It’s the same story, only set on a different campus (this time with a special guest appearance by Taylor Swift).
Once again, we have LGBTQ activists who want to modernize the ancient doctrines that define their Christian college. Of course, the word “doctrine” does not appear in this news feature — it is not marked as “analysis” — from the new Religion News Service-Associated Press team. As always, the word “rules” is used when describing the school’s teachings on marriage and sexuality.
Once again, the activist students are given lots of space to describe their convictions and complaints — as they should be be. Once again, however, the only material offered defending the school’s doctrinal stance comes from online documents and email from a campus spokesperson. Once again, it appears that there are no flesh-and-blood human beings who can provide quotes and personal stories in support of a traditional Christian school.
Oh, and this story does not answer a question that is essential in serious news coverage of this topic: Do students and faculty sign a doctrinal or lifestyle “covenant” when they choose to study or teach at this private university? Yes, this post is a flashback to the major themes in this post: “Here we go again: When covering campus LGBTQ disputes, always look for doctrinal covenants.” It’s deja vu all over again.
Here is the overture for this report — “Viral video reignites LGBTQ debate at Quaker school” — as it ran at The Washington Post:
The video begins with Reid Arthur striding on stage in shorts and a glittering, iridescent hoodie. The George Fox University senior was participating in a lip sync dance number at his school set to Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down,” complete with a troupe of backup dancers. As the auditorium speakers blasted the lyric “’cause shade never made anybody less gay,” Arthur spread his arms wide and let the dancers tear off his top, revealing rainbow-colored streamers that draped from his arms.
The audience knew exactly what that meant: Arthur had just come out as gay.
In response, the crowd of hundreds — mostly students at the Christian university — rose to offer a raucous standing ovation. Twice.
After the video went viral, Swift tweeted: “You did the brave thing and stood up for your truth.”
So what happened to the doctrinal material involved in this clash?
A key voice in the RNS/AP piece is Courtney Bither, a 2017 graduate of George Fox, who is also a Harvard Divinity School grad. Readers are told that Bither now “identifies as queer.” Concerning the viral video:
… Bither and others affiliated with George Fox saw what they said was a familiar, frustrating pattern: another LGBTQ George Fox student making national news for proudly proclaiming their sexuality or gender identity, even as the school did little to alter policies she and others regard as homophobic.
“The idea that he’s going to fix this, or that this is somehow actually groundbreaking, I think misses a lot of the history of the institution,” said Bither, who was not raised Quaker but says she became “very involved” in the community during her time at George Fox.
She is one of several George Fox students and alumni who told Religion News Service that the school has long been a fraught place for LGBTQ people, including LGBTQ Christians of various stripes. As Arthur’s video sparks a new wave of activism on campus, alumni caution that tensions are long-standing at the school, with numerous clashes between students and administrators regarding LGBTQ identities and relationships that intersect with bitter schisms among local Quakers.
It’s especially crucial, as always, that divisions exist inside the school’s faculty. This only points to the crucial question, once again: How are these doctrinal issues addressed in the covenants signed by faculty members? The story does note that “school policy still bars faculty at the school from publicly endorsing same-sex marriage or affirming LGBTQ relationships.”
Journalists please note: If George Fox, in a Quaker context, does not have student and faculty/staff covenants, this is a crucial point of logic on the side of the LGBTQ activists. This information is crucial to believers on both sides of this debate.
Meanwhile, supporters of George Fox will want to know — a key point in religious liberty debates — what the college’s leaders are doing to openly define the borders of their voluntary academic community. The college has a right (hello U.S. Supreme Court) to take doctrine into account when hiring and firing. But the school has to provide clear documents that explain all of this to faculty, staff, parents and students.
One additional point should be mentioned. The story does a good job of demonstrating that debates about marriage and sexuality are causing tensions among Quakers, in general. For example:
George Fox’s turmoil over LGBTQ inclusion mirrors similar upheaval that has rocked its parent denomination, the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends. According to Matt Boswell, pastor of Camas Friends Church, which is affiliated with a different group, NWYM constitutes an affiliation of evangelical Quakers, a designation that includes skewing more conservative on issues of sexuality and gender. …
A section of the NWYM’s “Faith and Practice” statement reads: “We denounce, as contrary to the moral laws of God, acts of homosexuality, sexual abuse, and any other form of sexual perversion.”
Wait a minute. So information about the convictions of evangelicals in the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends is going to be provided by a pastor in a competing, doctrinally progressive body of believers?
That’s the ticket. Apparently, there was no need to talk to pastors who support the doctrinal stance taken by George Fox administrators and trustees. Also, anyone who knows higher education also knows that it’s important to know what parents — on both sides — are saying about this dispute.
Sadly, this story is business is usual, these days. Who needs fair-minded journalism that shows respect for believers on both sides of a debate when you can write press releases for activists on the side that you already know is in the right?