A Queer Pilgrim

Samford University, a Southern Baptist university in Birmingham, Alabama, with around 6,000 students, has become a case study in the slide from being an institution that was inclusive of other denominations who support LGBTQIA2S+ people, a kind of "middle of the road," very liberal liberal arts institution, to one who ostracizes other denominations that support LGBTQIA2S+ people. The story: Samford University, which prides itself in being a more or less "liberal" university and not like Liberty University or Bob Jones University, has an annual campus ministry fair. What was peculiar this year was that two groups were excluded from the campus fair that were usually there: the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) booths. Why? Because both denominations support LGBTQIA2S+ people in terms of ordination to the ministry as well as LGBTQIA2S+ marriages. I'm sure the United Methodist Church was still welcomed to the fair, though in future years, watch out.

One of the reasons I supported the "mainstream movement" of children with intellectual disabilities and other physical and sensory disabilities in public schools rather than special schools or classrooms is because I, along with other educators, knew that the mere exposure of people with various disabilities to children without disabilities would be an organic form of education unto itself. Children with disabilities would want to copy and imitate and hang around children who were not disabled. And children who were not disabled got to know children with disabilities not as "the disabled one," but as Sam, Mary, Hector, or Shaniqua. In other words, it was good for all concerned, and everyone learned, and liked, one another, regardless or because of the differences.  The same thing is now happening with the LGBTQIA2S+ college-aged young people going to school with non-LGBTQIA2S+ young people. They are getting to know each other, on first name basis, and they like one