Christians having Christians arrested... *SIGH*

Gays Arrested At Falwell Run University
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
March 10, 2006 - 5:00 pm ET

(Lynchburg, Virginia) Twenty members of the Soulforce the Equality Ride were arrested Friday as they attempted to discuss LGBT civil rights with students at Liberty University.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the university's chancellor warned Wednesday that members of the non-denominational group were not welcome at the school. (story)

Campus police, on instructions from Falwell, were waiting Friday as the bus carrying the Equality riders stopped in front of the campus. As members, mostly young people, one by one read from a prepared statement and then stepped onto the grounds they were arrested and charged with trespassing.

Liberty University is the first stop for the Equality Ride.

Thirty-five young adults are crossing the country visiting schools that ban the enrollment of LGBT students. Outside Liberty University they were met by about 30 supporters.

Invoking the memory of the civil rights movement, Soulforce member Jacob Reitan said: "We want to come to the school today to say, 'learn from history.'"

"We have a right to be here, because this school teaches that being gay is being sick and sinful," Reitan, co-director of Equality Ride told the Associated Press. "We have a right to question and to show how we are children of God."

The ride departed Thursday from outside the offices of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) which represents fifteen of the eighteen schools on the Equality Ride route.

Reitan and other Soulforce members said they did not intend to be arrested at the campus, but just hoped to talk to Liberty students.

Two of those arrested were also charged with inciting trespassing. They were restrained in plastic handcuffs before being taken to a local magistrate.

It is not the first time Soulforce has demonstrated at Liberty University.

Last spring the group was greeted with cookies not police when members met with Liberty students on campus.

The Soulforce Equality Ride is expected to take 51 days.

Soulforce:
http://www.soulforce.org/

 

Rubbishest crime ever.

 

Gay College Protest Marked By Heavy Police Presence
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

March 13, 2006 - 6:30 pm ET

(Virginia Beach, Virginia) A heavy police presence attempted to keep students from meeting with gay protestors outside the campus of Regent University in Virginia Beach on Monday.

The demonstrators are on what they call the Equality Ride, visiting eighteen universities and military schools that organizers say bar LGBT students.

Regent University is connected to Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson.

Campus police stood guard to prevent more than 20 "riders" from entering the campus, while local police ringed the demonstrators.

Jacob Reitan, one of the organizers of the Equality Ride, told 365Gay.com that several dozen students walked off the campus and approached the group during the peaceful protest to learn more about the group, "but police told them that they were not supposed to talk to us."

Reitan said that other students left the campus, crossed the street and then came back to the "riders" and were not blocked.

Regent University said on the weekend that if protestors tried to enter the campus they would be arrested.

"We'll be back tomorrow," Reitan said, "and we will attempt to enter the campus then."

Last week 24 members of the group were arrested when the entered Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The were released later the same day without bond.

Regent University originally said it would welcome the Equality Ride, associated with the nondenominational Soulforce, onto the campus.

The college said the decision to "univite" the Soulforce riders was based in part on a statement on the ride's Web site that says Regent has a policy banning GLBT students.

Vice President of Academic Affairs Randall Pannell said the the school has no such policy, something Soulforce continues to dispute, pointing to the Regent University student handbook which states "...homosexual conduct or any other conduct, which violates Biblical standards, is prohibited."

Soulforce said the Equality Ride was inspired by the Freedom Rides of the 1950s and 60s to end segregation.

 

Six members of gay rights group arrested on Regent campus

By STEVEN VEGH, The Virginian-Pilot
© March 14, 2006 | Last updated 4:09 PM Mar. 14

VIRGINIA BEACH -- Six members of a gay rights group that says Regent University discriminates against non-heterosexuals were arrested today morning when they stepped onto campus after being told they would be trespassing.

"There are students on this campus who want to speak to me, and I have a right to speak to them," said one of the members of Soulforce as she walked toward officers waiting behind yellow tape that read, "Caution Do Not Enter."

"We were turned away yesterday and we heeded that, but today we will not be deterred," another member, Haven Herrin, said a few minutes before she entered the school grounds and was arrested.

