Interview with Jacob Reitan, Co-Director of the Soulforce Equality Ride

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006

Let me start with a couple background questions about the organization. Some of the mottos and people you’ve modeled yourself after—I think Gandhi, with his nonviolent protest has been a big one; I think [there are] some Martin Luther King roots there. Can you explain that a little bit more?

Sure. Soulforce approaches human injustice by implementing the principles of relentless nonviolent resistance, which is really a roadmap for how to reach reconciliation with an adversary. And that roadmap starts with saying, ‘You’ve got to try to negotiate, you’ve got to try to explain and make your case for why you feel your adversary is wrong on a particular issue, and if they refuse to listen, if they refuse to negotiate, then you’ve got to commit yourself to direct action. You’ve got to take it to the streets, you’ve got to go public with your protests, and put yourself on the line for your cause.’

We are carrying on in that tradition. We really feel that it’s important that we go to the source of the suffering—as Gandhi says, where intolerance is taught—and cut off that suffering at its source. Places like North Central are places that teach a worldview that being gay is sick and sinful, and that worldview not only affects the gay students like David who were at North Central and are at North Central, but it goes out into society and it affects people like me or your everyday gay and lesbian person.

The reality is, as a gay movement, we have to be concerned about any American who holds the belief to be true that being gay is sick and sinful, because at the end of the day, it’s not just about winning the right to marry, or winning the right to not be fired from your job simply because your gay. It’s about creating a society that doesn’t question our right to marry and doesn’t want to fire us from a job because we’re gay. The front page of the USA Today just today said that 26 states now are actively trying to take away the right of gay and lesbian people to adopt children. So not only are we not allowed to form a family because of a marriage, we’re not even allowed to have children now.

It’s the viewpoints that are taught at North Central that cause people to go out and try to take away our right to adopt, so we’ve got to go to North Central to change hearts and minds, because it’s just simply not okay for the gay movement to be apathetic about what people feel anymore, particularly when it’s a religious belief. I mean, that in and of itself can be a concern. When someone holds it to be a tenet of their faith that another group of people is less than them in some way, that’s scary. We have to be very concerned about that.

Religion throughout the centuries has been used as a tool to exclude people of color, women, and even people of other faiths. Today it’s gay and lesbian people who are the other, who are the outcasts of the church. So, we’ve got to bring faith back to the values it should espouse. It should be about love, it shouldn’t be about fear, it shouldn’t be blind to the facts. So, I mean, there’s a lot of reasons why we’re coming to North Central. Certainly David Coleman is one big one, but there’s a whole host of them.

Do you think without Dave’s involvement in the Ride that you would have been coming to North Central?

If Dave wasn’t involved? That’s a good question. There’s around 200 colleges in the nation that have policies similar to North Central, and so there were plenty to choose from, and the fact that David Coleman reached out to us and told us his story certainly made going to North Central a more obvious choice, but, ah, I really don’t know. It is in Minneapolis, which is a town that I’m—you know, the major city of the state that I’m from, and that’s important to me, that I see my hometown community get rid of this notion that homosexuality is sick and sinful.

The Ride is about stigmatizing that view. We’ve got to stigmatize it and we’ve got to make it no longer acceptable for the everyday citizen to view gay people the way they view them today. It’s just not okay to have that viewpoint, and we have to make it that way. And the only way we’ll do that is if we actually get out on the streets and make it happen, and stigmatize it, and say, ‘End religious-based discrimination,’ because that’s what we’ve got to do. So, um, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know.

What you’re saying so far sounds kind of, to be honest with you, like—I mean, if I were to play that back to a lot of people here at the school, I think they would probably be a little bit, like, thinking that was a little adversarial, especially towards us here as Christians.

Sure, and I’m a Christian too, and the fact is, as I see it, being Christian doesn’t come down to whether or not you think being gay is a sin. I think being Christian is whether or not you recognize Jesus Christ as your Lord, your Savior, the forgiveness of sins, communion, baptism: these are the things that I think make us Christians. We can disagree about whether being gay is a sin and still all be Christians. But, I think you’re right. We are maybe more radical.

We do hope when we come to North Central that students will want to talk to us, that our disagreements won’t make the discussion disagreeable, but if I was to play what North Central says—what the president of North Central says—about gay and lesbian people to the gay community, they would be very turned off as well. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to the president of North Central. In his sermon to the students just earlier this year, he compared being gay to bestiality and pedophilia. [Editor’s note: Reitan is referring to comments made by President Gordon Anderson in his Sept. 16, 2005, chapel message. Click here to download the four-minute excerpt.] That is horribly dangerous rhetoric that has real consequences in the lives of gay and lesbian people.

