Gordon College states its case

LYNN – The president of Gordon College said the school remains committed to Lynn and urged the school committee to reconsider its vote cutting ties to the private Christian college after furor over its policy toward gays and lesbians.”The School Committee vote was significant because it had a dampening effect on the whole relationship, and part of the reason I’m here is we want to renew and want to repair whatever challenges we’ve encountered over the last six months,” Gordon College President Dr. Michael Lindsay said in an Item editorial board meeting late last month. “Whatever the politics are around the particular decision, the students – our students and, frankly, the students that we try to serve in Lynn – are the ones really affected by these actions and we want to do whatever we can to continue to try to serve those students.”Lynn Public Schools and Gordon College have collaborated for the last 11 years, with several college students serving as student teachers each semester. Lindsay said that volunteering is also a major part of the college’s focus, particularly in a student’s first year. In last year’s freshman class, half of the students volunteered 14,000 hours doing after-school tutoring and working with church and youth group organizations in various area communities, Lindsay said.But Lindsay and the college came under scrutiny last summer in a dispute concerning President Barack Obama’s executive order to extend job protection for gays employed by federal contractors. Lindsay was among the signatories of a letter urging Obama to include an exemption to the executive order for religious institutions. Obama eventually included the exemption.But in the meantime, Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll ended a few months early the college’s contract to manage the city’s Old Town Hall. The Peabody Essex Museum ended its academic relationship with the school and withdrew support for the college’s grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities.The New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) began a review of the school and whether “the inclusion of ?homosexual practice’ as a forbidden activity in (Gordon’s) Statement on Life and Conduct was contrary to the Commission’s Standards for Accreditation,” according to a statement from the NEASC and shared by the college.And the Lynn School Committee voted 4-3 to cut ties with the college, citing an “expressed intent to discriminate” against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the college’s hiring practices. Lindsay said that the college subsequently lost about 2/3 of its community partners in Lynn, although some have returned for partnerships in the spring.Lindsay said the furor was “overblown” and based on “misinformation.””Let’s be clear, I did not write for an exemption, it’s really important,” Lindsay said. “I wrote as a private citizen to express my support for other religious organizations. …Why are my students to be punished, or why is the community of Lynn to be punished because I exercised my First Amendment rights as a private citizen? Honestly, I don’t get that.”Rather, he said the issue became politicized.”What really has happened here, is that there’s been some politicizing this issue and trying to use Gordon in some kind of political ends, and in the end, it’s the students who are being hurt by the actions,” Lindsay continued.Lindsay distinguished between the college’s theological beliefs and practices.Lindsay acknowledged that after “a lot of conversations and a lot of learning” speaking with gay students (of whom, he said there are not that many) and gay alumni, “I think that there are some practices and protocols that the college needs to revamp.”But he said the theological positions of a Christian institution “don’t change based on popular vote.”Yet, he said these could be communicated differently in words and actions.”But the way in which we talk about it and the ways in which we act upon it, those might be some areas i