Recently I learned that a website called Campus Pride has added my college, Geneva College, to its "Shame List." Essentially, it is a list of colleges that are not friendly to the LGBTQ population. The executive director of Campus Pride, Shane Windmeyer, said that the list is called the Shame List in order to call out and shame the "religion-based prejudice and bigotry." Windmeyer also stated that the schools on the list are not "loving, welcoming, safe spaces to live, learn, and grow."

Reading this made my heart hurt. It made me sad, it made me angry and somewhere in there was a small inkling of pride.

Believe me when I say that I hate the discrimination that the LGBTQ community faces. I am repulsed each and every time that I see a post go viral detailing the assault and abuse that they go through. It makes me angry when I see that treatment of the LGBTQ community, and it makes me furious when I see it done in the name of Christ.

I firmly do not believe Christ would have responded to the LGBTQ community in the way that some Christians today are responding. Christ was not a violent man, save for the time of the defilement of the temple. He believed in giving others all that you had. His greatest commandments were to love God and to love others. In the situation of the LGBTQ community, I believe the loving response of Christ that we are to have is John 8:7 "...and [Jesus] said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a sin at her first." In context, a woman of the church was caught in adultery. The scribes and the pharisees brought her to Christ in the hopes of being able to use the event against him. The laws commanded that the woman be stoned for her crime, but they asked Christ what He thought. He wrote unknown words on the ground, said those words, wrote some more, and then rose to find the crowd prepared to stone had dissipated. When she told Him that none had condemned her, He said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."

Jesus Christ, the essential head of Christianity, was lawfully within His rights to lead the stoning of this woman. She could have been dead in her sins, but instead he forgave her.

Some Christians leave it at that. There are Christians who chose to gloss over certain sins. Christians who chose to read the Bible and omit certain texts, who say that homosexuality is not a sin. My friends, that is a lie, and an argument for another day, another article. My point today is this: Christians should not hate anyone, but a Christian cannot condone sin.

So yes, Campus Pride, yes all those who oppose religion, Geneva College does not support homosexuality, and it will not provide certain medicines under its healthcare. Why? Because the Bible tells us that it is sin. Y'know what else is sin? Drunkenness, underage drinking (due to the laws of the land), and sex outside of marriage. Geneva has rules against alcohol on campus, even if everyone in the dorm room is over the age of 21. There is a policy known as Open Hours where opposite genders are allowed in each others rooms permitted that the door remains open, the lights are on, and the opposite gender does not enter your bedroom.

Geneva College does not discriminate against LGBTQ people; Geneva College discriminates against sin. It will not condone it.

It is not a perfect system nor infallible. Geneva, though a school based on Christian values and heavy in the Reformed Presbyterian (RP) tradition, is run and attended by fallible, sinful humans. The officials will make bad decisions, the students will behave wrongly. That is a part of life that will happen whether you are on a Christian or a secular campus. However, what Geneva can do is make sure that it does not willfully accept or condone legal matters that directly conflict with our religious beliefs.

I am sad that as a college we are hated for being Christians and standing firm in what we believe and I am sad that Christians have done things in such a way that we are hated. I am angry that we have to be "shamed" for being who we are. That it's okay to be who you are unless you're a Christian. And I am just a little proud to be attending a school that not only ministers to my spiritual life, but stands firmly in it's religious beliefs.

It is my hope that you don't just rule out Geneva because of that. You won't hear this college tell you that sin is okay, but you will hear the message of love and redemption.