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Loading ...University drops gay student housing plan
04.14.2009 11:09am EDT
(Fort Worth, Texas) Texas Christian University has abruptly reversed itself and dropped plans for LGBT student housing following a massive outcry from evangelicals opposed to gay rights.
The Fort Worth school is the largest of 17 colleges and universities associated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). More than 59 religious groups are represented in the student body and has 20 recognized student religious organizations, according to the university Web site. The denominations with the largest representation are Roman Catholic, United Methodist and Baptist.This spring, TCU announced it would create new themed housing programs, including for LGBT students, beginning in fall 2009.
In a statement only a week ago, the university said that LGBT housing “was recommended by students because many of our current students see sexual orientation and gender identity as part of the natural conversation on the campus.”
But this week, TCU Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. issued a terse statement putting the housing on hold.
“TCU will not launch any new living learning communities at this time. Instead we will assess whether the concept of housing residential students based on themes supports the academic mission of the institution, as well as our objective to provide a total university experience,” the statement said.
In addition to canceling the fall launch of LGBT housing, the decision also cancels special housing for students based on patriotism, Christianity and marine life.
Boschini said in his statement that a committee of faculty, staff and students will review the concept of specialized housing and make recommendations for living learning program guidelines.
Once the committee has made its report, the recommendations will be forwarded to the executive committee of the Board of Trustees, who will forward them to the full Board.
Boschini’s statement gave no reason for the decision, but a number of students familiar with the situation said that after TCU announced the LGBT housing, a large number of evangelical Christian financial contributors threatened to pull their funding from the school if the gay housing program went forward.
It’s a Texas Christian school. I can’t find myself too shocked. Gay students, protest with your wallet!
The more things change, the more they remain the same. In the 60s, I got my B.A. from T.C.&U. (a tongue-in-cheek nickname employed by a fellow alumnus that makes sense somehow). I headed up a campus film series that allowed a bullying city attorney to put pressure on me to drop from the series a popular foreign movie because one sequence had a brief rape scene that was crucial to understanding the plot.
We went ahead and showed the movie with a short statement to the audience to the effect that they would not be seeing the entire film, thanks to the local censor board (comprised of the widows of police and firemen killed in the line of duty). When the offending sequence came on, I simply cupped the projector lens.
Ironically, the audience could hear the poor maiden’s cries of pain throughout, creating in their minds images far more graphic than what was occluded.
The film in question? Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. A further irony was presented a year later when the local PBS TV station ran the film in its entirely for all of Fort Worth to see.
A campus dormitory for LGBT students? Ha! Maybe when their Christian hell freezes over.
Allan, making blanket generalizations about a good 90%+ of the population doesn’t make you any better than the people you loathe.
I also think these special housing arrangements are a bad idea because it’s voluntary segregation. College is supposed to be a time to open yourself to new and different ideas and people than what you’re used to, so students should make an effort to get to know their peers, gay or straight.
Student housing by themes? This must have come from the Office of People with Absolutely Nothing to Do, in the Department of Ridiculous Proposals. Hilarious!
I didn’t like the idea of separate housing anyway.
At least the Christian crazies didn’t want to throw out all the gay students.In some schools students can be thrown out just for being LGBT
I’m also a Disciples of Christ church member, but we are located in Beaumont, TX. My pastor’s daughter attends TCU. Both the church and the school are inclusive, as compared to many other southern institutions. Just like anything else, though, the body is made of individuals…In my church, I’d say 95% of the congregation knows that my partner and I are gay (she was raised in the church). Of that 95%, only one person has acted negatively towards us.
As an active member of the Disciples of Christ Church, I would like to point out that most of our churches are supportive of marriage equality, etc. (Mine surely is). Like any church organization today, there are various opinions, but most Disciple Churches have the attitude of ‘live and let live’.
David (with his partner, one of the 6 couples in Iowa who won a victory for marriage equality in the Iowa Supreme Court).
I don’t see why the Christians are not helping to fund gay segregation in this case like they otherwise do. I guess it was missing direct anti-gay buzzwords.
Harvey Milk High School in New York City. The better idea for gay kids.
http://www.hmi.org/
Of course it changed its mind. This idea was doomed from the start. NO fundamentalist organization will support anything gay. Of course. BTW, @Silly Idea: “The idea is to fit in with the rest of the population not segragate ourselves.” Maybe that’s the case for you, but the fact is that we will be whomever we want to be, including very different from the very flawed heterosexual majority. Speak for yourself. Say, “I just want to be seen as the same as hets.” Don’t say, “We just want to be seen as the same as hets.” Do not speak for me or for those who find your longing to be invisible as a gay person to be weak and a very bad idea to be sure.
LGBT student housing? The idea is to fit in with the rest of the population not segragate ourselves. This has to be one of the worst ideas I have heard of. Yes LGBT groups, and services are ok. If you want to live in LGBT student housing then you are telling them, “yes we are different than you, so we must be treated differently as well.”
There already is such a thing as a gay student housing plan in Christian institutions. It’s called a seminary.
Sure, I hate the pull that evangelicals so often have. But “themed housing” is not the appropriate fix to anything, anyway. Ghettoization of any people is not progressive.
A LGBT housing community on a Texas Christian Campus would have probably been the target of many attacks anyways. Sad, but true. This decision obviously wasn’t made to protect those that would have lived in the community, but in a backwards way it kind of did.
And the Evangelical folk can do that if they choose…it’s their right to contribute to whatever causes they feel are appropriate, regardless of how idiotic their reasoning may be.