mLive: Influential Hope College alumni protest policies opposing homosexuality on campus

HOLLAND — Influential alumni are lining up against Hope College policies they claim shun homosexuality on campus and create an unwelcome environment for faculty, students and guests.

The alumni group — formed in the wake of the college rejecting Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s offer to show his film and hold a discussion about sexuality — has sent trustees a petition calling for change and a new panel to advise the president.

Among the leaders pushing for the moves are two children of past Hope College presidents, a retired Reformed Church in America minister, a former ambassador and distinguished journalists and athletes.

“We’re left with an environment of fear and a policy that discriminates against people,” said retired Rev. Donald Van Hoven, a 1956 Hope graduate. “It is unacceptable for a Christian college to have that kind of treatment of anybody, and this is the only group identified and singled out by college policy.”

The board should remove a 1995 Institutional Statement on Homosexuality, which says the college “will not provide recognition, financial or logistical support for groups whose purposes include the advocacy or moral legitimization of homosexual behavior,” the alumni contend.

The group says it is saddened and embarrassed by the policy, believing the order limits academic and student freedom, breeds panic and results in prejudiced actions. [READ MORE]