(RNS) — For years, Calvin University, a leading evangelical school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has tried to walk a fine line of being welcoming to LGBTQ students while still enforcing traditional Christian Reformed Church views on sexuality.
The school sponsors a support group for gay students, gave an alumni award to an LGBTQ graduate and last year saw a gay undergrad elected as student body president.
But after a Calvin professor officiated a wedding last fall for an LGBTQ staffer at a campus-based research center, putting both employees in violation of school policy, school leaders tried to resolve the matter quietly. The Center for Social Research, part of the school since the 1970s, was allowed to spin off and the staffer was able to stay.
Things changed this last week when Chimes, the Calvin student newspaper, broke news about the reason for the split. Chimes later interviewed Nicole Sweda, the Calvin staffer whose marriage led the CRS to leave Calvin.
“I’m not going to be ashamed for being queer,” Sweda, who ultimately quit her job in order to speak openly about her wedding, said in the Chimes interview. “I’m not going to be ashamed for being married to Annica.”
The events reveal the dilemma facing many Christian schools, who want to welcome a diverse range of students to their campus while upholding their beliefs that marriage is for one man and one woman and that sex outside marriage is sinful.
Striking that balance has become increasingly difficult in recent years as more and more young Americans, including students at Christian schools, identify as LGBTQ — a recent Gallup survey found that 1 in 5 Americans born between 1997 and 2003 say they are LGBT. Most younger Americans also see LGBT inclusion as a nonnegotiable, which puts them at odd with conservative older Christian leaders and evangelical institutions.
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“I want Calvin to be honest,” said Sweda. “If they are going to cut ties with staff members, faculty and an entire center of over this, then just say that. And stop promoting things that make Calvin look more welcoming.”
When Sweda and Annica Steen decided to marry in the fall of 2021, they knew their wedding day would be bittersweet: Amid the celebration there would be the pain of rejection by friends and family who disapproved of their relationship on theological grounds. The couple wanted to find someone to officiate who could capture the range of emotions they were feeling. Because the wedding would be a civil ceremony, the couple was not looking for a clergyperson, but still someone they admired.
“Right away Joe came to mind,” said Sweda, referring to Joseph Kuilema, an assistant professor of sociology and social work at Calvin who had been a friend and mentor to Sweda.
Last Oct. 15, Kuilema stood with the couple in front of a gathering of family and friends and pronounced them legally married.
Things began to unravel in January when Sweda was summoned to a meeting at the provost’s office, where, according to Chimes, Sweda was told that her marriage violated university policy and that she could no longer stay at Calvin.
