The tour is a cross country bus ride meant to counter homophobia and spark conversation at universities and colleges -- private religious institutions.
According to Soulforce:
The route has less to do with specific priority and everything to do with the urgency of this conversation. In 2006, during the inaugural Equality Ride, participants engaged nineteen schools. This year, the journey continues with fifty-seven young adults going to thirty-two Christian colleges and universities. Two buses are taking the group on two distinct paths around the country in creative pursuit of social justice. In doing so, they are empowered to change countless lives. Love liberates the oppressed, redeems the lost, and resurrects the spirit.
From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Some 25 young activists from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy group Soulforce staged a vigil outside Wisconsin Lutheran College on Monday to protest the school's policy against "homosexual lifestyle" as part of a three-day visit in Milwaukee.
Wisconsin Lutheran College officials did not allow the riders on campus, so the group set up camp Monday on the sidewalk in front of the school's main entrance on Blue Mound Road. Some sang "We Shall Overcome" while others staffed tables with pamphlets for any students who might want to talk.
...Wisconsin Lutheran is one of 32 mostly Christian colleges and universities that Soulforce will visit as part of its second annual Soulforce Equality Ride, in which riders travel in two tour buses for two months, hitting up schools that Soulforce says openly discriminate based on sexual identity.
Wisconsin Lutheran, a Christian private liberal arts college on Milwaukee's west side, has a policy that states having a homosexual lifestyle is a sin.
"The college teaches, counsels, and disciplines in accord with this conviction," reads the policy.
College officials released a statement Monday that says its students choose to abide by the school's mission and policies.
"Our stance that 'sexual intimacy is reserved by God for marriage and that a homosexual lifestyle is sin' has been our stated policy for years," the statement reads. "We do not discriminate - all sexual intimacy outside of marriage is wrong. This is a religious issue for us."
...Last week, the group visited the University of Notre Dame, where six Soulforce equality riders were arrested by campus security after the activists ignored trespass warnings, university spokesman Dennis Brown said.
What is it that these activists really want?
They are supposedly pursuing "social justice."
I don't see anything wrong in having discussion and promoting understanding between people with different lifestyles.
However, this ride is about more than that. Christian schools are specifically being targeted. They are being singled out for harassment.
The group is on a crusade to force its morality on them.
Is that "social justice"?
Don't these private institutions have the right to create an environment that fosters their religious beliefs?
Picture this: How would a nationwide tour of Christians meant to protest the values taught at Muslim schools or some other private religious schools go over?
Not very well, I would think. Such a tour would be considered inappropriate and intolerant.
There's no way that groups of Christian activists protesting, holding vigils, singing, and handing out pamphlets at non-Christian institutions would be tolerated.
Following the religious teachings of one's choice is protected by the Constitution.
Another example--
What if the National Pork Board went on a tour around the U.S., targeting Muslim schools in hopes of getting students and administration to abandon the teachings of Islam and chow down on the "other white meat"?
That wouldn't happen. Who would support that?
Why does the Left go nuts if Christian groups hold vigils outside abortion clinics? That's seen as so threatening. That's supposed to be so wrong. That's what the pro-abortion proponents tell us.
Isn't Soulforce being similarly threatening by trespassing and holding protests at private universities to complain about the religious values taught there? Why isn't that wrong?
I think that people's religious beliefs should be respected.
There's something socially unjust about trying to strip away one's right to freely exercise one's religion, including on the campus of a private school.
I think it's counterproductive for Soulforce to force its values down the throats of others.
What's needed is tolerance, not conversion.
Live and let live.
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