Gay student
expelled from Kentucky college

After writing about his boyfriend on his MySpace.com profile, a gay student at a small Baptist college in Kentucky was expelled last week. Sophomore Jason Johnson, who would have been stage-managing a production of As You LikeIt, instead was dismissed from the University of the Cumberlands because the school prohibits homosexuality and any sex outside of marriage, reports The LexingtonHerald-Leader. Administrators at the school, located in Williamsburg, confronted Johnson last Thursday about his MySpace page, asserting that it was evidence he was in violation of school policy forbidding homosexual conduct. He was required to leave the university that night and moved out of his dorm within hours. "I was upset to the point that I couldn't speak," Johnson told the Herald-Leader. "I didn't even want to ask about it. I wanted to be out of there." Since Johnson's expulsion, his boyfriend, Zac Dreyer, has been publicizing what happened on his own MySpace profile, writing, "He is being asked to leave the university because he is gay. Help get the story out there so that all the gays and lesbians at the university will no longer have to live in secrecy, in fear of having their dreams crushed in front of them." In a statement released last week, University of the Cumberlands president Jim Taylor said that "students know the rules before they come to this institution," although officials admitted that when Johnson enrolled in 2003, school policy did not specifically refer to being gay. It has since been amended. Johnson is now considering legal action. (The Advocate)