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March 27, 2007

Equality Ride activists arrested at sit-in

Participants in Equality Ride 2, who are traveling the country in two buses to have dialogue with students at Christian colleges that have policies excluding or silencing gays, were arrested Monday after holding a sit-in at the office of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler. The group traveled to the Louisville, Ky., campus to protest Mohler’s recent online article in which he expressed support for the development of prenatal hormonal therapies to counteract biological homosexual tendencies in fetuses, reports The [Louisville] Courier-Journal.
About two dozen gay activists were at his office to participate in the sit-in Monday morning. After being warned by police that they would be arrested, 10 left peacefully, and the rest were taken into custody.

According to The Courier-Journal, protester Kyle DeVries said that as a well-known Christian leader, Mohler “has a tremendous influence” and that his “calls for eugenics for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people needed to be answered.... We decided to come here and demand a rescindment of those comments and a public apology for them.”

Seminary spokesman Lawrence Smith told The Courier-Journal that Mohler was not on the premises during the protest. “They of course have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to break the law, and that’s why they were arrested,” Smith said. “You have to understand they are a professional protest group. Their aim is to create disruption and in some cases be arrested."

Equality Ride 2 is being sponsored by the gay rights group Soulforce. (The Advocate)

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