Open Modal

Pride flag instead of a handshake: Graduates protest SPU’s anti-gay policy

[PHOTO: Hanna Grace Waterman, right, hands SPU interim president Pete Menjares a pride flag as she accepts her diploma on June 12th, 2022 (Image: SPU livestream)]

As Seattle Pacific University Interim President Pete Menjares extended his hand in congratulations, a few dozen of the hundreds of graduates handed him a tiny rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride. The low-key protest was part of a much larger resistance to the private Christian university’s much publicized policy, under which teachers and staff are prohibited from engaging in same-sex relationships. Student Reena Siddu tells Northwest News Radio the university’s Board of Trustees has upheld the so-called Behavioral Expectation policies, as mandated from afar by the university’s parent church, the Free Methodist Church of North America.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter