A two-day long stream of consciousness

I sit here weeping in my hotel room in Jackson, Mississippi, reading through e-mails, facebook messages, and opinion pieces to the Baylor newspaper…all of which say, “I am so sorry. I am so sorry for the way Baylor has treated you.”

And, I know that there is hope. I know that redemptive suffering works. It calls us to higher places of understanding and truth. And, as I reflect on my time at Baylor, in the Waco community, and on my 26 hours in the McLennan County Jail, I feel, without a doubt, that I am helping make change.

Our first day on campus of Baylor University was very positive. Several students approached us to have dialogue, and we experienced almost no negativity from students. That morning, Dub Oliver, the VP for Student Life at Baylor, sent an e-mail to the entire student body informing them of our visit. He told them that Baylor was very comfortable having conversations on human sexuality and that many opportunities were given to students to discuss sexuality; the Equality Riders’ offer for dialogue was not needed, and Baylor did not need their discussion controlled by us. I knew that this “comfort” Mr. Oliver spoke of was not true, so I asked several students if discussions of sexuality ever happened on campus and if any forums for such dialogue were ever presented to students. The answer was a resounding “no.”


I would like to ask the administration what comfort they are speaking of when no avenues are present and when I receive e-mails from Baylor students telling me that they fear physical violence from other students just because they are gay. Why do I meet with closeted transgender students who can’t transition at Baylor for fear of being kicked out? If Baylor is so comfortable, why are people suffering? Why is untruth festering like open sores? Why is there so much fear?

That afternoon we held a community rally at Heritage Square in downtown Waco. About 35-40 community members and students came, and we had a great group dialogue on what it would take to start a LGBTQ organization at Baylor and/or in the Waco community. Several students said they wanted to see this happen and were willing to help start a Gay/Straight Alliance.



That night, we had a community potluck at the PFLAG building in Waco. Many community members came and brought dishes. It was probably the best potluck I have ever seen. We presented a “community billboard” to Charley Garrison, pastor at the Waco MCC. A little background: Since around Christmas break, Exodus billboards have been up in the Waco community, standing as symbols of fear to the LGBTQ community there. Exodus is an international ex-gay therapy organization and a leader in the ex-gay movement. The billboards read, “I questioned homosexuality. Change is possible.” We wanted to help doing something in Waco that helped the community look past these symbols of fear, so we had everyone create their own community billboard with their own stories and testimonies.



The next morning (Tuesday), many of us went to the chapel service held for seminary students and others went to a local coffee shop to talk with students. We were featured front page on the Baylor newspaper, the Lariat, and the entire article was fabulous, comprehensive, and pretty unbiased.

And what happened the rest of the day until around 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday is still a blur to me, but blogging it will help me process. At 1:30 p.m., we met with students at the fountain mall area on campus. We presented a Gay/Straight Alliance resource kit to the students there interested in starting a campus organization. Then, we all (about 35-40) of us walked single file line to the steps of the Chapel with chalk in our hands.





I stood at the steps and talked about those suffering at Baylor at the hands of a policy and an administration that will not recognize the inherent worth of all of God’s children. I then explained how we came to remember Baylor Freedom, and underground LGBTQ organization that once existed on campus and was silenced by the administration. Baylor Freedom used to “chalk” on campus announcing their meetings/organization, but the administration would have the maintenance wash away their chalk almost as soon as it was written.



We came to say the things that Baylor Freedom never got to say. We came to affirm LGBTQ students on campus. We began chalking right there at the steps of the chapel. We wrote bible verses and messages of love and peace.

“I am a Queer Christian, and I am loved.” “Baylor: What are you doing to support your gay students?” “Our God is a God of love, peace, and understanding” “Affirmation Saves Lives” “Gay? It’s ok. God loves you.” “I am a follower of Christ, and I am gay.”









We wrote and wrote… probably for 5-10 minutes until plain-clothes police offers came and told us we had to stop. Five Equality Riders and one Baylor student continued chalking as an act of civil disobedience, and one by one, we were arrested and brought to the end of the sidewalk, facing the chapel and all of the chalk in front of us. Students rushed to the doors of chapel and peered out at us. Many stopped and just watched. We then began singing “We Shall Overcome.” I was the last one arrested, and as I stood in the line looking at the picture before me, I wanted to cry. It was so, so beautiful. Students had stood with us, chalked with us, affirmed us and each other. This was empowerment. As we were loaded into the paddy wagon, the group was forced to disperse and leave campus.











