‘All our neighbors’: Baylor University greenlights liberal event in response to TPUSA rally
Baylor University has approved a request for an on-campus event featuring progressive activists to be held in response to and on the same day as a Turning Point USA rally.
Called “All Our Neighbors,” the event is scheduled for April 22, the same day as a previously approved TPUSA tour stop at the prominent Baptist university in Waco, Texas.
“As an academic institution, Baylor University is committed to ensuring open dialogue and the robust exchange of ideas and perspectives,” a spokesperson for Baylor said in an emailed statement to The Christian Post Thursday evening, explaining that allowing the event was part of the university’s commitment to intellectual diversity.
“We hold this commitment along with an obligation to provide a safe and nurturing educational environment within a caring Christian community. The University worked with the student organizations to align the event with institutional policies and procedures.”
“All Our Neighbors” is being overseen by a coalition of five campus organizations, including Baylor’s NAACP chapter, Baylor Democrats, Hearts for the Homeless, Students Demand Action, and Texas Rising.
Scheduled speakers for the event include Kelley Robinson, president of the national LGBT activist group the Human Rights Campaign; Paul Raushenbush, an American Baptist minister and president of Interfaith Alliance; and Greg Garrett, a Baylor professor and columnist for Baptist News Global.
Garrett made headlines last year for his public affirmation of homosexuality and transgenderism, and support for a $643,000 grant to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion in churches.
For its part, BNG reported Wednesday that the “All Our Neighbors” event “is believed to be the first time Baylor has allowed an openly gay Christian advocacy speaker on campus for such an event.”
This is in reference to Robinson, who identifies as Catholic and is the first black lesbian to serve as president of the LGBT activist group. She is also in a same-sex marriage.
In 2019, the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work at Baylor hosted an event featuring Justin Lee, an LGBT-identified Christian advocate and author, as part of the university’s “Conversation Series.”
Last month, The Baylor Lariat reported that the campus chapter of TPUSA was hosting a tour stop for the national organization’s “This is the Turning Point Tour” on April 22.
That event is expected to feature Trump Organization Executive Vice President Donald Trump Jr., Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan and conservative commentator Benny Johnson.
The TPUSA tour event has received pushback from some on campus, with the Lariat editorial board publishing a piece last month expressing concern that the rally was an “institutional endorsement of divisiveness.”
“If Baylor is to take its own stated commitment to civil discourse seriously, it must ensure that no single perspective — particularly one known for its polarizing rhetoric — dominates the conversation at the expense of others,” noted the editors in a piece printed before the “All Our Neighbors” event was greenlit.
“A campus community is not strengthened by moments that divide it into opposing camps. It is strengthened by shared commitments to truth, charity and to one another.”
