Antigay Pledge at Baptist University Leads to Mass Resignations

Some time ago I wrote about the proposed plan at Shorter University, a Baptist college in Georgia, to require all employees and faculty to (i) sign a “lifestyle statement” rejecting homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex, drug use and drinking in public, and (ii) become active members of a local church.  Now, the plan has gone into effect and at Shorter and more than 50 resignations of faculty and staff have occurred to date.  And it looks like the exodus isn't over yet.  Some say the policy is wrecking havoc on the school's faculty and I would suspect damaging whatever reputation the university had outside of Kool-Aid drinking Christianists circles.   I feel no sympathy for the university if it's reputation ends up in the toilet.  For students who were forced to attend by parents and family, I do feel sorrow.  Inside Higher Ed looks at the batshitery at Shorter.  Here are highlights:

 

In October, the college announced it would require all employees to sign a “lifestyle statement” rejecting homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex, drug use and drinking in public near the Rome, Ga., college’s campus. It also requires faculty to be active members of a local church. The statement, one of several steps the university has taken to intensify its Christian identity after the Georgia Baptist Convention began asserting more control over the campus six years ago, provoked an uproar among faculty, alumni and observers.

Before the new contracts were circulated, more than 50 members of the faculty and staff who felt they could not abide by its rules, or did not feel they should have to, resigned. [Michael] Wilson [the librarian at the university's Atlanta campus] stayed. But when he was offered his contract for the academic year, he signed and returned it, but with one line crossed out: “I reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible, including, but not limited to, premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality.”

So far, the college has not responded. In refusing to sign the lifestyle statement in its entirety, writing a letter to the college’s president explaining his decision,  and speaking out about his decision on the front page of the local newspaper, Wilson, 50, has become a somewhat reluctant and bewildered spokesman for the faculty and staff members who disagree with the university’s new direction.

Since then [2005], the Baptist convention has selected the college’s trustees. The college became more strict almost immediately: in 2008, Shorter joined the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, a group of evangelical colleges who hire mostly only evangelical Protestants as full-time faculty members. The climate at Shorter began to change around that time, Wilson said, adding that he would like the college to hire based on qualifications and not on religious beliefs.

Since the statements were first proposed, controversy has raged. An anonymous survey in April found only 12 percent of faculty and staff plan to stay. Save Our Shorter, a group opposing the changes, has a list on its website of more than 50 faculty members who are leaving as a result of the new policies. Several departments, including science and the fine arts, have been “eviscerated,” Wilson said.

Obviously, the university and the Southern Baptist Convention want to graduate ignorant idiots who will blindly follow their dictates and avoid thinking at all costs.