sunny days at Messiah College

I don’t know if I have too much to say about our stop at Messiah College. The school invited us on, and for the first (and probably only time) in the ride, a group of all women greeted us as we exited the bus. The President of Messiah College is a woman, and many members of administration are also women. This alone brought a lot of comfort to the riders, as we have not seen much diversity thus far.



When we arrived, we were shortly escorted to a breakfast with selected students and administration. I talked with one (male) member of administration for a while, and we posed several questions/situations to him concerning gay students on campus to get an accurate picture of what the atmosphere is like. We learned that a student can be openly gay on campus at Messiah, but any attempts to be in a relationship would qualify for some type of disciplinary action.

In essence, this school, and several others along the way, advocate for LGBTQ people to live lonely, celibate lives.

We also talked with the students and administration a bit about the faith tradition of Messiah College because it is a Brethern in Christ school. I found that this particular faith tradition holds service, social responsibility, and peace to be of utmost importance.

After breakfast, our student host took us on a tour of the campus, and we saw an awesome senior art exhibit. Lots of talent at Messiah! There was on piece in particular that struck me… mostly because I could not determine the intent of it. The artist took stories, artifacts, etc. from people all over campus dealing with things that they had all struggled with. There were several letters from gay students, and some taken from the equality ride website. However, these letters were also accompanied with parts of the piece dealing with anorexia, gender norms, etc. I wasn’t sure how I felt about LGBTQ lives being paralleled to eating disorders, but I was nonetheless happy about the exposure of Queer people’s stories.

Shortly therafter, I was invited to speak to a Sociology class. When I walked in, I knew that the class would be an excellent one. Several of the students were wearing shirts that had female-female, male-male, and female-male signs on them. The room was packed, so much so that several students were sitting on the windowsills. We mostly talked about the movement, its effects, its consequences, our perspectives on it and such. Several students approached me afterwards and thanked me for coming.

Unfortunately, the day was not completely filled with this type of positivity. Repent America was on campus as well that day, yelling at students, passing out literature, and denouncing our visit. I saw one sign that read, “Equality Ride is a phony mockery of Blacks,” I’m presuming to condemn our association with the Freedom Rides. Police tried to get them to leave, but the organization threatened legal action, and ultimately a deal was made for them to quit passing out literature and to stop yelling at students.

We found that many Messiah students were engaging the Repent America group in conversation to defend our visit and to defend LGBTQs.
That afternoon, there was a well-attended panel, where the riders discussed their experiences as LGBTQs. Two other members were on the panel—a friend of the administration and a student. The tone was civil, but I was disappointed in the way the moderator handled questions. He essentially summed them up in his own words and grouped similar questions together. Hardly any questions were read verbatim or directed toward individual riders. At the end of the forum, we saw students passing out flyers for Messiah’s first Gay-Straight Alliance meeting! Of course, the organization is not (and probably won’t be) sanctioned by the school, but it’s a great start.

We left campus around 5:30 and headed to a house near campus called the “Restoration House.” It is owned by the college, and students live there. They are committed to community building and sustainable living. All of their food is organic, they keep up a local orchard, and they have community dinners each week. We were the invited guests that week, and the house was packed. The food was delicious.



I had good conversations with students, including one student who was just accepted to a school to become a Catholic priest. He was kind of confused about identity, which I find to be a common confusion on campus.

Many people want to know why we think our identities as Queer people are so important… which really reflects a severe misunderstanding of how it is not a separate identity, but a fluid one. As Mandy said during the panel discussion earlier that day on the topic-

“I am many things. I am a lesbian. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a lover of dinosaurs!”

I tried to explain to the student that a Queer identity often entails certain cultural aspects but does not always have to. I hope I helped explain it a bit. It’s a hard thing to explain.. because it’s just who I am. Just as he could probably not explain to me what it’s like to be straight, I cannot explain so easily what it’s like to be Queer. It’s a part of life that influences so much of how you relate and react to others.

Anyhoo, I think the day was pretty productive, more so than at other schools. The students are excited about starting an alliance, they are eager to see a policy change, and most importantly, they are networking and building an internal community that will help sustain them in the future.