As a Christian and a Tufts student, I am calling for the immediate de-funding of the so-called Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA (IVCF). IVCF continues to promote anti-gay hate speech while acting as the oversight advisory for TCF's funding, taken from the Student Activities Fee. This is unacceptable.
Last October, I was threatened by an employee of IVCF. They told me to be careful about whom I complained to, because "the last time this happened it cost everyone a lot of money, and we had to get lawyers involved."
The phrase "the last time" was in reference to 11 years ago, when Julie Catalano (LA '01) was forcibly removed from her exec-board position for refusing to condemn her own sexuality. IVCF acquired a lawyer, one David French, to defend TCF. The Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) allowed the latter to defend TCF against Catalano, who had no legal counsel of her own.
TCF was allowed back on campus through an agreement that they abide by the statement, now in Article IV of its constitution, required by the Judiciary and following Chaplaincy for recognition of any religious group: "In conformance with Tufts University policy, TCF pledges to adhere to all University regulations. TCF does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, national or ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation, disability or an individual's previous affiliations in criteria for membership, assignment of voting privileges or rank" (emphasis mine).
This is deliberately ambiguous. Students and IVCF leaders alike have denied to me that this clause exists, that it applies to religious groups, that it applies to them specifically or, if all of the above are true, instead assert that these rules should no longer apply to them.
As IVCF New England Regional Director Chris Nichols told me in Nov. 2011, if a gay person was elected to an exec-board position, refused to resign and IVCF could not otherwise compel them, then "IVCF would not continue its relationship with that chapter."
On Dec. 7, 2011, then-director of the Tufts' IVCF chapter, Ms. Alexandra Nesbeda, was quoted in a Daily article as saying that any queer relationship - no matter the kind, amount or lack of sexual play - is, by definition, "unchaste." Among other IVCF rhetoric and publications (such as "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality"), this statement is in line with IVCF's Chapter Leader's Handbook, which reads: "Is it ok to have a homosexual encounter? [...] A Christian says no."
Ms. Nesbeda's callous admission alone should have resulted in an immediate severance of relations between Tufts and IVCF.
Are we surprised, then, at how doggedly IVCF refuses to compromise? Why TCF has no elections? As Alec Hill, President and CEO of IVCF has written, the recognition of IVCF chapters as student groups has been challenged or revoked at 41 (!) different colleges in the 18 months leading up to February 2012 alone in light of intransigent, harmful practices such as these.
To those who believe IVCF's censorship, lying and bullying has a right to the Student Activities Fee, remember that free speech is not free of accountability. Since when was freedom of religion a "Get Out of Jail Free" card that excused bigotry? Since when was an organization like IVCF given the permission to speak for evangelical Christians such as myself? Consequences too long deferred are no different from consequences avoided. It is long past time to force the administration's hand on this; it is long past time to end meetings with unwilling liars who argue in bad faith; it is long past time to tolerate - that word the intolerant hate so much - self-righteous pontificating that says: "Yes, we will use your buildings and your money, and we will not treat you as an equal. Because we are religious."
As am I! Let me be clear: I am not suggesting censorship of those who say these things under cover of religion. But I am pleading for accountability - and consequences. I encourage everyone to talk to the student leaders and to the IVCF representatives and to pay as much attention to what is said as to what is not. (Do they answer the complaints? Do they avoid them? Do student leaders and members themselves feel bullied by IVCF? Do they support it uncritically?)
Can anyone seriously defend that we supply money - and buildings and resources - to an organization that promotes hate speech? Your money, my money and every Student Activities fee paying LGBTQ student's money go to fund this. Are we swayed by the deceitful, gussied-up drivel that "same-sex behavior is not same-sex orientation?" (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said no; see the end of this op-ed.) Do we accept the dual standard required of LGBTQ students that they condemn their sexuality and become celibate, as if a student group had a right to make demands of anyone's sexuality? Again: Their right to abusive, anti-gay propaganda ends at my and my fellow students' wallets.
By no means is everyone in or affiliated with TCF guilty of even passively supporting IVCF's hate speech. Many have made themselves visible as allies of the queer community, and some have outed themselves (then just as soon left). Many have been shut down, turned away and finally left in frustration. Many more have made clear that, whatever their own opinions are, they are far from comfortable with the present arrangement.
This year, there are different (unelected!) student leaders; one of the last year's IVCF staff members has moved to a different state. But as long as IVCF is bullying and silencing, I expect no better from the new exec-board it appointed.
IVCF will not change, but its employees can leave. They must be de-clawed, de-armed and de-funded; IVCF's jurisdiction cannot apply here. They have talked a big talk of "reconciliation," of victim-blaming, without apology, without a shift in the dynamic of power, without creating a safe space in a place that has none. Enough.
A word on why the Tufts Coalition Against Religious Exclusion retracted our complaint to the TCUJ: We feared then, as we do now, that IVCF will use the same bullying tactics and outrageous lies that they used 11 years ago; that they used at 41 different campuses in the 18 months before last February; that they use while fighting any person, religious or otherwise, who has opposed and will oppose them, as they used on Julie Catalano. So I conclude:
The persons at Tufts with the authority to act must act, and now. I invite everyone to read up on the 2010 Supreme Court case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which Alec Hill has publicly condemned as damaging to his organization's litigation-happy tactics and to decide for yourselves whether or not the Court's decision applies here; whether or not Tufts' government funding is now in danger of being revoked.
TCF must be defunded and derecognized immediately, until it permanently severs, or is made to permanently sever, relations with its authoritarian, deceitful, proselytizing parent corporation, IVCF/USA.
Nothing less will do.
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Brandon Archambault is a senior majoring in child development and international literary & visual studies, and a member of the Tufts Coalition Against Religious Exclusion (Tufts CARE).
A previous version of this article appeared on our site on Sept. 4, 2012.