Each of the six was escorted by a Virginia Beach police officer and campus security guard to a van, where they were patted down and restrained at the wrists. The three men and three women who were arrested were later released after receiving summonses to return in April for court appearances in Virginia Beach.

Regent was among 19 faith-based universities and military academies that Soulforce will visit to highlight what it says are polices that bar enrollment of nonheterosexual people. Regent has said it does not have such a policy, though its student handbook prohibits "homosexual" conduct, as well as premarital sex and adultery.

The tour, dubbed the Equality Ride, started last week in Lynchburg, where more than 20 protesters were arrested for trespassing at Liberty University.

Soulforce is based in Lynchburg and was co-founded by the Rev. Mel White, a former ghost writer for Pat Robertson, the conservative Christian broadcaster who founded Regent.

As they did on Monday, more than two dozen campus guards and Virginia Beach police confronted the Soulforce who gathered next to the campus along Indian River Road. The security force barred the protesters from campus and blocked Regent students from approaching the equality riders.

Police had said the interdiction was necessary to maintain peace and public safety.

But eight Regent students said Tuesday that they had sought out the Soulforce contingent and met with them for Bible study off campus on Monday night.

On Tuesday, the students met again with the equality riders, offering prayers, hugs and a sense of Christian camaraderie.

 

Gay advocacy group targets Lee University
Published March 14, 2006 10:00 AM EDT

Lee University is one of 19 colleges and universities nationwide which are being targeted as "anti-gay" by Soulforce, a gay/lesbian advocacy group.

The group has announced a visit to the Lee campus on Thursday and Friday to "confront" the institution for its policies forbidding homosexual behavior.

The visit to Lee comes despite the objections of school officials, said president Dr. Paul Conn. It is the third stop on a two-month bus tour which the group has dubbed "Equality Ride."

According to its press release, a team of 35 to 40 college-age gays and lesbians will travel to institutions which they say discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Conn says Lee's policies regarding homosexuality are "deeply rooted in our theological tradition" and declined to provide public opportunities for the group to make its case to Lee students.

In response, Soulforce Director of National Actions Bill Carpenter wrote a letter to the Cleveland Police Department to alert them to possible acts of "civil disobedience" upon their arrival.

The gay activists' bus tour is scheduled to include religious universities such as Liberty, BYU, Wheaton, and Abilene Christian, as well as major military academies including West Point and the Air Force Academy.

Conn has been in regular contact with the directors of Equality Ride since the time they stated their intention in mid-January to visit Lee University.

The group asked for access to classes, chapel, open forums, and an evening concert on campus by what it bills as "a gay Christian singing duo," none of which were acceptable on the Lee campus, Conn said.

He takes issue with the group's claim that they want dialogue, saying he offered a private meeting with Lee administrators and an opportunity for public debate.

"There is no commitment to dialogue by this group," he said, "they only want to deliver their point of view."

Conn and other Lee officials are encouraging students to treat the gay activists with courtesy.

"Although it's evident to us that Soulforce is using Lee University as a platform for media coverage, I have strongly urged our students and staff to maintain an environment of civility and Christian kindness," he said.

"Our response should be in the spirit of Jesus Christ, which is no condemnation of the riders, but no compromise of our Christian beliefs and spiritual values."

He said all activities on campus will go on as planned for the two days of the visit.

Soulforce's schedule for the two days includes a session at 10 a.m. Thursday in Deer Park. The group then plans to go on campus to "greet students as they exit from chapel."

At noon, the group plans a free concert featuring Jason and DeMarco. Organizers of the Soulforce rally plan to return to campus to hand out brochures from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Thursday.

Soulforce plans to return to the Lee University campus on Friday passing out information and talking with students.

COPYRIGHT ¨ 2006 Cleveland Daily Banner, a division of Cleveland Newspapers, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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Do the students of these so called "places of higher learning" ever get denied employment because they received their education in a school that will not allow intellectual discourse, or like certain of these schools, teach creationism as scientific fact. That alone should disqualify their diploma.

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