| Students and staff grapple with sexuality issues
by Chris Wenstrom
Assistant News Editor
FILE PHOTO
'In God's Image' chats about sexuality.
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A student group called “In God’s Image” that concerns itself with issues of sexual orientation and homosexuality is seeking a charter to become an officially recognized student organization.
“In God’s Image” was formed out of a previous group, called “Ribbon Forum,” that attempted to get an official Calvin charter last year. That group’s efforts were put on hold by the college while it could assemble and ramp up a sexuality task force.
“Our group wants bring students who have a desire to speak about sexual issues in a prayerful manner. We hope to be a safe place for people with a vast array of perspectives on these issues to get more information and talk with others to discover how they feel about certain sexual topics,” said junior Stephanie Kinney, current chair of “In God’s Image.”
The group has been instrumental in the forming of Ribbon Week.
“Usually a purple ribbon is worn to mean that people are loving toward their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Also, there is a prayer put out by the Synod [Christian Reformed Church’s governing body], which we pray, we have panel discussions, a few chapels, and some literature at a booth in Johnny’s,” Kinney said.
Ribbon Week is a Student Life-sponsored event, with input from across campus. It runs from April 21-25 and has been going on for five years.
“I guess it was two years ago we realized people wanted to talk about homosexuality afterwards they still had some questions unanswered and wanted to keep talking,” Kinney said. “So we thought it would be a good idea to bring this discussion into a group on campus, that both gay and straight people could be part of. And we formed, at the time, a group called ‘Ribbon Forum.’ We tried to model our group after the documents put out by the Synod, regarding homosexuality.”
“I think a lot of people have misconceptions about homosexuality, but they also have a lot of legitimate questions about what the Bible really says,” she said. “The group isn’t going to say ‘these are the conclusive answers,’ because people come to different conclusions when they are presented with the evidence. But they need a play to talk it out and to find the resources to come their decisions.”
Not everyone present at the group is homosexual. There are some straight attendees who are simply interested in talking about the subject of sexuality. Some people coming have family members or friends who are gay and they look to “In God’s Image” as a support group.
“The official existing support group sponsored by the Broene Center is for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-gendered or people questioning. Our group accepts straight people who otherwise do not have a way to talk about sexuality issues, but it is not an official support group,” Kinney said.
When asked about the goals of the group, Kinney said, “Currently we don’t have the ability to organize events, because we can’t do anything on campus, we don’t have a budget from the school, and we don’t have a way to get rooms or speakers. So now, primarily this is just discussion based.” The group has been incorrectly referred to as the “Gay-Straight Alliance.”
“We wanted to stay away from the term ‘allied,’ because that implies we are allied against something, which we are not,” Kinney said.
There is a mailing list for people interested in the discussion of this group.
”In God’s Image,” has a website, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InGodsImage, which can be visited in order to join the organization, upon approval, or for links to various related sites and other information.
After Ribbon Forum filed for a charter, at the request of President Gaylen Byker and Vice President for Student Life Shirley Hoogstra, the planning and priorities committee appointed the Sexuality Task Force, of from Calvin faculty.
“They [Sexuality Task Force members] were chosen because they were wise, they represented many aspects of college life, and we knew they cared about students,” Hoogstra said.
The task force was given the mandates to survey the college campus, evaluate whether the college has any programs available to interested students, give recommendations based on that evaluation, assess how homosexual students are being treated at Calvin, and be advisory to the Student Life Division and the college as a whole.
“We have held one open forum because we want to know what students want,” Hoogstra said. “The first open forum was great because we heard from students about what students think is necessary on campus. One of the things we know is that there is a broad spectrum of experience on campus. We would like to be proactive so that a Calvin College student is not left looking for answers somewhere else, but so they can get them through their education here.”
There is going to be a survey before April 15 on KnightVision regarding sexuality. It can be done in ten minutes, consisting of about thirty questions. “The survey is something that will help the college be proactive about programming and curriculum on sexuality. We hope for first-year and fourth-year students, females and males to take part. It is something that is going to give us a baseline on people’s attitudes on and what kinds of things they would like to see talked about,” Hoogstra said.
The report from the Sexuality Task Force is going to come out some time in the fall, according to Hoogstra.
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