(Lynchburg, Virginia) For the third year in a row the nondenominational Soulforce will visit conservative Christian schools to engage students in a discussion on gay inclusion.

“As young people and students ourselves, we understand that it’s very difficult to learn in an environment where you don’t feel safe,” said 21-year-old Jarrett Lucas, co-director of the Equality Ride. “And students who face harassment or expulsion can’t always speak up for themselves. That’s where we come in. We can speak up for a community where everyone can learn without fear.”

More than 200 U.S. colleges and universities have explicit policies that discriminate against LGBT students Lucas said, adding that some schools without explicit policies nevertheless foster climates where harassment of LGBT students is prevalent.

A 2003 survey of 14 American universities found that more than a third of all LGBT undergraduates had experienced harassment in the past year.

Since 2006, the Equality Ride has visited 50 schools, where they host public forums, participate in panel discussions, and take part in worship services and Bible studies. The goal is to inspire further conversation and to empower students, faculty, and administrators to make their school welcoming to all students.

But the bus tour often has been met with opposition from schools and resulted in the arrests of some Soulforce members.

Two members of the group were arrested last year at the headquarters of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

About 20 demonstrators held a vigil outside the headquarters, quoting from some of the FOF statements that homosexuality is “choice” and can be “cured,”  that homosexuality is harmful, that gays live shorter lives, and that same-sex relationships threaten opposite-sex marriage.

Following the vigil, two protesters entered the headquarters building. Chris Hubble and Leigh Lyon, armed with two dozen yellow roses for Dobson and copies of the Soulforce booklet “A False Focus on My Family” and a DVD letter titled “Dear Dr. Dobson,” asked to see the conservative Christian leader.

When they refused to leave, they were arrested.

Ten other riders were arrested on trespassing charges after they entered the Bethany Lutheran College campus in Mankato, Minnesota.

In 2006, 24 Soulforce demonstrators were arrested at a gay “die-in” at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Three others were arrested at Bob Jones University in South Carolina and others were arrested at Covenant College in Georgia, University of Cumberlands, and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

Soulforce members also were arrested at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, West Point, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla. and Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which is affiliated with Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson.

The organizers of the Equality Ride said they use a collaborative approach, writing to college administrators months in advance and inviting them to work together to design programming that examines diverse points of view – including points of view that affirm gay and transgender students.

The 2008 Equality Ride is focused on the South, with stops from Virginia to Oklahoma and from Florida to Kentucky. The bus will visit more seminaries this year, including a planned stop at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Tex.

The riders will visit historically black colleges for the first time this year, with stops planned at Morehouse College and Spelman College.