Pride flag instead of a handshake: Graduates protest SPU’s anti-gay policy
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[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)]
https://nwnewsradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SPU-Pride-Flags-ch-w2.mp3As 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.