So we’re talking about something that’s very serious, so it’s more than an issue for us—it’s our very lives. So yeah, we’re going to be very opinionated, we’re going to be passionate, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be willing to talk with us, and you shouldn’t be willing to have discussions about this. North Central is making a choice, as far as an administrative standpoint, to say no to that standpoint, so that’s discouraging to us. And I understand that, you know, we might come with a message that you don’t hear every day at North Central, but that’s why it’s all the more reason to talk with us.

What about a little bit more about your original goal before you got turned down by the school? I think maybe you’re sounding really adversarial right now, and I’m wondering if that’s not an effect of the fact of the response you got.

Sure it is. I mean, we’re going to, um— Even at Bethel, the school right across the river from you, they are welcoming us on campus and they are providing for a lot of opportunities for us to be there. I’m going to, when I speak to them or to the press about them, commend their choice, because it was a choice they didn’t have to make. But at the same time, I’m going to say that, you know, the choice they’re making to treat gay people in the way that they do is immoral. And they know that. So, originally our goal—and our goal, our means, is to have a change at North Central—is to seek dialogue and discussion.

So we have very serious concerns with the way you treat gay and lesbian people. We have concerns with the way that you look at what it means to be a Christian in terms of gay and lesbian issues. We’re seeking to come and discuss those concerns, to have moments where we can move beyond stereotypes and caricatures on both sides—there are stereotypes on both sides—to get to know each other as individuals and as peers, to really talk about these issues and to have it be a productive day of learning, and hopefully a day where we come out both sides better for it.

And we’re still going to have that day. Even if North Central won’t allow us a forum to give that speech, we’re still going to come to North Central because we believe the discussion is that important. You know, we need to come, and we need to have that discussion. We would love to be able to give a presentation. From a Christian perspective, a lie we feel—you know, these six famous Bible verses, which we call the ‘clobber passages’ because we get beaten over the head with them, don’t say what you think they say. You know, we would love to have that opportunity to explain what we think about Romans 1 and Leviticus. We would love to explain to you the gravity with which we see the situation. We have a compelling presentation called ‘Letters to Mel’ that, we read letters, specific letters written by people who wrote to the executive director of Soulforce, Mel White. He’s gotten tens of thousands of letters over the years from gay and lesbian evangelicals, people like those who go to North Central. And to hear their words and thoughts, and let them speak for the effect that the message has on people, when people refuse to acknowledge and affirm gay and lesbian people as they are.

Getting back to the process of communication between the Ride and North Central, can you take me through a little bit of how it was for you when you were communicating with President Anderson and other members of administration, and sort of what your reaction has been since you’ve gotten the negative response from them, and then what your plans are now?

Yeah, I mean, our plans have clearly not changed. I can’t stress that enough. Early on we wrote the school saying, ‘We’re thinking of coming. What would be your response to us coming?’ And every school that we have sent out that letter to was offered the opportunity to respond, and if my understanding is correct, North Central didn’t choose to respond then. So they had an opportunity to explain to us why they didn’t want us to come. Not that we were stunned by that. There were other schools that said, ‘Please don’t come,’ that we ended up going to. There were other schools that said, ‘Please don’t come,’ that we read the reason why and said, ‘Okay, we won’t come then.’

Let’s see, that was in December that they had that opportunity, and they also had an opportunity back at the beginning of the year when we sent a letter to all these schools explaining the Equality Ride and that it would be taking place. So there were two letters before we even knew who had been selected. Then they were selected and we said, you know, we’d like to see this as an opportunity for learning and discussion and dialogue. I think we print positions that we believe passionately or are passionate about, and we hope that passion won’t get in the way of discussion and dialogue, but that you will see this as an important opportunity for your students to hear another perspective.

We have never really received any sort of response but the short responses of, ‘No, we don’t want to discuss this. No, we can’t.’ And you know, that’s their philosophy. It’s a sad choice, I think, because I think students at North Central would be served well by this opportunity, and I think it’s in the spirit of Christ—even if you think we’re sinners as gay people—I still think it’s in the spirit of Christ to invite in those who disagree with you and to talk with those who disagree with you. ‘I was a stranger and you let me in.’ Now you can talk about how that’s about someone who’s in need and poor, but I also think that’s about those who are a stranger to you in terms of what you think and believe. We are people who are different from you in some way, and if you let us in to talk and converse, I think that is a true Christian response. Regardless of whether you think we’re sinners or not, that is a true Christian response.

If North Central had welcomed you guys to come, and you had done your presentation and everything and had talked to students, but everybody who you talked to still at the end of the day was telling you, ‘We still believe the same way. We’re happy to have made your acquaintance, but we’re not going to change our minds’—would you be satisfied with that result, just being welcomed in but not really changing people’s minds about the issue?

If I had a forum to speak to North Central students and explain why I’m here and why I feel passionately about this and they had an opportunity to hear it and yet they weren’t convinced, I would be happy with that, because I think they need to at least have that opportunity to hear it. And I don’t think when they hear how they need to change that they will change. I think there are indeed important points that we will raise that will call people to think and reexamine, and that is very unfortunate.

So, I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as, ‘It didn’t affect me’—I think it’s sure to be effective. I think I would be affected if a North Central student came up and gave us a speech about why being gay is a sin. I would listen to what they had to say. I wouldn’t change my mind. I think I might understand them better as a person. I thing I might understand their reasoning better, their intentions better.

At this point, I think there’s a caricature that Soulforce is nothing more than a bunch of gay radicals out to cause trouble. We are out to stigmatize the belief that we’re sick and sinful, but I think anybody would be just as vigorous in protecting their humanity if indeed they felt that their humanity was being questioned. But at the same time, our motive is not to cause trouble. Our motive is to get people to think and to get people to know us and to understand us and to hear us. So I think just understanding us differently as people would be a proactive step forward.

Would you say that it’s more important, your goal for the Ride, for a school like North Central just to welcome dialogue about the issue, but not change their stance on admitting homosexuals?

You know, I mean, these are our goals. Our goals have always been at least these things:

1) It is to inspire the gay community to be activists, to be active in defending their humanity, to feel justified in saying to a religious person who says, ‘It’s my religious belief that being gay is a sin,’ to feel justified in saying to that person, ‘You’re wrong.’ The gay community is too scared to do what we’re doing. They do not feel they have a place in saying to North Central students that you might call it a deeply held religious belief and that it is affirming people, but it is discrimination and indeed it is immoral. We need our community to feel justified about that. So goal one always, from the beginning, has always been to remove the fears of gay and lesbian people to feel the call to do activism—to give them that opportunity, to renew them.

2) The second goal, as I see it, is to send out that important message to people who are in the schools like North Central, that God loves you as you are, God created you as you are, that your school teaches falsely what it means to be gay and lesbian people. Not intentionally—I think North Central, including Dr. Anderson, are well intentioned in what they’re doing. They’re sincere in their beliefs, but they’re sincerely wrong. I believe that.

3) And then the third goal is to break down these stereotypes and caricatures, to get North Central to know us as individuals, to hear our stories, to let the existentialist sort of personal moments in our lives be our best witness.

4-5) And then the fourth and fifth goals are those that we want to— The fourth goal is changing hearts and minds and the fifth goal is changing policy. To change the policy is part of it, but it is only part of it, and there is so much more that we get out of doing it that’s important.

What if North Central were to change their policy to say, ‘Well, we’ll let someone who says, ‘I think I’m a homosexual person,’ to attend, but we’ll still ban gay behavior. Would you see that as acceptable?

It’s certainly not ‘acceptable.’ I think anything that’s less than saying that gay people are holy people of God and loved exactly as they are without reservation is not acceptable. I would be happy with any step that North Central takes forward, but I’m not going to see anything as acceptable that demeans the value and life of gay and lesbian people. It’s not acceptable.

Is there a way that the two sides can meet halfway in this situation, or do you feel like this is more of an all-or-nothing deal?

I think there are ways that people can take steps forward, but I think this is an issue that’s based in truth and untruth and in morality and moral and immoral. I think that’s very real. I think history will be on our side, that when the history books are written a hundred years from now, they’ll say that Christians by and large did not do right by their Christian gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. I think this will be something that the Christian church has to ask forgiveness for.

At the same time, I think there are plenty of ways North Central can take a step forward. One huge way, you know, is to say that there is room for disagreement here, that there is room for discussion, that there is room for straight allies to have a role on campus, that this is not a one-way-or-the-highway approach at the school.

Another way to take a step forward is to be very clear that there are professors and students and counselors on campus where gay and lesbian people can go and talk to without fear of repercussion or reprisal, and most importantly, without being told what to do that has an agenda attached. So if you go to a counselor’s office and say, ‘Hey, I’m having a problem with my boyfriend, and this is what’s going on,’ that the counselor doesn’t turn around and use that to get the student kicked out, that the counselor doesn’t turn around and say, ‘My solution for you at this point is to go through ex-gay therapy.’

[Editor’s note: Several comments have been removed that refer to the specific situation surrounding David Coleman’s dismissal from the school. Since administration cannot comment on Coleman’s specific situation due to privacy laws, the editorial staff does not feel it would be fair to include comments that cannot be balanced with an opposing viewpoint.]

I think one thing that a lot of students here would ask right away when hearing about your group’s stance is, “Well, we’re a private institution. Students ought to know when you come here— You know, you do sign a form saying, ‘I understand this is what the school’s beliefs are.’” Doesn’t the school as a private religious institution have some rights at least as far as saying, “This is the way we interpret Scripture and this is what we expect of you as a student?”

