Christian College Tweets Its Anti-Gay Position Update Directly To Its Two Openly Gay Students
Erskine College, under fire for a new anti-gay statement, decided to tweet an updated statement directly to its two gay student athletes.
Last week a private Christian College in South Carolina took center stage for its newly-published policy statement banning homosexuality. Erskine College quickly became the locus of attention on social media when Outsports published a follow-up to its 2014 profile of two of Erskine’s student athletes, who are openly-gay. That follow-up included the college’s homosexuality ban.
LOOK:Â Christian College Bans Homosexuality After Two Gay Athletes Come Out
In what many believe is a response to the news that the 176-year old college has two openly-gay athletes, Erskine published the new anti-gay policy – which it insists is a “position,” not a policy.
A firestorm quickly errupted.
Erskine late last week moved the position statement to a different web location, and issued a “context” statement insisting that it has neither banned any gay students nor discriminated against any protected classes. LGBT people are not protected under South Carolina law. It also bragged that the new position statement did not specify minimum standards of punishment, such as expulsion, merely for being homosexual.
LOOK:Â Christian College Under Fire For Banning Homosexuality Wants You To Know They Didn’t Ban Homosexuals
The position statement also threatened that “institutional decisions will be made in light of this position,” suggesting action against LGBT students or faculty could be taken.
In an attempt to put out the fire it had caused by publishing a new position statement and an explanation, Erskine College took to Twitter at least 45 times to “correct” the record. For example, this tweet to the New York Daily News:
.@NYDailyNews Re NYDN article at http://t.co/uqPVq4gBOb – Erskine’s statement on sexuality doesn’t prescribe policy http://t.co/glg2NVULoJ
— Erskine College (@ErskineNews) February 27, 2015
Shockingly, as Outsports reported Sunday, Erskine College tweeted a link to the context statement directly to its two openly-gay athletes:
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That tweet has since been deleted.
It should be noted that aside from interviews with Outsports, neither of the athletes, Drew Davis and Juan Varona, had said much of anything publicly against their college, and in fact in the interviews had been very positive about their teammates and the support they’ve received from them.
So in response, both students took to Twitter:
@ErskineNews @juansiito1 idk why you’re mentioning me in this? I haven’t said anything about it.
— Drew Davis (@drewdavisss) February 27, 2015
@ErskineNews @juansiito1 are you only mentioning me because I was mentioned in the article and because I’m homosexual?
— Drew Davis (@drewdavisss) February 27, 2015
@ErskineNews @drewdavisss you left out what the institutional decisions to be made on this position are!
— juansito (@juansiito1) February 27, 2015
Fortunately, both students are getting a good deal of support:
@juansiito1 Former Erskine Student Body President here, class of 08. I’m so sorry for all of this- sending love, prayer, and support to you
— Sarah Hope Dickert (@sarahdickert) February 27, 2015
Everyone please pray @erskinecollege who is affirming how backwards and ignorant some people still are in our evolving world. #LGBT
— Keaton Pieper (@k_pieper) February 27, 2015
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Tweet screenshot via Outsports, used by permission
Image, top: Erskine President Paul Kooistra, via Facebook

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