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Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
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Soulforce's GLBT Equality Ride 2008 begins Oct. 1 |
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| Soulforce's GLBT Equality Ride 2008 begins Oct. 1 | ||
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by Nick Ardizzone -
SGN Staff Writer This week, the GLBT activist group Soulforce announced the destinations for their 2008 Equality Ride. The youth-organized bus tour to faith-based colleges embarks October 1, and among its 15 destinations in the Deep South is Lynchburg, VA's Liberty University, founded by the late Rev. Dr. Jerry Falwell, Sr. With such a hostile destination on the horizon (24 Equality Riders were arrested on the group's last visit to the school in 2006), the Seattle Gay News spoke with Haven Herrin, director of Soulforce Q - the young adult activist branch of the organization, in charge of the Equality Ride - on what the group hopes to accomplish by heading into the belly of the beast. Herrin has been with Soulforce long enough to know the reasons for confronting intolerance where it lives. "Somebody has to," she said. "If it's scary, it means that there's something there to be worked through." "We have to be realistic and recognize we push some fairly hot buttons. The flipside of that coin is that's all the more reason we have to go there." There are many ways the group has combated ignorance in its three years of bringing diversity to the neglected corners of America, from speaking on campuses to meeting with state legislators. "For us, it's not enough to simply say, well church and state are separate, because people don't raise their kids that way," Harrin reasoned. "A lot of our work really focuses on transforming religious attitudes, because we understand that to be a very powerful force in culture and society, and we want to address that. & We have been working on marriage equality, specifically in Arizona and New York. Being there and talking about scripture with legislators is a bizarre experience in some ways, because you are taught the idea of church and state being separate, but people do still vote that way." As much as the group values debating with its elders, the heart of the organization lies in their interactions with students during the campus visits. "Our young adults travel on a bus for about two months, visiting colleges and universities that have either policies that are specifically non LGBT-friendly, or histories at their schools which tell us a good conversation about faith and gender and sexuality would be really helpful here," Harrin explained. "And that's a really great way to get that conversation going, because we find that we can go to a school specifically and we're part of classroom discussions or we're part of a forum or a panel or something, but we're also out in the community reaching out to churches getting great news coverage that creates that social conversation. Equality Ride is in its third year, it's going strong, there's always a lot of energy around it because it's really exciting. It's a lot of fun." "Top-down institutions like universities definitely guide society, but as much as the administration may not want to let these conversation happen on campus, the students will find a way," Harrin said. "The greatest story of the Equality Ride is the excitement of the students for this conversation. They're willing to come talk to us in the parking lot of the Starbucks, because they really want to talk to us, but their school wouldn't let us on. & We'll talk for hours and hours, and then by the end, they'll say, 'Isn't it absurd that this conversation couldn't have happened over lunch on campus, and we had to be out here, in the rain, on the sidewalk talking about this?'" The fact that most students connect so readily with the Riders can be surprising because some of the colleges are so sheltered. "A lot of schools that we visit are homogenous in some way - for example, people are just from around that region, and have never met someone from New York City. Or a place where people tend to be very predominately white, and we have ethnic diversity & [the Riders are] diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and educational background. We've got people who grew up in the rural south to people who are from New York City, Bronx born and raised. We've got Chicano, African-American and Caucasian, Latino, people who identify all across the spectrum, we've got people who do not identify as a person of faith, who are atheist or agnostic, people who have grown up Evangelical or are still Evangelical, and that is where their heart lies. & We reach out to a lot of Transgendered groups, so we have Trangender-identified people on the bus." Each Rider has a page on Soulforce's website (www.soulforce.org) where donors can pledge support. "We pay for all the expenses associated with being an Equality Rider so that financial issues are not a hindrance to people participating," Harrin said. "The largest amount of donations for the Equality Ride comes from individual donors & people who just read the story and are inspired to send five, 10, 20 bucks. It's really valuable." "[The Riders are] a wonderful mix of people who just bring a lot of different life experiences, and I think that's as valuable as anything when we come to campus," she said. Because of the kinship the Riders inspire, students "stand up in miraculous ways. Students have been arrested with us, they have walked out of chapel with us when we've gotten kicked out." Though the response from students has almost always been positive, Harrin said the reception from the administration can vary wildly. "Some schools are on-board & and some schools absolutely ignore us, say we're not welcome, and don't want to offer any sort of olive branch. Our time in the community can look very different - more specifically on campus, where we have one or two really long days that are a lot of fun, intellectually exhausting, spiritually challenging to a lot of people, but in a good way. And then there are the schools where they've said no, and that usually looks like an experience of civil disobedience in some creative fashion, which sends a specific message, like walking on campus while reading our favorite scripture passages, or a die-in, or trying to go to chapel on campus and being denied and getting arrested for that." "That's where we have reached out to community members and community organizations," she said, "educated them about the issue, repeatedly reached out to students on campus and tried to created a dialogue with them any way we can - and then a very empowering but tragic moment comes, where the school may decide that before they'd allow conversation, they'd rather arrest us." Unfortunately, the Riders are familiar with cruel treatment at the hands of the authorities. "We have experienced police forces putting out misinformation about who we are," Herrin said. In Quentin, Mississippi, the Riders were "essentially chased out of town, as we couldn't park anywhere and if we got off the bus in groups of more than three then we'd be a parade and we didn't have a permit. There's that kind of reception, very vulgar, very unattractive." "With schools, it just really varies by geography. & A lot of schools that we've been to have underground Gay-straight-alliances, because if anybody knew, they would all be kicked out, whether they are LGBT or straight allies. & To me, that doesn't say 'safe space,'" she said. "There are schools where the policies are very demeaning, where you can't even be a heterosexual ally, you can't be a feminist, where it's very - to my mind - draconian, and there needs to be a conversation." The fact that the Soulforce Riders have the courage to engage in that conversation is a testament to their commitment. "All we ask, really, of any school, is to be engaged in that conversation, and be hearing your LGBT students, and ask the questions people are not asking," Herrin said. As she prepares for Equality Ride 2008 and the challenges she might face, one selfless thought steels her nerves. "The heart of nonviolence is a willingness for self-sacrifice, and understanding that you are part of a process," she said. "You take on risk in order to seek peace." 2008 Equality Ride Route October 1 Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA October 6 Columbia International University, Columbia, SC October 9 Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA October 10 Spelman College, Atlanta, GA October 13-14 Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL October 17 Heritage Christian University, Florence, AL October 20 Mississippi College, Clinton, MS October 23 Louisiana College, Pineville, LA October 24 Dallas Baptist University, Dallas, TX October 27 Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX October 29 Southwestern Assemblies of God University, Waxahachie, TX November 5 Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, AR November 7 Central Baptist College, Conway, AR November 10-11 Union University, Jackson, TN November 13 Simmons College of Kentucky, Louisville, KY |
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