Sure. The school has every right. I have no ability to take away the school’s right to practice discrimination. I don’t. It is their right. I am not suing the school. I am not calling on the government to prevent North Central from doing what it is doing. I am a private citizen who is a gay Christian who is concerned about how other people are viewing and treating people like me in society. I see the treatment that gay and lesbian people receive at North Central as immoral, and I think the viewpoints of most of the people at North Central are misplaced. As a gay person who seeks to live in a world that is reconciled, that doesn’t look at me as sinful, I have to solidify myself to go to the places that teach the viewpoint that homosexuality is sick and sinful and explain to them why I think they’re wrong.

I think I understand where you’re coming from and why you feel the way you feel, but isn’t there something to say to the fact of giving the message to people here who disagree with you—and whether their beliefs are wrong or not—to say, ‘You’re bigots,’ or, ‘You’re practicing bigotry,’—do you really think that’s what’s going to bring about reconciliation?

Well, I think the reality— I don’t know about that message. I think you asked me why I think that’s ongoing. That’s just the way I see it. We have to— I have total compassion for people who find themselves in a position of saying that homosexuality is sick and sinful. I do. Not that I think they’re right—but I understand why they’re in that place, I understand how they came to have that opinion, you know, I don’t even fault them for having that opinion. It’s a product of the church, it’s a product of society, it’s a product of history.

The bigoted worldview is the view that people continually refuse the question. If you’re not willing to say, ‘Maybe my theology on this is wrong’—so often when you have a discriminatory view that’s wrapped in theology, it becomes a bigoted worldview because it’s something you can’t question; you become unable to question it because you see it as a tenet of faith. And so, many people think, ‘If I question this, I’ll have to question my entire faith.’ I have great compassion for that problem. I understand it. I understand how important faith is.

I’m a person of faith myself. I’m a Christian. I understand how that’s a difficult place to go into. I don’t want to sound flippant when I say that this is discriminatory or this is oppression. I don’t want to sound like I’m just casting North Central students off as hate-filled people. I don’t think they’re hate-filled people. I do think that there are people who don’t understand what it means to be gay and lesbian, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific facts as they have been determined today, and who are tenacious in hanging on to the belief that homosexuality is sick and sinful in the face of ample evidence that it’s not.

What would you say to a student at North Central who were to come to you, or meet you somewhere—maybe at the demonstration—what would you say to someone who were to say to you, ‘I believe homosexuality is wrong. This is the way I believe the Bible to read. I’m not going to question that. That’s not negotiable for me, but I still want to establish friendships with your community.’ What would you say to someone like that?

I would say, ‘Go for it. Do it.’ You don’t have to acknowledge that I’m not a sinner just to try and become my friend and get to know me. Absolutely, I would commend that voice and that thought, because I think there are a lot of people at North Central who want to know gay people and want to understand them better, but are to afraid to because they think gay people wouldn’t welcome it because gay people wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who thinks they’re a sinner. And there might be a few gay people out there who wouldn’t, but at the same time, I think it would be through that friendship, or through getting to know that person, that they’ll come to understand why they’re wrong. And they have to be afforded that opportunity to know gay people and understand gay people to see why they’re wrong.

But I want to return for a second back to the notion of— You know, at the beginning you said, ‘Well, I think if a North Central heard what you were saying they would see you as a radical and not as productive.’ I want people to understand that the view that being gay is sick and sinful is immoral, and I hope that they will see why I mean that. I’m a gay person who believes that I’m a child of God who loves me as I am without reservation, so I have to believe that the view that I am sick and sinful is immoral to make me feel justified in feeling the way I feel. And people always feel like I am personally attacking them, and I am attacking the viewpoint, but I don’t want to attack the person. I never want to say that the person—that you are a hate-filled person. I guess if I thought that you were a hate-filled person I might say that, but I don’t think North Central students are hate-filled. I think they’re well-intentioned people who just have to understand, and need to have a good source of getting to know someone like me or someone who is gay to maybe better understand.

As a gay person, do you feel like there’s any difference between Christians who say, ‘Being a homosexual’—or a gay, lesbian, you know, bi, transsexual person—‘is a sin,’ and those who say, ‘That’s not a sin, but I still find the behavior to be a sin’? Do you feel like there’s any difference there, or do you feel like in the end it’s still pretty much saying the same thing?

I think that’s a good question. I actually think there is more compassion in the person who says the orientation is a sin. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? I think a person who understands that a person is born gay and has an orientation that can’t be changed is saying that by all intents and purposes I am created that way, yet am not allowed to act on it. It lacks a lot of the compassion that the other person actually possesses, because I think the other person understands that the role of humans is to find love, to have love, that the real story of Genesis is not that there was a man and a woman that were together, but that the man was alone and that God provided that man a partner because he couldn’t be alone, and that we all strive to have and find love and companionship and share our lives with someone. And when you understand it to be an orientation, something that someone is orientated to, and that a gay person could not find and have love with someone of the opposite sex, only with someone of the same sex, and then in the same breath choose to deny that person that right, I think that actually lacks more compassion. I don’t get that position. I think if you’re willing to say it’s an orientation and not a choice, then you have to be willing to say that person has a right to have and find love in their life as everyone should.

