Belmont University Finally Affords Gay Student Group Bridge Builders Official Status On Campus

This is great news, Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee has finally recognized the school’s first gay student group, Bridge Builders, an organization dedicated to discussing issues important to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students having its application twice turned down, now holding official status on campus, reports the Tennessean. Belmont Provost Thomas Burns and Bridge Builders President Robbie Maris announced the decision in a joint statement Friday, saying the new student group would advance the "ongoing campus dialogue about Christian faith and human sexuality," and that "This outcome represents many months of conversation, collaboration and cooperation between Belmont students, faculty and staff. What we have accomplished working together represents our community well and is better than what we ever could have accomplished working separately." In recent years the school has moved away from some of the more conservative policies and practices it operated under through most of its history while it was affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Belmont split from the convention in 2007, after the school decided to add non-Baptists to its board of trustees. Belmont trustees added sexual orientation to the Christian school's non-discrimination policy in January. Some considered that a reaction to the controversy surrounding the sudden departure of the women’s soccer coach, Lisa Howe, shortly after she revealed that she and her same sex partner were expecting a baby, however the school's president said it merely put into writing what Belmont always practiced.