Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nonprofits the thrice weekly show, where we
Speaker 1: address news and current events through the lens of atheism
Speaker 1: and secular humanism. For our first segment this week, we
Speaker 1: look at a Baptist university that's turning down free money.
Speaker 1: Cynthy MacDonald tell us all about it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Scott, I will tell you all about it.
Speaker 2: So Lips is me telling you all about it, and
Speaker 2: also Allan and all of your viewers out there. So
Speaker 2: at Baylor University, a major research opportunity was met, not
Speaker 2: with curiosity, because that's not the word it's curiosity, but
Speaker 2: with cancelation. The school was awarded a six hundred and
Speaker 2: forty three thousand dollars grant to study the experiences of
Speaker 2: the LGBTQ plus people in religious spaces, an initiative that
Speaker 2: would have fostered understanding and perhaps even healing, an initiative
Speaker 2: that could have even brought in all of these things.
Speaker 2: But instead of embracing the chance to explore how faith
Speaker 2: communities can better serve all members, the university returned the
Speaker 2: money after backlash from its conservative religious circles. Ain't that
Speaker 2: about a blip. This was not about theology. It was
Speaker 2: about fear. Fear of honest inquiry, fear of upsetting those
Speaker 2: who see compassion as compromise, and in the process, Baylor
Speaker 2: sent a message loud and clear that appeasing fundamentalism takes
Speaker 2: priority over academic freedom and human dignity. As humanists and skeptics,
Speaker 2: we believe in the power of knowledge, in the value
Speaker 2: of inclusive research, and in the moral imperative to challenge
Speaker 2: systems that harm. So tonight we ask, what does it
Speaker 2: say when a university won't even study inclusion and who
Speaker 2: suffers when facts are silenced to preserve comfort. Let's open
Speaker 2: the conversation. The story is from The Friendly Atheist by
Speaker 2: Hamet Metta, published on July seventeenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Back to you, Scott, absolutely absolutely, Thank you so much, Cynthia. Cynthia,
Speaker 1: I want to direct my first question at you, as
Speaker 1: long as you're already in a talking kind of mood here.
Speaker 1: As an educator, I know that it's really difficult in
Speaker 1: these days for schools to get funding. You know, they
Speaker 1: need funding for all these different programs, and it's not
Speaker 1: easy to come by in many cases. So what could
Speaker 1: be motivating Baylor to refuse grants that they've already won.
Speaker 2: You know, Scott, what really stands out to me about
Speaker 2: this story isn't just that Baylor turned down over six
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars in funding, is that they rejected the
Speaker 2: opportunity to better understand the very people their policies often marginalized.
Speaker 2: So if we can, let's just be clear, I'm getting
Speaker 2: my I'm getting my uh oh, I can't say her name,
Speaker 2: darn it. I was about to say I'm getting my
Speaker 2: jc on but that's cool.
Speaker 3: But let let me be clear.
Speaker 2: Okay, this grant wasn't about pushing an agenda. It was
Speaker 2: actually designed to study the real life experiences of LGBTQ
Speaker 2: plus individuals in religious spaces, many whom are students, their alumni,
Speaker 2: their staff, and they all are at Baylor. You cannot
Speaker 2: tell me that there is not one LGBTQ plus student
Speaker 2: and or professor, teacher, or teachers assistant that does not
Speaker 2: attend that university. And you know, as I was mentioning
Speaker 2: in my introduction about that loud and clear message, what
Speaker 2: the university response was says a lot. We don't want
Speaker 2: to know that is what they're saying, or maybe more accurately,
Speaker 2: we are afraid to find out what we'll find, because
Speaker 2: if you let the data speak, you might have to
Speaker 2: reckon with some uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Truths totally like reality in other words, part like you're
Speaker 1: saying that they're not trying to push an agenda, but
Speaker 1: I think they are.
Speaker 4: They're trying to push the agenda of humanizing marginalized people,
Speaker 4: and that is an uncomfortable position for a lot of
Speaker 4: and we can't do.