On the other hand, though, wouldn’t the person who just comes straight at you saying, ‘You’re a sinner,’ as opposed to saying, ‘What you’re doing is a sin, but I think you as a person—’

Well, you asked a different question. You’re saying someone who sees it as an orientation, and I think that’s different. No, I think if someone responded to me and said, ‘You’re a sinner,’ well then they don’t see it as an orientation, they see it as a choice, an active choice that I’m making to be unnatural, to choose to reject my heterosexual feelings and replace them with homosexual feelings.

So you think that’s more compassionate, to just go ahead and say, ‘You’re a sinner’?

I think it is more ignorant. I think it lacks a certain level of understanding that society has brought us to. But at the same time, I think it is understandable. I think it is more compassionate, that indeed those people see heterosexuality as a viable option for me, and see it as a reality that I can attain in my life, and they see me as a person who is refusing to accept that reality. I get it, and I still think there can be a level of compassion there, that they can in telling me to become straight or actually trying to bring me back to Christ, I think that’s actually a compassionate act. I think it has a great amount of ignorance as to what reality is, about what it means to be a gay or lesbian person. But if the person just says, ‘Well, I totally understand that you can’t be straight and this is who you are, but there is no place for you to find and have love’—they’re not as ignorant, but they have less compassion.

What if that person just says, ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to be judgmental if I’m not sure.’ What if the person is like, ‘I think the Bible to me is really clear that at least engaging in homosexual acts is wrong, but I’m not sure about the orientation still, or if I’m going to make this dichotomy just because I’m not sure’?

I think I have understanding for anyone who’s wrestling with the Bible and choosing to find out what God’s true plan is for them. That’s what we all should be doing as people of faith—constantly questioning and trying to mull stuff over and getting to know Christ better. So, I mean, when we individualize it, ‘Is this person compassionate or is this person not?’—I’m just trying to give you general views. I think for every person who is trying to be a faithful Christian, God’s not going to fault them in the end. On judgment day, even if they have treated gay people bad, God will say, ‘I understand you were trying to do your best. You just didn’t see what I was trying to show you. But people on earth, well-intentioned—some Christians are not—people on earth tried to show you what it means to be gay.’

How do you feel the church right now today overall, generally speaking, looks at the gay community? Do you feel like most are in the camp of saying, ‘You’re sinners,’ or do you feel like there’s more of a variation right now among Christians?

Well, that’s a complicated question. It’s a good question. I guess I would say, you know, certainly Christian institutions by and large are anti-gay still. There is one Christian institution that allows for gay marriage, and that’s the United Church of Christ. There’s not another Christian church out there that will marry gay people, and any church that chooses not to marry a gay person is saying there’s something wrong with being gay. So, we’ve got a long road to go to change the Christian church.

At the same time, I think there’s a warning sign going up for the Christian church, because as the church is not acknowledging our equality, young America is. The college students at North Central and in some sense the college students at large in America are truly a minority. Most college students today are for gay marriage, are for treating gay and lesbian people equally, in society and otherwise. And I think the Christian church, when they go so far out on this issue, they’re really hanging themselves, because they’re making the church less relevant for youth today, and youth are leaving the church in greater and greater numbers. They’re becoming less attached. Christianity is becoming less relevant because they see it as something that is hurting people who they love.

So, as a Christian, I’m concerned about the future of the church because of how far out they’re going on this issue that it’s hard to come back from. It’s amazing to me how the church has been able to come back from what it’s done in times of slavery in many ways. I think it kind of baffles me that, for instance, the Mormon church used to say that African Americans couldn’t be members, and then they said, ‘Well, they can go to heaven, but they’ll be servants in heaven.’ And this was said by the prophet of the church. And they think the prophet of the church speaks for God. And they still think that today. And now the prophet of the church is saying that gay people can’t enter the chamber of heaven, they cannot enter the temple, and they hold that this is true. And eventually, you’ve got to start saying, ‘Maybe the prophet of the church isn’t right.’

And it’s the same way in America. Jerry Falwell, one of the first schools we’re going to, used to not let black people enter the church. He called the civil rights movement the ‘civil wrongs movement.’ It was based on faith. He used Bible verses to say that black people should be separated from white people, to support segregation.

I think it does damage to faith when people of faith who are leaders use faith as a weapon to exclude and condemn and oppress and discriminate, because faith becomes less and less relevant. Abilene Christian, another school we’re visiting— There was a community college built in the town of Abilene solely for the purpose of allowing black people to go there, because Abilene Christian wouldn’t let them go there. So, we’ve got to start looking at this and saying, ‘What effect will this have? When will we get to the point where we see gay and lesbian people as equal children of God?’

