Christian College President: We Canceled Bake Sale For LGBT Homeless Youth Because Of Their ‘Advocacy’

The President of a Christian college says his school is happy to support LGBT homeless youth, but not an LGBT homeless youth non-profit because of its “advocacy” stance.

Andrews University is the largest evangelical Christian institution of higher learning in Michigan and the first in the nation started by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It boasts over 3400 students, an endowment reported at more than $26 million, and a history that began in 1874, in Battle Creek – the same town where John H. Kellogg, also a Seventh-day Adventist, founded a sanitarium and the company that today is best know for making Corn Flakes.

Andrews, headed by President Niels-Erik Andreasen, has a challenging relationship with the LGBT community. 

Recently, students decided to hold a bake sale to help LGBT homeless youth. AULL4One, the college’s unofficial gay-straight alliance – unofficial because Andrews is a Christian evangelical university – chose as the beneficiary of the bake sale a non-profit named Project Fierce Chicago.

But Andrews, even though they do not recognize AULL4One as an official student group and do not allow them to advertise on campus their meetings or events, had another idea.

David Ferguson at Raw Story reports that Andrews has forbidden the students to hold the bake sale benefitting LGBT homeless youth “because to do so would ‘conflict’ with the university’s ‘mission and practices.'”

Steve Yeagley, Andrews’ Dean of Student Life, in an email sent to AULL4One’s Eliel Cruz and published by Blue Nation Review and Raw Story, explained the university’s decision.

“I think the most helpful thing I can do is to draw your attention to the fundraising policy found in the Student Handbook. It simply states that funds may be raised for non-profit organizations ‘whose mission and practices do not conflict with those of the University.’ I think the judgment in this case is that there may be a perceived conflict between the mission and practices of Andrews University and those of Fierce Chicago — certainly not in their efforts to aid homeless youth, but in their approach to the LGBT issue, at large.”

What is their approach?

Fierce Chicago’s website says their “aim is to become a largely self-sustaining community,” and they “will provide transitional housing for 8-10 LGBTQ young people ages 18-25, for an initial term of one year.”

Apparently that’s a bit too radical for Andrews and for its President, Niels-Erik Andreasen.

Andrews spokesperson Becky St. Clair told The New Civil Rights Movement by telephone that President Andreasen crafted a statement in response to news reports. That statement says that “Andrews University recognizes the special challenges facing LGBT youth and believes that efforts to help them are worthy.”

But Andreasen, who reportedly had a hand in canceling the bake sale, also states the school’s “objection” to the fundraiser is due to Fierce Chicago’s “advocacy.”

“Andrews University has declined a student request to officially endorse a fundraising effort to raise money for an organization that may have a perceived LGBT advocacy role,” Andreasen’s statement reads. Even though AULL4One went through proper channels, and even got an official student group, Campus Ministries, to sponsor the event, without the school’s official endorsement the event has to be canceled.

Andreasen adds, “our objection was not to the worthy goal of serving LGBT homeless youth and their transitional housing needs but to the perceived advocacy stance of the proposed organization.”

On the school’s Facebook page last fall appears a photo (above) of Pres. Andreasen holding a sign that reads, “Live United.” He is quoted in that post saying, “Doing good things together is better: Live united.”

AULL4One has decided to move forward. Their original goal for the bake sale was to raise $2000. Instead, they have sent up an Indiegogo fundraising page that currently has taken in nearly $5000. 

 

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