God watch over you in everything you do and protect you with his loving hands. And may He work in the hearts of those who so strongly stand against you. I love you all and God Bless!”

To me, this is what the ER Riders action is all about - reaching one person is worth others feeling the intrusion. After all, it isn't as if the ER Riders are moving in, they are sticking around a day or two and then they are gone. This person was obviously moved, touched, blessed by the ER visit and his life will never be the same. Likely the Riders have touched others as well, and through those lives, even more will be blessed. For some it may be uncomfortable, there is no denying that. We are not guaranteed a life of comfort 100% of the time - however, our constitution supposedly is to guarantee our civil rights 100% of the time. Unfortunately that is not the case in the gay and lesbian world. I say gay and lesbian world because, although we are supposed to be one world and one nation, under God, it certainly often does not feel like it. There are those who work hard to put us in our own world which is sadly lacking some basic civil rights that others are given.

Andy, thanks for your post. It was very meaningful to me and I will be sure to re-read it now and then. Your words are obviously from your heart and they have touched mine.

Alecto, thanks for your point of view. I agree. My job site is not my home but as I'm there for hours upon hours a day often putting in much overtime and working at the office on my days off (as a manager, I put in a lot of OT hours I never get paid for) - it feels like home. My office is my personal space, containing some personal touches. My work is important to me and means something to me. Upon occasion we have committe meetings held at work where the public are invited in to voice their concerns, often complaints directed at the Department I work for and the people I work with. It's definitely uncomfortable and feels like an invasion to me personally; however, they are well within their right morally and in this case, legally. Then they leave and life goes on for me in the office. A minor pain in the grand scheme of life.