And we have gone so far out with such extreme statements— Jerry Falwell said in reaction to the Equality Ride that, ‘If we ever support their agenda, I want you to burn our school to the ground.’ Now you can say that we have hyperbolic language, but this is such hyperbolic language used by Christians today condemning gay and lesbian people. They use incredible language, that the world will come to an end if society accepts homosexuality. But when society eventually does, it’ll be the Christian church that will be hurt by it. We have gone so far out on this issue that it will be credibility that will lack within the church.

Wouldn’t you agree that there’s hyperbolic language on both sides, though? I know there are a lot of conservative Christians that have been offended by some of the flamboyant, in-your-face demonstrations of radical gays as well.

Sure, and we are those radical gays. Honestly, if there’s anybody that’s a radical gay, it’s Soulforce. I mean, we’re the ones that stand on the street corner with signs. We’ve decided at the Southern Baptist convention to say that Southern Baptist teaching is killing gay and lesbian people. But we have stories of people who killed themselves from the Southern Baptist teachings.

One of the greatest people who’s my good friend and works with Soulforce is Mary Lou Walner. And she wrote a book called ‘Letters to Anna,’ I think it was called. She [Anna] was a great Christian, and her mom would write to her, and she wrote her letter after letter how Anna was going to go to hell, how Anna had hurt the family, how Anna had done horrible things by being a lesbian. And Anna went and killed herself. And Mary Lou is now a great advocate for Soulforce and has copies of those old letters and reads them and shows them and says, ‘This is what I thought I should do. I thought I was doing right by my daughter. I was trying to bring her back to Christ, but in the end, I was rejecting my family member and turning her off to the notion of Christ in general, and she died alone and sad.’

So when we have stuff that seems pretty hyperbolic, and we say stuff that seems to be alarmist to people, it’s because we honestly see the effects of it. We see the effects of it in silent gay and lesbian people who are alone and who are outcasts of their family and their church and they don’t know where to turn. I know more gay people who haven’t been home in decades, haven’t been home to see their parents because their parents won’t welcome them in because they’re gay. And they use religion as an excuse.

So, we’ve got to paint in very clear terms the dangerous effects that we can have on people’s lives, and the ultimate reality is these college students at North Central who are straight, they may one day have gay and lesbian kids, and they’re going to be forced with a choice on how to treat that person. And I hope to God they make the right choice, because the wrong choice does have deadly consequences. At the very least, it breaks apart families, and that’s not good for anyone.

I think a major question a lot of people here would have would be, ‘How far do you go then as far as saying science has proved this and maybe we’re misinterpreting the Bible?’ I know there’ve been scientific studies today that try to say that child molestation might be a natural and healthy behavior, and even less radical than that, to say that normal human behavior is to go sleep around, and obviously Christians believe that’s wrong too. Is there a line there for where faith meets science? Because I know you use science a lot to defend your stance.

Sure. I honestly understand the fears of Christians that use the slippery slope argument and point to stuff like pedophilia. I find it intensely offensive. I worked for Patty Wetterling. I was her finance director. Here’s a woman whose child was kidnapped, most likely by a child molester, and was never found. I think it would mitigate her suffering when you put people in that camp who are gay and lesbian.

As far as the difference, if you want to draw a line between child molesters and gay people, gay people, when you deny them the right to be gay, ah, to have a dialogue, they have no other option to turn to. It’s their only option because it’s an orientation. Now I know there’s people who say that whatever is an orientation, who say that pedophilia is an orientation, and in fact, you know, maybe we would be well suited to examine whether people are orientated. I hope to God they’re not, but if they are, I think it’s real clear that we are not a people who are doing that.

I’m all for sex offender registries. But we’re talking about gay and lesbian people who are adults and who are, you know—I think they’re only choice is to repress their sexuality or to allow them to live it out, and when you’re adults and you’re not hurting anyone, and you get a lot out of companionship and love and sharing your life with someone, then it becomes cruel to deny that to them. It becomes absurd to me the notion that if you allow gay people to do this, you have to allow child molesters to do that too.

Child molesters do real damage to people. I’ve had close friends who were molested as children—straight friends; I know there’s theories of how molestation causes people to be gay. I had a straight friend who was molested as a child and has gone through severe adult depression because of it. It does horrible things to people’s lives, and it’s a crime, and it should be a crime, and it’s ridiculous and absurd that your people compare the two. I really think that if you can’t see the qualitative difference between when you allow a child molester to act on that desire versus when you allow a gay person to act on that desire, I mean, I don’t know how I can make it any more clear than that.

What about the issue of monogamy? There are other biblical passages other than the ones that are against homosexuality that talk about how you need to be in a monogamous, lifelong relationship. How does that relate to the homosexual lifestyle?

