Just when we thought we'd heard it all, along comes Bob Jones University. The school said this week that it will arrest gay alumni for trespassing if they return to campus.
The Christian fundamentalist university in Greenville, S.C., has never been an enclave of enlightened tolerance. In the 1970s, for example, it lost its tax-exempt status after the IRS said it discriminated against black people. This time the issue is gays, and it too belongs in the realm of the bizarre.Bob Jones University, as it turns out, monitors graduates' lives in the real world. If they stray from Bob Jones' version of the straight-and-narrow, grads get a scolding letter. ``We are trying to train students to live for the Lord, so of course we're disappointed if they do not,' said a university spokesman, trying to explain its admonishing letters.
Wayne Mouritzen, a 60-year-old Bob Jones graduate and retired minister, who late in life came to grips with his homosexuality, got a letter. Written by Bob Jones' dean of students, it said:
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``With grief we must tell you that as long as you are living as a homosexual, you, of course, would not be welcome on the campus and would be arrested for trespassing if you did visit.'
Why? Because the university's 4,000 students are taught to interpret the Bible literally. According to Bob Jones' interpretation, the Bible says gays are sinful.
We learned long ago, however, that the literal interpretation of the Bible is problematic. It's full of contradictory messages. It also refers to practices that are considered repugnant now. For example, one verse says: ``Slaves, be obedient to your masters.' If you interpret that literally, then it's fine and dandy to enslave people and insist on their obedience.
Bob Jones University has cut gays (and the Bible) some slack on one area of campus. If gay alums show up at the college art museum, they won't be arrested for trespassing. The art museum is a separate non-profit organization that, unlike the rest of the university, has federal tax-exempt status. Biblical or not, Bob Jones wouldn't want to lose this privilege.
But that won't help Wayne Mouritzen if he returns to his alma mater. To reach the art museum, he must walk across campus and risk arrest. We have a solution for him: He should parachute to the museum.
Sound silly? Of course. But no more absurd than Bob Jones University's idiotic policy against gay alumni.
