Hope College's Human Sexuality Policy

On Monday night, a discussion was held at Haworth Hotel on Hope's campus. The discussion was open to faculty, staff and students and said to be a panel style discussion of the college's recently updated Position Statement on Human Sexuality.

I didn't catch all the names of the members of the panel but each was lent a hand in updating the policy.

The policy was updated based on a series of petitions created by the organizations Hope is Ready and Holland is Ready (I'm sure they would love it if you visited their blogs or facebook pages to learn more about what they stand for). This uprising of sorts caused the board to consider reviewing the old policy that was established in 1995.

The discussion was set up as follows: The panel was asked three formal questions and each given three minutes to answer. As this was happening, audience members had the opportunity to submit their personal questions to be possibly answered at the end of the formal question portion.

I won't discuss every panel member's answer (I could not possibly take notes that fast), yet talk about the points that stood out to me.

The panel was first asked what they supported and what made them uncomfortable about the policy. Basically their uncensored opinions of it. Dr. James Harrick had a lengthy, yet informative speech prepared for this question. Because of it's length, I got somewhat lost in his words but he did say one thing that stuck with me: "What one sentence gives, another takes away and I am uncomfortable with that." -- Harrick

With the same question, Dr. David Myers, a huge supporter of gay rights here at Hope and wonderful author of books on the topic, gave his general opinion creating a great analogy, "It feels a little bit like a forced smile." What I found most interesting about Myers' answer to this question was that he said little to nothing about what he supported about the policy, and spent most of his three minutes eloquently stating the parts of it which made him "uncomfortable." Within his answer, Myers read an email he had received from someone in the Holland community. I loved what this person had to say.

He or she explained that for LGBT people, sexuality has become their identity. For straight people it is just something they "do." I couldn't agree more, anonymous emailer. This is something that had never been pointed out to me before and really hit me hard. That is a great notion to ponder. Has society labeled homosexuals as purely sexual creatures? Sexuality is just a part of their life, as it is with straight people, it is not their whole life. This person also criticized the policy saying it states we respect them but do not support their love; essentially delegitimizing their love, then turning around and saying we respect it, nonetheless. Something about that seems wrong to me too.

Another point that struck me, again, brought up again by Myers:

NEUTRALITY.

Now there's a word for the people behind our policy to consider. Hope College has a Neutrality Mandate in it's handbook. Am I wrong in saying neutrality means not taking one side or the other? This policy forces us to take sides, dividing the college at a time when we should be moving forward and coming together to create bright future.

The last point I will make which I opened my eyes to after attending the discussion is based on our number of students at Hope. Our incoming classes are shrinking. It has been said that the college could very possibly be losing students over its statements about sexuality. Dr. Myers said, support for gay rights is growing in this country, hence creating a huge generational gap.

Culture is changing... So must we.