The same way I would hope it would relate to the heterosexual lifestyle. I mean, I want to have a monogamous relationship with a man one day and marry him and live with him and spend my life with him.

Maybe the first question to ask would be, do you agree with that? Do you agree that the Bible teaches monogamy?

Do I agree? I’ll tell you what it does teach. It does teach that divorce is an abomination, and people who are divorced who get remarried are adulterers. Jesus himself said that, and yet Jerry Falwell’s executive assistant has divorced and remarried a woman and yet is still allowed to be president of the moral majority. So, where are our values when we treat divorced people in a better light than we treat gay and lesbian people?

Now does that mean I think we should exclude divorced people from the church? Absolutely not. I think the church made a right choice to say that people should be allowed to get a divorce and remarry. I think people are better off for it. But there are such huge inconsistencies when the church treats divorced people one way and gay people another. You know what I’m saying? I mean, there are more times in the Bible that talk about divorce—52 times versus 6 times for gay and lesbian people. But people are so passé about divorce, you don’t see a federal marriage amendment denying people the right to get married a second time and inserting it in the U.S. Constitution excluding divorced people as ‘the other.’ I mean, give me a break.

As far as monogamy, though, you do see a lifelong—

I see monogamy as a virtue, absolutely. I see it as a virtue. I see it as something that should be lived out and embraced and something I strive for.

What do you think causes it to be such a difference, then, among the gay community historically? I think, I’m pretty sure statistically, the gay community has a lot more sleeping around outside those monogamous relationships than the straight community does, at least generally speaking. What do you think causes that?

I don’t buy into that, first of all. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a straight bar—it’s pretty sexual out there. Certainly, maybe that’s the case among North Central students, maybe they’re not sleeping around. But the number one people that use Planned Parenthood in West Virginia are Liberty students, and what does that tell you? So, I don’t really buy into that.

So you don’t think there is a difference, then? You think it’s pretty much the same for both heterosexuals and homosexuals?

I don’t know what the facts are. I certainly know lesbians are far more monogamous than heterosexual or gay men. I mean, um, so, you know, honestly, I don’t believe there’s a difference. No, I don’t. I think that there are straight people that— I don’t know if you watch TV late at night, but there’s a thing called Girls Gone Wild that’s on all the time. So I think to look at us and classify all gay people as promiscuous and say all straight people are less promiscuous and more holy, then—you’re making caricatures of one group and using it to condemn that group. And that is dangerous.

On the other hand, I know there’s arguments—people will say, too, ‘Even if there is more immorality of that type in the gay community, it could be a result of societal and even religious pressures.’

Yes. You know, there are people out there. There are a few churches that actually have a Christology that includes gay people and gives them a message of monogamy.

Moving away from theological discussion, I definitely need to ask you about your plans to visit North Central specifically. I’ve heard talk about a protest, perhaps, in Elliot Park, maybe even having as much as 2,000 people. Is that true?

That would be great!

I don’t know. We’re going to have a rally in Elliot Park where we talk about David Coleman and what happened there. We’re planning on having a compelling day of presentations and discussions at North Central and moving forward with that. We still hope that North Central will choose to provide us with forms that we can agree upon—the setting, the time—as we have at other schools. We commend those other schools that have made those choices and we applaud them. We think it’s the right choice they’re making and North Central is making the wrong choice to not work with us. But it ultimately is their choice. It’s their choice to discriminate. It’s their choice to welcome us or not. We don’t dispute the right that they have to free will and to do whatever they please, but at the same time we’re going to question the choices they make and the moral underpinnings of them.

Is that an accurate estimate? Is that 2,000 number accurate?

Oh, hardly, gosh, if we had 2,000 I’d call up the papers—I don’t what I’d do. I don’t know what an accurate estimate is. I don’t know how many we can count on. I know I know a lot of people in Minneapolis who are concerned about this issue and who want to come out.

What would you say would be a more reasonable expectation for how many people you might get to come out?

I don’t know. I really don’t know.

How many members are there of the Equality Ride itself?

35.

Beyond that, where will you be looking to get other people to come?

Well, local area churches that are affirming and welcoming; local area colleges; hopefully we’ll get some public officials out there. I think people in this town are tired of Christianity being seen as a religion that excludes and want to make apparent the notion that there are churches out there that don’t exclude and don’t discriminate. We’ll be happy to take part in this time and say, ‘This is what Christianity should be about.’

Have you made contact with officials, media, stuff like that yet, or are you planning on waiting on that still?

Well, the Star Tribune is doing an article on the Ride right when it starts. They’re getting the first story on it. But we will [be contacting those sources as we progress].

Maybe to rephrase my question, I guess what I mean is, with North Central specifically, how long do you plan to wait for the school to possibly change their mind before you start making, I guess, more aggressive efforts to get people to come out for a protest?