Speaker 2: That, Stephen oh dare no, no, no, Well, and when
Speaker 2: I meant about an agenda, you know how we are
Speaker 2: hearing a lot from the right that you know, the
Speaker 2: LGBTQ plus community is pushing an agenda when we are
Speaker 2: seeing curriculums that actually talk about LGBTQ plus history, when
Speaker 2: we're talking about actually introducing literature written and buy people
Speaker 2: from the queer community. Where we're even talking about naming
Speaker 2: a person that ran for Congress whose name was going
Speaker 2: to be on a ship, but his name is taken
Speaker 2: off of the ship so it can be actually put
Speaker 2: back with the Confederate officer.
Speaker 5: Those things, you know, and it's like what kills me
Speaker 5: if I could just have a little room, is that
Speaker 5: when we are highlighting people or highlighting issues from marginalized communities.
Speaker 2: Just because we're actually saying this thing exists. They say, oh,
Speaker 2: now that you're talking about it, it's an agenda.
Speaker 1: Right right right, we can't have that. We can't have that.
Speaker 1: Let's jump over to Stephen real quick here. So, I,
Speaker 1: as I was mentioning Cynthia, I'm just kind of I'm
Speaker 1: kind of baffled at this whole thing. I just can't
Speaker 1: really get my I mean, I understand the idea that
Speaker 1: they don't want to have to deal with certain realities
Speaker 1: that will that will follow from accepting this money, but really,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, what I mean, what's your take
Speaker 1: on all this?
Speaker 4: Like, like, I was only at Bible College for seven years,
Speaker 4: so I'm not an expert on what student life in
Speaker 4: that setting is. This is not surprising, and like obviously
Speaker 4: my my my time was in a small, conservative, Evangelical
Speaker 4: Mennonite Bible college, So that isn't you know, uh, you
Speaker 4: know that doesn't you know? It's not a carbon copy
Speaker 4: onto what these bigger institutions are. But this does not
Speaker 4: this this is all a part of the playbook in
Speaker 4: my mind, you know, you know, a faith institute has
Speaker 4: an end in mind it already and especially ones that
Speaker 4: are Christian in nature, like they already have to have
Speaker 4: certain end pieces in mind and the not to not
Speaker 4: to speak too broadly here, but they need to find
Speaker 4: their way to that will lead to that end. Like
Speaker 4: in the end, the Bible has to be worthwhile, there
Speaker 4: has to be weight behind it, even if it's not
Speaker 4: literally true. And I believe a place like Baylor would
Speaker 4: believe if they are Baptist in their pedagogy, then they
Speaker 4: have to believe that the Bible is true and it
Speaker 4: is important and Jesus and God da da da da
Speaker 4: da and anything that isn't going to support that is
Speaker 4: antithetical to who they are in their identity. Any school
Speaker 4: that offers apologetics is already tipping its hand because apologetics
Speaker 4: says that, Okay, this is what we need to protect,
Speaker 4: and we are going to teach you. We're going to
Speaker 4: train you on how to protect that, not how to
Speaker 4: interrogate it, not to how to understand it better or
Speaker 4: how to synthesize it into our modern world. It's about
Speaker 4: protecting what's already established.
Speaker 3: For sure for sure. Yeah, yeah, thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Let's jump back to Cynthia now, where so we're all
Speaker 1: surprised slash not surprised, right, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that you you you hope
Speaker 1: you're imagining, but you're seeing it happen in front of
Speaker 1: you in real time. But let's talk some brass tacks here.
Speaker 1: Let's look at where the rubber meets the road. What
Speaker 1: is the real effect here for the loss of the
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not just money that they're losing here.
Speaker 1: They're losing the entire research project that the money was supporting.
Speaker 1: So I mean, what really is is being set aside here?
Speaker 2: So I know that Baylor put back the money, right,
Speaker 2: they gave back to six hundred and forty three million dollars.
Speaker 3: On thousand, thousand, thousand.
Speaker 2: I said that is it close to ten o'clock yet?
