Gay activists arrested
A group of gay rights activists aiming to highlight religious gay discrimination were accused of trespass and escorted off a university campus yesterday
Five members of Soulforce, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender group, were put into a van by police at the Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah after refusing to leave.
The group were on the 13th stop of their Equality Ride, promoting gay rights at 20 universities across the country, spokesman Richard Lindsay said: “This is the fourth school where we’ve had arrests take place.
“Most of the schools we’ve visited so far have been pretty generous and pretty welcoming, and we’ve been able to do discussions and presentations on campus without a problem.”
The demonstrators were arrested after telling students that policies of the university’s owner, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were killing gays.
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins told the Associated Press, “We had made it very clear that visitors were welcome on campus with restrictions, but could not use campus as a public forum.”
“They knew that they were in violation.”
