Leave it to Harvard University to target a campus Christian organization but offer a religious support group to LGBTQ students.
According to The Harvard Crimson, the religious support group will be run by Harvard’s Office of BGLTQ Student Life; it will “respond to the religious needs of students of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations.” Sheehan Scarborough, the director of the BGLTQ office, told the Crimson it is “far too early” to answer questions posed about the new group. Scarborough emailed the “Harvard BGLTQ List” this message: “Questions about acceptance, community, and connection are alive for people of many religious traditions right now. There are many ways, and many communities, in which to be queer and religious.”
Daniel Payne of The College Fix points out, “The group appears to be at least in part a response to the controversy surrounding the campus Christian group Harvard College Faith & Action, which was subject to administrative censure earlier this semester following a sustained on-campus controversy.”
In February, Faith & Action invited the ex-gay Christian speaker Jackie Hill-Perry to campus. The editorial board of the The Harvard Crimson accused the group of “[giving] a platform to homophobia, conversion therapy, and hate.” The university administration placed the group on probation; The Crimson reported that the reason for the university’s action was “almost certainly tied to the organization’s decision to ask a woman in a same-sex relationship to step down from a leadership position last semester.”