Alumni of Christian College Lobby for Change in Gay Policies

Alumni of a Michigan college that has a policy in place to discourage GLBT groups on campus are now pressuring their alma mater to drop the anti-gay measure.

Hope College, located in Holland, Michigan, has historic ties to the Reformed Church in America. A Christian tradition still resides at the college--embodied in part by a school policy from 1995 that states that the college "will not provide recognition, financial or logistical support for groups whose purposes include the advocacy or moral legitimization of homosexual behavior." The fallout from that policy seems to have included a refusal on the part of the college to allow Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black to preside over a roundtable discussion of the movie, reported Michigan newspaper The Grand Rapids Press on March 16.

Black was later allowed to screen the film, however, at an area theater.

An array of Hope graduates, including Bruce van Voorst, a former correspondent for national publications such as Time and Newsweek, former ambassador Bill DePree, and a number of other clergy, journalists, and athletes have all put their names to a petition calling for the policy to be scrapped and for a panel on GLBT issues to be established.

"We're left with an environment of fear and a policy that discriminates against people," Rev. Donald Van Hoven, a 1956 Hope College graduate, said, adding, "It is unacceptable for a Christian college to have that kind of treatment of anybody, and this is the only group identified and singled out by college policy."

The administration, through a spokesperson, indicated that the petition had not been received, but acknowledged that "the administration and trustee leadership have been in correspondence with a group of alumni for several months."

A more recent graduate, Karis Granberg-Michaelson, told the media that current enrollees and recent grads had also joined the effort to make the school's policies more GLBT friendly. The younger generation has approached the issue through an organization, called Hope is Ready. GLBT equality, said Granberg-Michaelson, "is the contemporary Christian issue and a pressing social justice concern." Added the grad, "We do this out of care and concern for our community, and we reject the notion that to be a Christian means you come from a certain mold and can't treat people equally." As to the college's current model, Granberg-Michaelson said, "We are simply not having a dialogue. We're having a monologue, and that doesn't help anyone."

Dustin Lance Black's film banned

Black wrote a blog about his experience at Hope College for The Daily Beast. The blog appeared on Dec. 20, 2009.

Black had traveled to Hope to scout locations for a film, his directorial debut. In his blog, he describes Hope College as bring "crisp, clean, and filled with a Holy Spirit and devotion I hadn't felt since my childhood in the Mormon Church. Perhaps surprising to some, I felt quite at home." At a local cafe, Black writes, he encountered "a student who, shattering the city's 1950s mirage, was dressed in short shorts and a 'Legalize Gay' T-shirt. Within minutes he was at my table, asking if I would screen Milk and speak on his campus. I thought, 'I'm about to call Holland home for six months. I should probably pitch in.' "

Black began shooting his new film in Hope, and remained open to screening Milk for the students and the town's residents. But he learned through a local newspaper that the proposed screening had been squelched. "The story said I had been banned from screening Milk and was officially not welcome on Hope College's campus," Black wrote. "The dean of students wasn't shy about it. He called my brand of 'advocacy' hurtful to the student body. Without ever meeting me in person, without so much as a phone call, he had publicly declared me and Milk unholy and unwelcome." The sway Hope's citizens treated Black also shifted: "Between the apologetic handshakes were glares from unknown locals. The politeness I'd come to admire was lifted up, revealing hidden enmity," the screenwriter and director wrote.

"But let me be clear: I don't think the town was homophobic," Black goes on. "I think they had simply never discussed gay rights openly before, and here I was, an interloper, threatening to thrust this hot-button issue into their community. As the dean kept talking and students began protesting, calls came from journalists in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York."

Black left Holland once the filming wrapped, but he and the student who had initially approached him decided to press on with the screening. The student established Hope is Ready; a screening was scheduled, and quickly sold out; a second screening was then arranged for the following night. Black returned to the town for the screenings. At the ensuing Q&A sessions, Black wrote, members of the audience--which consisted almost entirely of Hope College faculty, staff, and students--stepped forward to speak about their own lives. "And it wasn't just gay people," wrote Black, "it was minorities of every kind."

Black called the screenings "a turning point" for Hope, but the Reformed Church in America as a whole may also be facing a turning point. The Grand Rapids Press reported last Oct. 24 that a church-affiliated GLBT advocacy group, Making Room for All, had sponsored meetings for the faithful to discuss issues relevant to the church's GLBT members, in keeping with a three-year initiative from church leaders to examine the issues. Grand Rapids pastor Louis Lotz told the newspaper that, "We need to figure out, as a denominational family, what is our ministry to and with gay people. Groups like Room for All need to be at the table. They need to listen and they need to be listened to."

The Reformed Church in America began in 1628 as a branch of the Dutch Reformed Church.