Ouachita’s administration is anticipating the 12th stop on Soulforce’s Equality Ride 2008 — a Nov. 5 visit to the private Baptist university’s campus.
Though Soulforce, an organization committed to non-violent resistance to injustice against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer individuals, is coming uninvited by Ouachita, the group will still be accommodated.
“[Soulforce does] still have Ouachita listed on their Web site as one of their stops, so we expect that they will attempt to come on campus,” said Trennis Henderson, vice president for communications and one of the administrators involved with preparing for the visit.
“We will set up a specific area, a specific location for them to be able to be during the day.”
Abigail Reikow, the Equality Rider organizing the stop at Ouachita told The Oracle, Henderson State University’s student newspaper, they do plan to still come.
“Because our goal is to have a much-needed conversation with students regarding faith and sexuality at these universities, we still plan to come to Arkadelphia in hopes to do so,” Reikow said.
Several months ago, Soulforce sent a letter to Dr. Rex Horne, president of Ouachita, asking him to extend an invitation to the equality riders to visit campus. Horne and the group of administrators who are preparing for the visit, including Trennis Henderson, looked at the letter and wrote back to Soulforce.
“As we evaluated it and looked at the details,” Henderson said, “we responded with a letter about a month ago that basically said, ‘We respectfully decline to extend an invitation for Soulforce to visit the campus.’”
There has been confusion about Ouachita’s decision to turn down the offer to invite Soulforce to campus.
“There have been, since that letter, various media reports, including some inaccurate media reports that have said we are barring them from campus,” Henderson said. “We do see a distinction there that we are not going to invite them because it is not our preference for them to be here. However, should they choose to show up, we do plan to set up some parameters for their visit and try to help keep it as low key and hopefully as positive for our campus as possible.”
Reikow described on Soulforce’s Web site why she is involved in the Equality Ride.
“I see the value in a simple conversation and understand the ways in which our words can punctuate a path towards social progress,” she said. “Though I am a straight ally, I have even begun to conceptualize my own sexuality and gender identity in new ways … I have joined this journey again in order to extend such liberty to everyone, to cultivate in the world the awareness that is growing within me.”
In its third year of touring, Equality Ride has made headlines across the country, being known to cross boundaries set by the campuses they visit, thus causing them to face arrest. Campus officials and administration will seek to avoid a potential arrest of Riders.
“The starting point is seeking to avoid it, period, if possible,” Henderson said. “One of the reasons for that is rather than we seeing them honestly desiring dialogue, what we really see is an orchestratemedia event. They talk in general details about dialogue, about tolerance, but we feel like if we truly are going to talk about tolerance, that should involve them being tolerant about our views as much as they would want us to be tolerant of theirs.”
The campus views Henderson mentioned are outlined in the “Tiger Handbook,” the official guidebook for Ouachita students. Though the book is a general guideline and is not a contract, Ouachita standards are rooted in Southern Baptist biblical interpretation.
“The handbook says, and very specifically says,” said Henderson, “‘Misuses of God’s gift include but are not limited to sexual abuse, sexual harassment, promiscuity (including violation of the Biblical teaching against homosexual acts).’ At that point it’s very specific what our faith tradition is, what our interpretation of Scripture is. And again, we would see that if we were truly talking about dialogue, that it would be a matter of honoring our perspective and our interpretation as well.”
Several campus locations were discussed as potential places for the Equality Riders to gather.
“One of our goals would be that it be accessible to campus for students and faculty who do choose to interact with them,” Henderson said, “but we don’t want it to be in a location where it becomes disruptive to students who are just seeking to walk from one class to another.”
The location will be the “Hammonds House area, where they will be permitted to gather in that designated location only,” Henderson said.
Hammonds House is located behind the Jones Preforming Art Center parking lot.
Henderson expects Ouachitonians who choose to dialogue with Soulforce’s Riders will represent the school well.
“We feel very confident about the maturity, the insight of the typical Ouachita student,” he said. “We expect that most students probably won’t engage them at any level. We feel comfortable with students who choose to interact with them to do so because we’re confident about the quality and the perspective of the typical Ouachita student.”