Wheaton
Okay, so we rolled up into the Chicago area lateish in the evening. We stopped on the way at Jamie's dad's golf course outside Milkwaulkee for lunch and had a nice little hang out time, including some two-stepping to country music. It's been nice to hang out with people who have decent taste in music. ;-)
Wheaton was a big school for us. It's known as "The Harvard of the Evangelical World", and we were told that we'd meet some of the smartest students there. A very cool guy who's a gay Wheaton alum and now an Episcopal priest and professor at a seminary joined us for those couple of days. He told us about how when someone found out he was gay when he was a student, the school tried to have him institutionalized. Nice.
The mood when we arrived was nice, but a little nervous. They didn't quite seem to know what to do with us. We were told about six times that the cafeteria used to be third in the nation but had recently dropped to fifth or something. It was nice, but not as good as Bethel I must say. The ice cream was this non-dairy no sugar stuff. Anyway, we had several hours each day to just chat with students. I had a lengthy conversation with some people about the legal arguments for marriage equality, and how that relates to morality and all that. It was really nice. Then I gave the guy a headache by telling him in complete honesty that I didn't think I was sinning and that my relationships deepen my faith life. He simply couldn't wrap his head around this, and ended up staggering off like he'd been hit by a truck. It was good, I think. Hm, who else did I talk to? A very sweet guy just coming out of the closet and having a hard time with it, and three freshman girls in the choir who didn't ask me a single question about my sexuality and chatted a lot about how hard it is to become an opera singer. They bought me a smoothie, it was very nice. Oh, at lunch I talked to an administrator who not only thought I was going to hell, but also called global warming "an interesting theory". Now, I know the scientific community is possibly still discussing this, but I've gotta say it did not help me like the man.
The first night was the "forum", where three representatives from Wheaton (the president, a student, and an ex-gay alum) and three representatives from the Equality Ride (Jake, our media rep/resident seminarian guy, and the Episcopal priest) each got 10 minutes (so a half hour for each side), and then responded to questions and answers. It was very civil, but definitely still ended with a lot of disagreement. I will note that the ex-gay guy they had speak was not the best of his kind that I have seen. He was a major drug dealer and was diagnosed with HIV after he was arrested, then found Jesus in jail and decided to stop with the unprotected dangerous behavior. I mean really, there are way better examples out there.
The next day I bought my first praise CD, with 3 songs that we'd been singing regularly. Yay Jesus. Then we gave the "History of Violence" presentation again. It went well, except that the moderator from the forum was our moderator, and gave a 10 minute response to the presentation that basically turned into his response to the forum. He managed both to insult the ER side by implying that we were selfish and uneducated, and to criticize the Anglican church for supporting civil unions in the UK. Not my favorite person. During the question and answer period someone stood up and quoted Leviticus at us and went on for about 5 minutes. I got to respond to the question about homosexuality causing the downfall of Western civilization. Fun times. But I did have several people come up to me afterward to ask about how to be an ally and all that, so it was good.
We ended the day with a community dinner at Red Robin. I can recommend the salmon filet burger, especially with a side of avocado. I met some nice kids who were the children of a lesbian couple. The daughter, about age six, said her favorite sport was curling. It was adorable. Then it was off to sleep before a long drive...
Wheaton was a big school for us. It's known as "The Harvard of the Evangelical World", and we were told that we'd meet some of the smartest students there. A very cool guy who's a gay Wheaton alum and now an Episcopal priest and professor at a seminary joined us for those couple of days. He told us about how when someone found out he was gay when he was a student, the school tried to have him institutionalized. Nice.
The mood when we arrived was nice, but a little nervous. They didn't quite seem to know what to do with us. We were told about six times that the cafeteria used to be third in the nation but had recently dropped to fifth or something. It was nice, but not as good as Bethel I must say. The ice cream was this non-dairy no sugar stuff. Anyway, we had several hours each day to just chat with students. I had a lengthy conversation with some people about the legal arguments for marriage equality, and how that relates to morality and all that. It was really nice. Then I gave the guy a headache by telling him in complete honesty that I didn't think I was sinning and that my relationships deepen my faith life. He simply couldn't wrap his head around this, and ended up staggering off like he'd been hit by a truck. It was good, I think. Hm, who else did I talk to? A very sweet guy just coming out of the closet and having a hard time with it, and three freshman girls in the choir who didn't ask me a single question about my sexuality and chatted a lot about how hard it is to become an opera singer. They bought me a smoothie, it was very nice. Oh, at lunch I talked to an administrator who not only thought I was going to hell, but also called global warming "an interesting theory". Now, I know the scientific community is possibly still discussing this, but I've gotta say it did not help me like the man.
The first night was the "forum", where three representatives from Wheaton (the president, a student, and an ex-gay alum) and three representatives from the Equality Ride (Jake, our media rep/resident seminarian guy, and the Episcopal priest) each got 10 minutes (so a half hour for each side), and then responded to questions and answers. It was very civil, but definitely still ended with a lot of disagreement. I will note that the ex-gay guy they had speak was not the best of his kind that I have seen. He was a major drug dealer and was diagnosed with HIV after he was arrested, then found Jesus in jail and decided to stop with the unprotected dangerous behavior. I mean really, there are way better examples out there.
The next day I bought my first praise CD, with 3 songs that we'd been singing regularly. Yay Jesus. Then we gave the "History of Violence" presentation again. It went well, except that the moderator from the forum was our moderator, and gave a 10 minute response to the presentation that basically turned into his response to the forum. He managed both to insult the ER side by implying that we were selfish and uneducated, and to criticize the Anglican church for supporting civil unions in the UK. Not my favorite person. During the question and answer period someone stood up and quoted Leviticus at us and went on for about 5 minutes. I got to respond to the question about homosexuality causing the downfall of Western civilization. Fun times. But I did have several people come up to me afterward to ask about how to be an ally and all that, so it was good.
We ended the day with a community dinner at Red Robin. I can recommend the salmon filet burger, especially with a side of avocado. I met some nice kids who were the children of a lesbian couple. The daughter, about age six, said her favorite sport was curling. It was adorable. Then it was off to sleep before a long drive...
posted by Di at 9:47 AM
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