Valdosta student Joey Heath will use his religious beliefs and determination to turn around anti-gay sentiment on Christian college campuses during the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride.
Traveling spirits Gay Ga. students seek reconciliation, equality on Soulforce ride
They are young. They are eager. And they are readying themselves for a frontline battle along religious lines that may pit them against forces propelled by a centuries-old strength of convictions.
Joey Heath and Robin Reynolds, two Valdosta State University master’s degree candidates, will soon trade in their books for a two-month tour of duty through the cultural war over equal rights for gay men and lesbians.
In March, Heath and Reynolds join the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride, a two-bus cadre of gay college students from a variety of religious backgrounds who plan to stop at the gates of conservative Christian colleges with a message for students and faculty members: Gay men and lesbians are people, too.
“One of our biggest goals is to have one-on-one conversations with these students,” Heath says. “We want them to walk away and say, ‘that person who talked with me didn’t embody everything I’ve been taught about gay people.’”
Soulforce, which sponsors the ride, is a national gay Christian organization that works to increase acceptance for gay men and lesbians in churches.
Paths haven’t crossed frequently for Heath, 23, and Reynolds, 24, but they share much in common. Both grew up Christian in conservative homes in small Georgia towns — Heath in Hinesville, Reynolds in Albany.
They traded home for college life in Valdosta, and while there, both came out as gay to decidedly mixed reactions from their friends and families.
“My mother’s approach is basically that I am temporarily gay and can be delivered so I can preach to others about being ex-gay,” Reynolds says. “To her, it’s all in God’s plan — not that he planned me to be gay — but so I can preach to others.”
Heath faced coming out to his friends and family with some gay friends standing by with support over the phone.
“My parents have not reacted very well,” he says. “My mom, one of the last times I talked to her, said, ‘We just didn’t raise you this way.’”
HEATH AND REYNOLDS plan to travel by way of Soulforce’s East Bus, which takes off from Minneapolis to journey south and east, including an April 2 stop at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga.
While in college and the closet, Heath clung to the friends he made as a member of the Wesley Foundation, a nationwide Methodist ministry on college campuses. He came out first as someone who was, for two years, “struggling with same-sex attractions.” He eventually exited the closet for good as a non-struggling gay man.
“I call myself a walking contradiction, because I’m an evangelical gay Christian, and a lot of what I believe is very much along the lines of the conservative right, other than homosexuality,” he says.
Reynolds threw herself into politics and became president of the Georgia College Democrats and later the LGBT Caucus development director for the national College Democrats organization.
The religious lock on the closet door may be gone, but Christianity is still very much at the forefront of Reynolds’ and Heath’s lives.
Heath recently came out to his church, a Methodist congregation in Valdosta. The results were less than he hoped for, and he’s currently looking for a new home church. Reynolds, is also on the lookout for a church.
As they approach the Soulforce battlefield on campuses like Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., where 19 faculty members uphold the school’s motto of “For Christ & for Liberty” to 325 students, Reynolds and Heath say they don’t fear any conflict on the ride, because it wasn’t very long ago that they thought just like the Patrick Henry and Liberty University students.
“I used to be one of them,” Reynolds says. “I stunted my growth both as an individual and spiritually by believing what I did. It does seem that some of the people we are dealing with have never been exposed to anything else.”
To gear up for the ride, Heath, Reynolds and 54 other student crusaders spent six days training at Soulforce’s Minneapolis headquarters. The Georgia riders say they expect the trip to be intense once they begin interacting with students on the campuses they visit.
“You’ll get done with one conversation with a student, walk away, and someone else comes up to you and says, well, Leviticus says this,” Heath predicts.
In 2006, Soulforce riders faced down detractors at stops at Liberty and Regent Universities, where numerous riders and protesters were arrested. A Soulforce bus was spray painted with the words “fag mobile” during a stop in Tennessee.
The battle, though, is worth the emotional costs, the Georgia riders say. The other side, Joey reckons, is bound to have at least some double agents.
“Statistics say that at every one of these schools, there’s gay people. And they’re in the closet, because most of these schools won’t allow an openly gay person,” he asserts. “We’re there to tell them that the school is wrong.”
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