It becomes traumatizing from here on out. We were brought to the police station in Waco and segregated by sex. Our transgender male rider was forced to be processed with the females. We checked in our things, and then we had to strip naked in front of an officer, while they did cavity searches. It was humiliating and dehumanizing and completely unnecessary for a criminal trespassing charge. We were given black and white striped jumpsuits and put in a holding cell for over 10 hours. No one looked at us. No one spoke to us. We had no idea what was going on. At about 10 o’clock, I realized we were probably being kept overnight. I fell asleep on the metal bench, and at about 2 a.m.—twelve hours after we were arrested—they took us out and processed us. They took our mug shots and fingerprints. They asked us questions, including “Do you have any homicidal tendencies?” followed by “Do you have any homosexual tendencies?” I got to make a phone call to my mother, and I had her call Kourt for me. I wanted to cry on the phone with her and tell her how awful it was, but I didn’t want her to worry. Kourt later told me that she asked him if he thought we were okay. He said yes, but he was also really worried. And with good cause. We were told we had to stay overnight to see the judge in the morning who would set our bail.

I was then put in a tiny cell by myself, while Mandy and Shawn were put together in a cell next to me. The room was probably about five ft by six ft with one tiny bench just big enough for sitting. I tried to fall asleep on it sitting up, but my feet couldn’t touch the floor, and my legs just kept falling asleep.

I then decided to sleep on the concrete floor, wrapped in the scratchy wool blanket they gave us. I fell asleep for a little while, and then the door opened, and I was given a baloney sandwich for breakfast at about 4:20 in the morning. I ate the bread and went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter, they put another young woman in the cell with me. She immediately curled up on the floor. I no longer had room to sleep the way I had been sleeping with her in there, so I laid with my feet touching the toilet, and my head at the very edge of the door. I woke up about 8:00 a.m. and watched the clock out the window for about two hours. At ten, they herded us all out and had us watch a video that read us our Miranda rights. We were arrested at 2:00 p.m. the previous day and were just now being read our rights… over a television screen. I was one of the first people to see the judge, and he set our bail at $2,000. I almost fainted when he told me. At every other stop before this, no one had to get undressed, no one had to stay overnight, and the bail was no more than about $120. I made a phone call to my grandmother asking her to call my mom and tell her the news because I couldn’t reach my mom.

I was put back into my cell with the woman. She went to sleep again but would have tremors every once in a while and would make strange noises. I learned that she was picked up for having a rather large amount of crack on her, and I figured she was probably tweaking out. Her hair was very thin, and her eyes were sunken in.

I just sat and waited… and watched the clock from time to time. We had no idea if our friends on the outside knew of our bail requirements. We could not call cell phone numbers, so we had no way of calling them. At about 1:00 in the afternoon, I thought I was going crazy. I began crying and praying because I thought we would have to stay another night in a tiny cell with no communication from anyone. I began to reflect on institutions in general and felt ashamed of the way people treat others. Nursing homes, mental institutions, prisons. They strip away every sense of personhood. I also felt ashamed that I was crying the way that I was, knowing that so many people experience this as an integral part of life. Who was I? A privileged, white, middle-class kid that could not tolerate a day in jail? I prayed more, telling God to help me get through. I thought of Soulforce founder Mel White, who was arrested and did jail no bail to understand suffering for justice. I pictured the Freedom Riders, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Peck, Gandhi, activists, crowds, faces. I was there for justice, I reminded myself.

I pulled myself together, and then an officer came and told Mandy (next door) that her girlfriend left her a message to call her. Apparently her girlfriend kept calling until they would deliver the message. My mom later told me that she tried to call and leave me a message, but they refused to deliver it to me. At 3:00 p.m., Emily, Mandy’s girlfriend told us that bail had been paid and we would be getting out within the hour. (We could talk to each other through the walls)

We had to change clothes again in front of an officer, but with all of us in the room at once. This was extremely uncomfortable for Shawn, who identifies as male, and was forced to undress in front of females.

When we walked out the front door of the jail, our friends ran toward us holding a huge banner that read, “We love you” with our names on it. I called Kourt, and he said he had been really worried. The West Bus prayed for us the night before. We loaded in the rental cars and left. The bus had to leave earlier that morning to get to Mississippi for the next stop.

The riders who stayed behind told us about the transformations that had been taking place at Baylor. Students had been chalking the letter “Q” in orange on campus with meeting dates and times inside the Q. Q is the Soulforce Young Adults symbol. It represents the new generation who will actualize Queer equality, and it is also representative of a quote by theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote:

“The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. 'Do good to all men.' In both of these courses of action, the church serves the free state in its free way, and at times when laws are changed the church may in no way withdraw itself from these two tasks. The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.”

Baylor students are now starting an organization/forum for discussing sexuality and faith and calling it Q. I bawled my eyes out when my friends told me this. Everything I ever knew about Baylor was changing. The fear was falling away. The students had found their voice.

Apparently, earlier that morning at 8:00 a.m., several Baylor students came to the hotel we were staying at asking if they could help pick us up from jail. And the night before, about 10-15 students sought the riders out to eat dinner with them and have coffee with them at the local coffee shop.

When my friends told me all of this, realizations of suffering, of peace, of truth flooded my veins, and I felt a sense of humility overwhelm me. In training on nonviolence, we were told that we seek a place of higher understanding between the adversary and the individual bringing truth. I see how that functions now. I have been brought to a new place of love and understanding, and I am so humbled. I am so grateful.

I will post some excerpts from the letters I have received soon.