Speaker 1: Now a thousand with a thuughhh.
Speaker 2: Yes yes, Lika, thank you, teacher Scott, my pleasure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: no problem, okay, So they okay, so they gave back
Speaker 2: the money. But can we really talk about who pays
Speaker 2: the price?
Speaker 6: Can we?
Speaker 2: Can we really? You know, especially since we're talking about
Speaker 2: where the rubber meets the road, it's not the administrators,
Speaker 2: it's not the trustees. It's actually the queer students. Wondering
Speaker 2: if they actually belong. Yeah, it's the teenager sitting in
Speaker 2: the chapel feeling unseen, ill assisted, and unworthy. It is
Speaker 2: the person of faith who is also LGBTQ plus trying
Speaker 2: to reconcile both parts of who they are while their
Speaker 2: school tells them one must be denied or hitden.
Speaker 3: That's painful to hear. That's painful to hear.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's hard to imagine students being well,
Speaker 1: it's if they're college that they're going to, they've been
Speaker 1: they've committed a portion of their life to go there,
Speaker 1: not to mention a portion of their money right at,
Speaker 1: a lot of dough going into it there.
Speaker 3: And then for the.
Speaker 1: For the college to not only say we don't know you,
Speaker 1: but saying we don't want to know you. You know,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of the message that's happening here. And
Speaker 1: it's really tragic. I mean, they're really they're pissing on
Speaker 1: people basically, and and it's it's really really really frustrating, Steven.
Speaker 1: I know, as a member of the LGBTQ community yourself,
Speaker 1: how do you see this affecting that community at large,
Speaker 1: or you know, even on the small scale too. Is
Speaker 1: there a silver lining to be had here at all?
Speaker 1: Or I mean is this all just awful horrible things?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's all par for the course. Like like
Speaker 4: Baylor University, they what is it that they make you
Speaker 4: sign a statement of faith saying that you will not
Speaker 4: participate in homosexual YadA YadA yadas. But it doesn't say
Speaker 4: anything about you know, the celibate queer person you know,
Speaker 4: so long that you know, their statement of faith doesn't
Speaker 4: cover that. But those students still aren't protected from harassment,
Speaker 4: right if you if you are harassed for being queer,
Speaker 4: then the school is okay with that. So to answer
Speaker 4: your question, yeah, Like in the long run, I think
Speaker 4: this is a good thing. Like what, I'm so curious
Speaker 4: what we're what what exactly what we do with the
Speaker 4: findings that they found? Could we actually trust what they
Speaker 4: were discovering? I think it'd be highly sus already. And honestly, like,
Speaker 4: in the short run, yes, this will fuel anti queer
Speaker 4: talking points for a long time, there's nothing new about that.
Speaker 4: But in fifty, in one hundred years, it'll be become
Speaker 4: increasingly obvious that Baylor is just bending over for Christian authoritarianism. Uh,
Speaker 4: and like and take that for what it is, like my, yeah,
Speaker 4: my heart breaks for the students who are so committed
Speaker 4: to their faith and they are looking for Baylor to
Speaker 4: help them, you know, find their place in the world,
Speaker 4: and for Baylor to be slapping them upside the head
Speaker 4: with this by you know, not accepting them. That does suck.
Speaker 4: And that is you know, that's that's the pudding. That
Speaker 4: is what they're that's what they're about. And so like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it is awful. Why are you giving them your money?
Speaker 1: Like that's a good question, that's a good question, and
Speaker 1: I maybe this can you know, put a fine point
Speaker 1: on that, you know, and then and kind of really
Speaker 1: show them, Okay, here's what you're getting into. Here's what
Speaker 1: here's the direction that you're going. Here's the path you're taking.
Speaker 1: Why you know, why why why do that? There's so
Speaker 1: many other options available to you. Let's I want to
Speaker 1: jump back over to Cynthia for a little bit here. Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, Baylor, of course is a private college.
