Gay Activists
Arrested
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, March 26, 2007
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Members of
a gay rights group were arrested Monday after staging a sit-in at a Baptist
seminary whose president is drawing criticism for his comments on prenatal
treatments that would influence a child's sexual orientation.
The group, Soulforce, attempted to meet with the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary's president, the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., an influential evangelical
leader.
Twelve were charged with criminal trespassing -- a misdemeanor -- and booked
into jail, Louisville police said.
The sit-in in front of Mohler's office lasted about two hours, said Jarrett
Lucas, a co-director of a Soulforce tour that is visiting Christian colleges.
The group did not contact officials at the private campus in advance of the
visit, said Lawrence Smith, the seminary's vice president of communications.
Smith said a small group left when they were asked by police to leave, but the
others stayed.
''As far as I could tell they were not unruly,'' Smith said. ''It's my
understanding that they did not resist arrest, but they refused to leave the
campus when they were asked to leave.''
An Associated Press reporter was escorted off the campus.
Lucas said the 12 who were arrested were expected to be released by the end of
the day.
Smith said Mohler was not on the campus during the demonstration.
Mohler irked gay-rights supporters by asserting in a recent article that
homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his
support for a hypothetical medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay
baby's sexual orientation.
Mohler has said he wrote the article ''intending to start a conversation.''
Lucas said group members wanted Mohler to rescind his comments and publicly
apologize.
''Some of us were raised in a southern Baptist tradition, so for him to deny his
own constituents simply a conversation -- we wanted to go have him hear our
voice -- and we were denied that,'' Lucas said.
Soulforce, a nonprofit organization based in Lynchburg, Va., has organized
several national tours to religious and military colleges to protest their
attitudes about homosexuality. Members also were arrested earlier this
month during demonstrations at Oklahoma Baptist University.
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