Equality Ride

The Equality Ride is a periodic LGBT rights bus tour made for young adults and sponsored by Soulforce, a national LGBT nonprofit organization. They seek to debate LGBT issues with students at conservative Christian colleges and military academies and secular universities.

Jacob Reitan, a 23-year-old Christian activist from Minnesota and director of youth programs for Soulforce, initiated the rides. In 2005, he conducted trial runs at Liberty University in the spring and at the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall. At Liberty University he spoke informally to students. According to organizers, they tried without success to donate books about homosexuality to the library. Reitan said they asked the University to designate some place on campus where students could talk about being gay without fear of being expelled or having their parents informed. They were also unable to turn over to Jerry Falwell, the university's founder and chancellor, anonymous letters written, they said, by gay Liberty students. When asked about the school's policies toward gay students, a spokesman said, "We follow Scripture."

From March 10 to and April 26, 2006, a group of about 35 people all under the age of 26, half of whom were Christian, went on the first Equality Ride bus tour. Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the 1960s, the Riders traveled to 19 colleges and universities, including sixteen faith-based institutions in the Christian tradition, two military academies, and one secular university with an ROTC program. Equality Ride contacted the schools in advance and, if they were unable to agree on a format for dialogue, planned to hold a demonstration. Before leaving, they met with Congressman John Lewis, a participant in the original 1961 Freedom Ride and a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He told them: "My mother told me growing up, 'Don't get in the way; don't get in trouble.' I'm so glad I got in the way and got in trouble." He urged the Equality Riders to "make good trouble." Some 35 Riders also met with officials of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C., who said they took the arrival of the Riders as a chance, according to one report, "to replace the stereotype of the intolerant conservative Christian with a more compassionate 'Christ-centered' response–albeit a response that still views homosexuality as a sin."

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