Speaker 1: Uh, and it's not under any requirement to take money
Speaker 1: from the government or from any or you know of
Speaker 1: these grant uh grant granting organizations. But let's let's compare
Speaker 1: this with the idea of school of vouchers, which many people,
Speaker 1: myself included, believe to be a way of funneling public
Speaker 1: funds into private religious schools. So, in some twisted way,
Speaker 1: could this be seen as a virtue.
Speaker 3: On the part of Baylor.
Speaker 1: I mean, they aren't putting their money where their mouth is,
Speaker 1: you know, to borrow a phrase there, They're refusing the
Speaker 1: money rather than accepting the money and then not living
Speaker 1: up to the expectations on the other end, I mean,
Speaker 1: is this a could this be seen as a virtuous
Speaker 1: act by Baylor University?
Speaker 2: Well, the reason why they gave back the money is
Speaker 2: because they were getting smoke from the fundamentalist community around them.
Speaker 7: Okay, you know, I would think about how we talked
Speaker 7: about school voucher systems and basically how they suck and
Speaker 7: how a lot of them are races in nature. Because
Speaker 7: the reason why we even had more people going into homeschooling,
Speaker 7: especially like around the late sixties early seventies, is because
Speaker 7: of well one a reaction to Brown versus the Board
Speaker 7: of Education where they were integrating schools, and then the
Speaker 7: early seventies is when you saw schools being forced to
Speaker 7: integrate students by busting them into.
Speaker 2: Other urban communities. So we already know that this is
Speaker 2: a bus policy that the religious right want to push
Speaker 2: is school vouchers so that people can be able to
Speaker 2: get government assistance in order for them to send their
Speaker 2: kids to private schools. And the majority of private schools
Speaker 2: in the United States happen to be Christian.
Speaker 1: So so, so do you think they're Do you think
Speaker 1: they're you know, living what they're saying, or do you
Speaker 1: think they're Do you think this was a lost opportunity
Speaker 1: or both?
Speaker 3: I suppose it could be, and it's both.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, I believe that it's both because even
Speaker 2: though I may not understand, and I think that I
Speaker 2: would be very confident to say that all of us
Speaker 2: on this panel may not quite understand why an lgbt
Speaker 2: Q person would even approach, let alone attend a school
Speaker 2: like Baylor or Die.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I can understand people who are closeted, Okay, who
Speaker 2: maybe feeling the need to fight against their nature.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, right, I suppose there could be
Speaker 1: some parental pressure and pure pressure all that all that.
Speaker 6: Excuse me, I'll do apologize so I can see this,
Speaker 6: but in your own mind making a decision to go
Speaker 6: to a university that makes you not only sign these
Speaker 6: whole things that I.
Speaker 2: Will not do this, I will not do that. I
Speaker 2: will live my life X, Y and Z and and
Speaker 2: and everything about you and your inside of you is
Speaker 2: screaming this is not me, but you do it anyway.
Speaker 2: I don't understand that. But then again, I'm no longer eighteen.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a woman of a certain age, and I'm far,
Speaker 2: far far from eighteen, right, So I guess like, depending
Speaker 2: on the age of the time, would definitely be the
Speaker 2: thing that would inform my decisions. Regardless of that these
Speaker 2: people are in the university, they and I know that
Speaker 2: they have a community of people who happen to be queer,
Speaker 2: who were raised Christian, who heard all the things, and
Speaker 2: we do know that there are institutions, religious institutions, faith
Speaker 2: based institutions that actually affirm queer people. So actually saying, well, ooh,
Speaker 2: how many people happen to be queerness on our campus,
Speaker 2: how many of them may feel othered bullied because they
Speaker 2: may be out queer on our campus, knowing that the
Speaker 2: as you I'm going to start saying this word more often.
Speaker 2: Stephen pedagogy is going against your better nature as who
Speaker 2: you are, because the Bible says so that would have
Speaker 2: been worth studying. But I have to agree with you, Steven,
Speaker 2: then maybe this is a good thing only because I
Speaker 2: don't feel that Baylor in of itself, with its ideology,
Speaker 2: would be objective when they do to study, if anything,
Speaker 2: they would have to hire outside researchers in order for
Speaker 2: them to get data that was the closest thing to
Speaker 2: fact is possible.
