{"id":3121,"date":"2011-05-04T16:04:37","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T20:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=3121"},"modified":"2011-05-04T16:04:37","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T20:04:37","slug":"wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students","title":{"rendered":"Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By ADELLE M. BANKS <\/strong><br \/>\n<em>c. 2011 Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n<p>(RNS) Gay and supportive alumni of Wheaton College have formed a new organization following a recent chapel series at the flagship evangelical school on &#8220;Sexuality and Wholeness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More than 400 signatories have signed an open letter to students at the Christian college in suburban Chicago to present an alternative message to one from a chapel speaker who supports gay celibacy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The recent chapel message on Sexuality and Wholeness and surrounding conversations may have left you feeling alienated, ashamed and afraid,&#8221; reads the open letter. &#8220;Many of us felt trapped and unable to respond honestly to these messages while we were students.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Gore, a spokesman for OneWheaton and a 2004 Wheaton alumnus, said the group wants gay and lesbian students at the school to know that they have support among gay alumni.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As it is, most of those students would be afraid to talk to anybody,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s just the environment there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In an emailed response to the letter, Wheaton President Philip Ryken told students that the school considers gay people members &#8220;of the human family as created in the image of God himself,&#8221; but remains committed to its covenant that condemns homosexual behavior.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many have experienced insensitive or callous responses in this community, for which we repent and seek forgiveness,&#8221; he wrote, adding the school condemns violence and injustice toward gays.<\/p>\n<p>Wheaton spokeswoman LaTonya Taylor said the recent chapel series addressed pornography and abstinence and included a sermon from Wheaton alumnus Wesley Hill, author of &#8220;Washed and Waiting,&#8221; who &#8220;spoke from the perspective of a Christian who experiences same-sex attraction but has chosen to pursue celibacy.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) Gay and supportive alumni of Wheaton College have formed a new organization following a recent chapel series at the flagship evangelical school on &#8220;Sexuality and Wholeness.&#8221; More than 400 signatories have signed an open letter to students at the Christian college in suburban Chicago to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[119,4,8,9],"tags":[2204,2217,31,50,51,2202,658,657],"class_list":["post-3121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-faith","category-news","category-rns","tag-christian","tag-education","tag-evangelical","tag-gay","tag-homosexual","tag-rns","tag-sexuality-and-wholeness","tag-wheaton-college"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) Gay and supportive alumni of Wheaton College have formed a new organization following a recent chapel series at the flagship evangelical school on &#8220;Sexuality and Wholeness.&#8221; More than 400 signatories have signed an open letter to students at the Christian college in suburban Chicago to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-04T20:04:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beliefnet News Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students","og_description":"By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) Gay and supportive alumni of Wheaton College have formed a new organization following a recent chapel series at the flagship evangelical school on &#8220;Sexuality and Wholeness.&#8221; More than 400 signatories have signed an open letter to students at the Christian college in suburban Chicago to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-05-04T20:04:37+00:00","author":"Beliefnet News Editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students","name":"Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-04T20:04:37+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-04T20:04:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/ff42454e16eda902b675fd206e222124"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/wheaton-alumni-rally-around-gay-students#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Wheaton Alumni Rally around Gay Students"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/ff42454e16eda902b675fd206e222124","name":"Beliefnet News Editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e30\/e30900503ec90484dcd1469f5ccbd68fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e30\/e30900503ec90484dcd1469f5ccbd68fx96.jpg","caption":"Beliefnet News Editor"},"description":"Top religious news from around the world","sameAs":["http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/news"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3123,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions\/3123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}