Soulforce Riders Survive Bob Jones University

Today the Equality Riders from Soulforce visited Bob Jones University. http://www.soulforce.org/article/1232.

Upon their arrival they were met by representatives from "Operation Save America," "Truth Ministry," and "Americans for Truth" (dont'cha love those names?), who protested their arrival with bullhorns and anti-gay signs. They made sure that the Soulforce riders knew that they were not welcome on campus to have dialogue with any of their students.

I never attended BJU, but many of my classmates from my christian high school did. I remember the discussion I had with my parents, who informed me that, upon my graduation, I was "free to choose" between BJU, Liberty Baptist University in Lynchburg, VA (founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell), or Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, PA. I "chose" the latter. The amount of damage that was done to my spirit through that "choice" was incalculable. It took me years to recover.

I am survivor of fundamentalist christianity. I drank the Kool-Aid for almost 25 years. I was born into it. Every day I breathed in messages that said that I was condemned, rejected, and damned by an otherwise loving God because I was attracted to members of my own sex. This journal is an attempt to begin to communicate what those years were like for me, and how I got to the place that I am now: a happy, well-adjusted, proud gay parent, with a wonderful husband and devoted partner and the most wonderful assortment of people in my life who love me no matter what. A truly miraculous paradigm shuffle.

WWJD...