Speaker 4: That's insisting probably straight researchers. And what's what I find
Speaker 4: interesting My understanding is that this money was coming from
Speaker 4: a private foundation. So this is money that's been you know,
Speaker 4: earmarked for you know, supporting things. And the board according
Speaker 4: to my what I read, that the board of that
Speaker 4: foundation are all alumni of Baylor. So the idea that
Speaker 4: we graduated from here and we want to use this money,
Speaker 4: we want to gift this money for you to understand
Speaker 4: queer Christians better. Just like Wolf, that's m that is
Speaker 4: really bowing to uh. And in this case, it isn't
Speaker 4: even like bowing to money. It's well, I guess like
Speaker 4: conservative donors. I guess, yeah, like bowing to conservative donors
Speaker 4: over their own alumni.
Speaker 1: They didn't say that specifically in the in the article,
Speaker 1: but they kind of hinted at it there that the
Speaker 1: it wasn't just people getting angry on Twitter, right, These
Speaker 1: were people that donate significant amounts of money to Baylor
Speaker 1: every year, and so I think there was I think
Speaker 1: it was a question of who, you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to lose this amount of money, but we're going to
Speaker 1: maintain larger donations after that.
Speaker 8: At least that's the impression I got. Let me just
Speaker 8: do a quick bit of research. Oh yeah, it was
Speaker 8: straight white guys. They weren't happy about it. So I
Speaker 8: never never even occurred to me to think about.
Speaker 2: It's always straight white guys.
Speaker 3: Speaking of straight white guys.
Speaker 1: We're running a little long time here, But Stephen, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you a question here, so from I'm
Speaker 1: going to read a little quote here from the article,
Speaker 1: and this is him at meta saying this. Importantly, nothing
Speaker 1: about the study would have changed the underlying beliefs among
Speaker 1: conservative Christians that same sex relationships are sinful, that marriage
Speaker 1: equality must be opposed at all costs, that homosexuality ex
Speaker 1: self is a sin, that trans people are just lying
Speaker 1: to themselves, et cetera. And then he puts in parentheses,
Speaker 1: everyone could have saved a lot of money just by
Speaker 1: urging those churches to not be so damn bigoted. And
Speaker 1: I want to focus on that last word. They're bigoted. Okay,
Speaker 1: we use that word a lot on this show. We
Speaker 1: talk a lot about bigotry in many different varieties and flavors.
Speaker 3: Where do you draw the line.
Speaker 1: Between an organization pursuing and supporting their religious beliefs and
Speaker 1: then saying no, no, that is now cross the line
Speaker 1: into bigotry where we know where what's the difference there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I think this word comes
Speaker 4: up so frequently in conversations that deal with especially like
Speaker 4: in the intersect of closed mindedness and oppression. Like if
Speaker 4: minority is closed minded about you know, the the ruling
Speaker 4: class above them, it's hard to you know, label that
Speaker 4: as big did because they are already being punched down,
Speaker 4: like what are they going to do about it? But
Speaker 4: when it's when it's the system that is empowered that
Speaker 4: is closed minded and is like closed off to the
Speaker 4: possibility of giving the people that they're oppressing extra latitude
Speaker 4: and you know, increasing their humanity, I think that's where
Speaker 4: that word should be coming into play, which is certainly
Speaker 4: a case in point here. So, yeah, like when when
Speaker 4: people in power refuse to consider that they're that can,
Speaker 4: refuse to evolve, refuse to grow, that's when I think
Speaker 4: that's when that word comes into play.
Speaker 1: Cynthia, what's what are your last thoughts on here? Do
Speaker 1: you do you agree with the Steven's take on that
Speaker 1: on that word bigotry?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, all right, very uh, very well said. And
Speaker 1: if you appreciate, uh, Cynthia McDonald's conciseness, uh, you can
Speaker 1: always find her more here on the nonprofit.
Speaker 4: So just