Oh, it isn’t a protest. We’re going to have a rally at North Central whether they welcome us on or not. You know, this has always been in the plans, to have a rally for David Coleman. It has nothing to do with whether or not they welcome us. We’re going to have a rally to support our friend who was mistreated at North Central.

So there’s absolutely no change in plans whatsoever whether or not they welcome you?

Well, we’d certainly be willing to change the plans for what we would do during that day when we come. We’re totally willing to talk about what our plans are and what they’d like to see happen while we are there, but as far as the rally is concerned, that’s going on as planned.

Assuming that the school chooses not to welcome you, what is the plan exactly then? What will you be doing?

We’ll take part in those forums that they allow us to take part in. Hopefully we’ll be able to have a lunch with administrators, or a lunch with student leaders, to try to get to know each other. If there’s a church, then we’d like to go to it. I think there is a church service on Monday that we’re planning on going to regardless. We’d like to have a Bible study. We’d like to talk about the issue, you know.

Will you still be trying to come onto campus even if they don’t welcome you?

You sure want to get to the probing questions, don’t you? [Laughs] We’ve told them from the beginning that we’re coming whether they welcome us or not. We feel called to come and we will come, yes.

So you will be not just, then, across the street in Elliot Park, but you’ll be attempting to come onto campus?

Oh, yeah. We’ll be coming onto campus. We’re going to church with you in the morning, so hopefully you’ll save us an extra seat.

You mean chapel?

Chapel. Chapel, church, convocation—they all call it something different.

Have you heard any response from the school as far as, will they try to make any arrests if you try to come onto campus?

I have no idea. I hope not. We’re not seeking arrests. We’re not trying to get arrested.

Is that a possibility, legally speaking? Can they arrest you?

Of course. It’s private property. We respect that right. We believe that they have that right.

Can you give me any more specifics about what you might say or why you would be choosing to highlight him?

Well, we’ll be choosing him because he was kicked out, but I’ll let him speak for himself beyond that.

Will you be welcoming to North Central students the day that you come if they want to come talk to you?

We’d welcome them. We’d love it. We’d love to talk with them. From the beginning, I know a lot of them have seen my message and our viewpoint as disagreeable, but that doesn’t mean our conversation has to be disagreeable. I mean come on, you’ve got to understand how I find a lot of what they say to be disagreeable—you know, that we’re sick and sinful and comparing us to pedophiles. I mean, it’s offensive, but at the same time, it’s my intention that I want to come talk with these people.

Can you clarify for me your plans to come on campus versus to hold a rally in Elliot Park? Will you be doing both, then?

Yes.

We don’t want to get arrested. I never once said that we’re going to get arrested. I don’t want to talk about arrest. I don’t want to mention it because that’s not what our goal is. But we are going to come onto every campus that we’re going to, from Liberty to West Point, where we feel called to make our presence felt on that campus. That will be the same with North Central.

Now, we’re going to have a rally in Elliot Park because we understand that we need to have a rally in a public place so that the general public can come without the school’s administrators saying no. We need to have a rally in a place where the school’s administrators can’t put a veto over it.

Is the rally going to be happening first, and then you’ll come on campus, or how will that work?

No, it’ll happen in the evening. We’re not banking on getting arrested, so. We figure North Central won’t make that choice. But the choice is theirs.

With the rally, was that something that you always were going to do, or is that something that has come up since the school has been non—

I don’t know how it really came into being. We were always going to have a rally there for David Coleman. I believe that to be the case. For instance, we’re having a rally/vigil at Union where another rider was kicked off. We’ll have it regardless.

So it would have happened regardless of what the school had chosen to do before?

Yeah.

When you actually come onto campus, assuming you don’t get arrested, what is it you plan to do on campus exactly?

We hope to still make some presentations, give some speeches, pass out some material, get to know students on an informal basis, have some good, productive conversations, go to lunch with some people, go to chapel.

How do you plan to make presentations if the school says, ‘We’re not going to allow you to use our facilities’?

We have a creative team that’s working on that—I don’t know. I don’t know really. For our presentation, ‘Letters from Mel,’ we might read letters from Mel on the campus green.

[Laughs] We don’t really have a whole lot of greenery here.

But you certainly have academic buildings where we could have people stationed outside of to read letters.

I’m just trying to think through this. I think it’s possible they could let you on campus without arresting you but still say, ‘All you can do is walk around. We’re not going to let you use our facilities for a presentation.’

Oh, I’m sure that’s what will be the case. We’ll make it available in the campus commons, maybe.

So one way you might do that would be by having people stand in a commons area and read something?

Sure, but there’s a lot of different ways we might do that. We’re still making those decisions.

Is there anything else you feel is pertinent that hasn’t been brought up that you’d like to mention?

We hope North Central students aren’t afraid to welcome us and walk up to us and say hello and shake our hands and get to know us.