Harvard Crimson Questions Conference Hosting Anti-Gay, Anti-Muslim Extremists

As we noted last week, Harvard University is set to play host to a conference, "Social Transformation By the Power of God," featuring some of the most radical and fringe elements within the religious right.

The event, to take place April 1-2, is sponsored by the Harvard University Extension Service and Leadership Society, and will feature controversial speakers who blame LGBT people for the downfall of the United States, who consider Muslims a threat to the United States, who believe LGBT people should be executed, who believe witchcraft is a pressing problem that the United States must address, and who think that homosexuality is akin to incest or sex with animals. What a nice reputation the Harvard University Extension Service and Leadership Society is building for itself, eh?

More than 1,400 people have already signed a petition here on Change.org, calling on Harvard to address this conference and not give a pedestal to people who believe gays should be executed and that Muslims and women are bringing down the reputation of the United States. Now, the Harvard Crimson, the school's leading student newspaper, has issued an editorial addressing the conference. To say that they're questioning the conference is an understatement. Indeed, the Crimson editorial suggests that the Harvard University Extension Service and Leadership Society is threatening the intellectual integrity of the entire Harvard institution.

"By hosting a panel discussion whose participants will merely voice their opinions without being called upon to justify their past incendiary remarks, the event seems to accept incredibly offensive opinions without providing any internal challenge," the Crimson writes. "In a sense, the intellectual integrity of the entire Harvard community is consequently on trial with this coming conference. Regardless of their subject matter, conferences must nevertheless be held to basic standards of intellectual honesty and accountability, and we simply cannot imagine what value the Social Transformation Conference will bring to our community."

Hard to put it better than that. Indeed, what value will speakers like Lance Wallnau bring to campus, who has called same-sex marriage "hellish," and had this to say about Muslims, gays, and women who exercise their reproductive rights: "You've got Islam invading the United States. So you've got your homosexual activity, your abortion activity here, Islam coming in, you've got a financial collapse -- all of this, to those of us who are Christians, is an apocalyptic confirmation that when you remove God from public discourse, when you don't line up your thinking with kingdom principles, you inevitably hit an iceberg like the Titanic and you go down."

Or speakers like Bill Harmon, who argue that gays should be put to death because homosexuality is an abomination: "God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family, the basic structure of human society. For this reason homosexuality is an abomination before God," Harmon writes, while quoting a biblical passage from Leviticus that (Harmon interprets) calls for the execution of LGBT people.

Or speakers like Os Hillman, who is a financial backer of a minister in Uganda, Julius Oyet, who brags about his role in trying to pass arcane legislation that would lock LGBT people in prison forever, or sentence them to the death penalty.

Or speakers like Jerry Anderson, who argues that homosexuality is like an addiction. "God made man and beast as male and female for reproductive purposes. It is only the human that practices homosexuality. Only humans become addicted to drugs and alcohol and plan abortions. It may be legal or politically correct, but these things are still morally wrong," Anderson says.

Again, we ask the Harvard University Extension Service and Leadership Society: what good is there in legitimizing these kinds of hateful, divisive, and extremist ideologies? As the Crimson editorial makes clear, academic freedom is something that should always be respected and honored. But in cases like this, where the speakers engaged clearly do not reflect the values of Harvard University or Harvard's Extension School, there should be extra efforts made to make sure that if you're going to give extremists a pedestal, the University community ought to be challenging their viewpoints rather than tacitly endorsing them or staying neutral.

If you haven't sent a message to Harvard yet, letting them know this conference tarnishes the entire reputation of the University, please do so here. This isn't about stifling debate; it's about making sure that Harvard doesn't give a soapbox to the type of hatred, Islamophobia and homophobia that results in a whole lot of violence in too many places around the globe.