Recently, Azusa Pacific University has come under scrutiny for banning LGBT relationships on its campus. In August, the school lifted the ban and attempted to create an LGBTQ pilot program, but the ban was reinstated in September. The school said, “We affirm God’s perfect will and design for humankind with the biblical understanding of the marriage covenant as between one man and one woman.”
Before getting into the whole fiasco, here’s a little bit about the school. Azusa Pacific is a private evangelical Christian university in southern California. The university was opened in 1899 and started offering degrees in 1939. According to the Azusa Pacific Code of Conduct, “Students may not engage in a romanticized LGBT relationship.”
At the beginning of October, the school renounced their “approval” of LGBT couples and people got angry. About one hundred students and faculty of the school protested at the school as they were fighting for LGBTQ rights on the Azusa Pacific Campus.
Some found this to be an unusual sight. There were people supporting LGBTQ rights on the campus of a Christian college, something most would not expect to happen.
“This isn’t something sinful, God,” one student said, leading the emotional gathering. “This is something beautiful. I pray that we continue to live out the mission of being difference-makers, God, that this world be a place of equality, God.”
After receiving criticism from many Christian groups, the university claimed that they never actually changed the student conduct code and that it was a “miscommunication” between the college and trustee board.
But it is not just Azusa Pacific with this discrimination problem against LGBT couples. In 2017, Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, came under fire for allegedly discriminating against two female basketball players because they were a couple. They were kicked off the basketball team and lost their scholarships. The court ruled in Pepperdine’s favor because there was not enough evidence that the university targeted them based on their sexuality. Besides these two colleges, multiple other colleges have taken different stances on this issue.
As of now, Azusa Pacific University still holds the ban against people being in LGBT relationships. Supporters of LGBTQ rights are hoping that the school might change its mind but that remains unlikely for now.
Information from this article came from: Los Angeles Times.
