Baylor University, one of the world’s largest Baptist universities, has shown an interest in giving formal campus recognition to an LGBTQ student group, although the school maintains that it disapproves of same-sex marriage, adultery and sex outside of marriage.
According to The Christian Post, the Waco, Texas-based school’s board of regents adopted a resolution last week that clears the way for the school to formally recognize a group of LGBT-identifying students.
President Linda A. Livingstone and the university administration were tasked by the board of regents to “determine the appropriate pathways to provide additional care, connections, and community for Baylor’s LGBTQ students, including the possibility of establishing a new, chartered student group that is consistent with Baylor’s core commitments,” the resolution by the board of regents said.
In a statement on the decision obtained by Waco Tribune-Herald, Livingstone asserted, “We look forward to moving forward on the charge in that resolution and doing it in a way that respects the principles outlined there and respects our values and mission and then our deep care for our students.”
The resolution also states that “as an important and faithful expression of our Christian mission, we desire to establish trust with our LGBTQ students so that, among other things, they might seek out the resources provided by Baylor.”
The resolution, however, also makes clear that the university continues to uphold “the biblical understanding that sexual relations of any kind outside of marriage between a man and a woman are not in keeping with the teaching of Scripture.”
The resolution about LGBTQ students is a product of discussions that began in 2019 when an unofficial LGBTQ student group’s attempts to be recognized with a university charter received support from alumni, professors, and other students in the form of a petition with over 3,000 signatures. It was this petition and the activism behind it that ultimately led to the resolution, which was based on “the University’s responsibility to serve the needs of all students entrusted to us across all areas of their development – academics, personal, and spiritual,” the resolution concludes.
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John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Washington Gazette, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
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