By Peter J. Smith
MACON, Georgia, April 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Deputies laid trespassing charges against four homosexual activists from the Soulforce Equality Ride after the organization spent all day protesting the policies of Covenant College in Georgia.
Soulforce brought 50 young adults to Covenant College, a school affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of America, to discuss the homosexual agenda with Christian students there.
The Soulforce riders targeted the college as part of their tour of colleges they claim discriminate against homosexuals, and ended the day’s protest with what appeared to be a successful sought after arrest of four of their members whom officials claimed were trying to speak with students on campus.
According to the Covenant website, students who enroll at Covenant “voluntarily sign the biblically-based Standards of Conduct, agreeing to abstain from ‘sexual sins,’” including homosexual behavior.
“Every school we’ve gone to, no matter how the administration has responded, students want this conversation,” said co-director Jarrett Lucas according to WDEF News 12. “Students have come out, in spite of administrative presence, in spite of seeing police on their campus, they’ve come out to speak with us.”
However the administration at Covenant College has also wanted to facilitate this conversation and made five attempts to reach out to Soulforce and arrange meetings between the activist group and the college.
“We were happy to respond to their request for dialogue a few months ago by offering an agreement where they could meet any student they wanted to on campus and any faculty member who wanted to be a part, and administrators as well,” Brad Voyles, Dean of Students, told WDEF News 12. “They rejected that offer and at this point we’re having to respond to that rejecting by not allowing them onto campus.”
Voyles told the local news that Covenant sent a letter of agreement and even offered to provide the riders lunch and invited them to pray in their chapel.
“As you can see we’ve told students that they can feel free to walk out here and engage the riders,” said Voyles, who said that students have been praying for the riders ever since the group rejected their fifth offer for dialogue back in February.
“For us, this has never been about the topic of homosexuality, but the tactics of an activist organization that would ask for dialogue and then reject the dialogue we offered on very fair terms,” Voyles told the local news reporter.
When asked about the lunch offer, Voyles told the reporter that the Soulforce riders’ lunches were being made as they spoke.
“We want to be as gracious and loving as we can while remaining firm to our biblical commitments.”
See other commentary on Soulforce:
Lent and the Soulforce Agenda
https://www.liberty.edu/academics/religion/seminary/index.cfm?PID=10275
What they seek in these campus visits is confrontational street theater
https://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070323/COLUMNISTS09/703230305/1014/OPINION
Blogsite of the BYU-Idaho College Democrats
https://byuidems.blogspot.com/2007/02/soulfarce.html