How an anti-LGBTQ+ policy led to an existential dispute at a small Christian college, pitting students and faculty against the board and placing the institution in peril.
The fight continues as Seattle Pacific University students try to hold the school's leadership accountable for what they say are anti-LGBTQ+ hiring policies.
Tensions between LGBTQ students and administrations endure at many of the hundreds of U.S. Catholic and Protestant universities. The Christian teachings they ascribe to differ from societal values over gender identity and sexual orientation, because they assert that God created humans in unchangeable male and female identities, and sex should only happen within the marriage of a man and a woman.
The majority of Christian colleges and universities list “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination statements, and half of them also list “gender identity.”