University of Idaho houses summer activities ran by anti-LGBTQA faiths Christ Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Over the summer, as UI doesn’t have as many students on campus, most facilities go unused. To fill these facilities UI allows conferences from many different groups to hold activities on campus.
Some of these conferences can range from a program called Ag in the Classroom, which allows K-12 teachers to gain more certification, all the way to national conferences.
However, there are some weeks where UI hosts summer camps for K-12 kids and their programs.
During the month of July, UI has seen multiple religious summer camps on campus including one run by the LDS church and another run by New Saint Andrews College, which is connected to Christ Church.
UI has made formal statements in support of their LGBTQA students and staff but have now turned around and allowed groups that are openly opposed to those same students and staff to utilize campus facilities.
On the website for the New Saint Andrews Called Conference, they talk about how they “…spend a week being taught how to respond as Christians to a culture gone mad…” and how to survive a “culture onslaught”.
In an online post made on July 3, 2015, Christ Church Senior Minister Douglas Wilson spoke about how supporting same-sex marriage is worse than supporting slavery.
Christ Church has been a problem for not just UI students but also Moscow itself with members buying any available building and connecting it to Christ Church.
The LDS church runs a program called FSY, which stands for “For the Strength of Youth”.
The website for FSY isn’t as outwardly aggressive as the website for the Called Conference however the stances of the LDS church are just as bad.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, the LDS church talks about how experiencing feelings of same sex attraction isn’t a sin but acting on it is.
In previous years the LDS church taught that same-sex attraction was seen as curable and could be changed but have recently changed their teachings to a less aggressive stance.
With UI allowing these two anti-LGBTQA groups to utilize campus facilities, it contradicts their earlier statements that campus is a safe place for LGBTQA students and staff.
Connor Anderson can be reached at [email protected]
Matthew
"Christ Church has been a problem for not just UI students but also Moscow itself with members buying any available building and connecting it to Christ Church." Christ Church owns one building downtown – Chalmers Hall at 417 S Jackson St. This was formerly another church. They rent office space at 403 S Jackson St, along with other businesses in that building. Other than two NSA buildings, allowed by City Council CUPs, what other buildings have been purchased and "connected" to Christ Church?
Soren Kierkegaard
I know it is bothersome to live in a society where Christ reigns through both the children and the adults, but I thought you believed in freedom of expression. Let the Christians express themselves how they wish! I know they are winning rather noticeably and taking over your school for two weeks, but don't complain about it in the deceptive guise of honest journalism. That is rather systematically inconsistent and babyish.
Dale Courtney
"University of Idaho houses summer activities ran by anti-LGBTQA faiths Christ Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Who wrote this? That sentence reads like an elementary student wrote it. "Activities ran by"?