Tensions over gender identity and sexual orientation pervade the campuses of hundreds of U.S. Catholic and Protestant universities across the U.S.
By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO of The Associated Press and YONAT SHIMRON of Religion News Service COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — As monks chanted evening prayers in the dimly lit Saint John's University church, members of the student LGBTQ organization, QPLUS, were meeting in a dedicated, Pride flag-lined lounge at the institution's sister Benedictine college, a few miles away across Minnesota farmland.
Among Protestant institutions, a few are pushing the envelope, and most are hoping to stay out of the messiness, said John Hawthorne, a retired Christian college sociology professor and administrator. The majority of Christian colleges and universities list"sexual orientation" in their nondiscrimination statements, and half also include"gender identity" – far more than did so in 2013, said Jonathan Coley, a sociologist at Oklahoma State University who maintains a Christian higher education database of policies toward LGBTQ students.
New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ Catholics, keeps a list of over 130 Catholic colleges it considers LGBTQ-friendly because they provide public affirmation, including courses and clubs, said its director, Francis DeBernardo. Other campus leaders see tension in Catholic teachings, which tend to skew conservative on human sexuality but progressive on social justice.
At the Franciscan-run school,"we don't move away from the truth of the human person as discovered in Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and the teaching authority of the Church -- this is our mooring, and we believe that to follow Christ is to be faithful to the Church's teachings," said the Rev. Jonathan St. Andre, a senior university leader.
That has enraged a few parents, like a father complaining"that we have students with male body parts in a female dorm," Geller recalled."I just said, 'Sir, I don't check body parts.'" The independent evangelical university is one of several that have greatly expanded their rules prohibiting students from identifying as LGBTQ or advocating for such identities.
This year, Eastern University, located in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, and affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA, amended its policies to allow for the hiring of faculty in same-sex marriages — one of only a handful of evangelical schools to do so. "This entrenchment around human sexuality feels so incongruent with the on-campus experience and what we teach our students," said Lynnette Bikos, professor and chair of SPU's clinical psychology department and a plaintiff in the suit against the board.
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