A man, a bus and a cause: An alum's ride for gay rights

Bram Wispelwey '06 will climb on a bus next month and take a road trip with a purpose.

Wispelwey will join 55 other young activists in the Soulforce Equality Ride, which will visit 32 colleges and universities that ban openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students from enrolling. He and his fellow riders will approach students on those campuses and try to change their minds through nonviolent discussion.

"This is a justice issue, a Christian issue, a human issue," Wispelwey, a straight Christian man, said. "It's not a gay issue. We're allies in this movement. The time for radical change is long overdue."

Through nonviolent means, Soulforce seeks to highlight what it sees as discrimination against LGBT individuals by mimicking the Freedom Rides of the 1960s, which promoted civil rights for African Americans. It focuses its efforts on the most conservative schools of higher education, such as Baylor University and Bob Jones University.

This will be the second-annual Equality Ride. Soulforce also campaigns for same-sex marriage rights and holds sit-ins at military recruitment offices to fight the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

"We're mainly focused on reconciliation and discussion," Wispelwey said. "We seek to limit the negative effects of homophobia."

Wispelwey said he draws on William Sloane Coffin, one of the original Freedom Riders, for inspiration. Coffin wrote that in America, homophobia is the last "respectable prejudice."

While nonviolent resistance attempts to effect peaceful policy change, the risks are real. Last year, Soulforce Equality Riders contended with hate messages and verbal abuse. There is also the possibility of arrest.

"I think that for something that I believe in, that's a risk I'm willing to take," Wispelwey said regarding the possibility of being arrested. "Christians should be leading a movement to ease suffering. Actually, some Christians are causing it, which to me is incomprehensible."

Peter Hazelrigg, the University's Presbyterian campus minister, who worked with Wispelwey in small group studies, commended Wispelwey's dedication to the Soulforce Equality Ride.

"I see it as a very selfless act," Hazelrigg said. "Bram himself has not been discriminated [against] on the basis [of sexual orientation], but to stand for the others, and to ride for others, takes great conviction and courage."

Wispelwey was not always an advocate of LGBT rights. He attended a conservative Christian private school through eighth grade, where he was taught that homosexuality is wrong.

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"The church can be so consumed with a single issue that it loses the focus of the Good News of the Gospel," Hazelrigg said. "It becomes a one-issue deal. Whether it is politics or religion, any time you have that black-or-white, single-issue focus, it's divisive."

Wispelwey attributes his change in perspective to the four years he spent at Princeton. As an ecology and evolutionary biology major, he said, he began to see the world from a more scientific angle.

"I realized homosexuality wasn't a choice, as I had been taught in school," Wispelwey said. "Later, once I came to the belief that this was not a sin, I could not just stand by as a Christian. To be silent is, to some degree, to be complicit."

Wispelwey's personal transformation may mirror that of the larger Christian community.

"In the past 20 years, Christians have begun to seriously consider the claims of LGBT individuals," said Paul Raushenbush, the University's associate dean of religious life, who has donated money to Soulforce. "God created them as they are and [with the intention] that they should be treated as full members of communities of faith."

"The scripture injunctions against them have been misinterpreted," he added. "We need to reinterpret scripture that has been used to basically oppress a class of people."

Christians hold a fairly broad range of views on homosexuality, Hazelrigg said. Such views vary from "it's a sin, it's an abomination," to "love the sinner, but hate the sin," to more liberal questions of whether or not sexual orientation should affect ordination, he added.

Wispelwey praised what he called Princeton's outreach to all communities.

"I remember as a freshman we did a diversity talk," Wispelwey said. "Princeton does a good job of pushing issues forward. I would encourage people to get involved, to see the issue as a justice issue."

The Office of Religious Life also sponsors the Chattin' with the Chaplain program as a way to reach out to students of all religious faiths, predominantly from the LGBT community. The group meets once a month.