AZUSA PACIFIC, A CALIFORNIA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY, UNDER PRESSURE TO ADOPT “LGBT INCLUSIVE” POLICIES
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
An employee at Azusa Pacific, one of California’s largest Christian
universities, has filed a lawsuit against the school and is joining with
homosexual activists in demanding the university adopt more tolerant
policies regarding students and employees who identify as lesbian, gay,
bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).
Fifty-two-year-old Mahesh Pradhan has been employed at Azusa Pacific
as a cook for the past 10 years, and over that time was supposedly on
the receiving end of physical and verbal abuse by employees “who
perceived him as gay and labeled him a ‘troublemaker’ for speaking out
against harassment of others,” reported the local newspaper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
“I told them that I am not gay, but what’s wrong with being gay or being straight?” the Tribune
quoted Pradhan as saying. Pradhan is now suing the school, the paper
reported, “for retaliation, wrongful demotion and, among other things,
infliction of emotional distress, and to call for more inclusiveness and
acceptance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning
or queer community.”
Through his attorney, Pradhan, who has been on medical leave since
2015, claimed that during his employment at Azusa Pacific he was
referred to as a “faggot,” slapped on his buttocks by his supervisor
with a large wooden paddle, locked in a freezer, and cornered in a
restroom. Pradhan claimed he was demoted from his job as a supervisor
after he complained about the alleged abuse.
The university has denied all the allegations, with spokeswoman
Rachel White saying, “We value and respect our employees and we do not
condone harassment. It’s completely against who we are as a university
community.”
While it is questionable how far Pradhan will get with his lawsuit,
his actions had the effect of drawing the university’s heretofore hidden
homosexual community out in force to demand that the school abandon its
traditional biblical values on marriage and sexuality and adopt
“LGBT-inclusive” policies.
On November 6 more than 50 supposedly LGBT Azusa students gathered
for a “prayer vigil” in support of Pradhan and to deliver a letter to
university officials demanding, among other concessions, that the
pro-homosexual group Haven be recognized as an official Azusa Pacific
University student club, and that the school remove sections in its
student handbook that prohibit homosexual behavior.
One such section mandates that Azusa Pacific students “may not engage
in a romanticized same-sex relationship,” while another states that the
university “only recognizes the marriage between a man and a woman.”
The school’s “identity statement” expands on its commitment to
biblical values regarding sexuality, reading: “We hold that the full
behavioral expression of sexuality is to take place within the context
of a marriage covenant between a man and a woman and that individuals
remain celibate outside of the bond of marriage. Therefore, we seek to
cultivate a community in which sexuality is embraced as God-given and
good and where biblical standards of sexual behavior are upheld.”
Azusa Pacific’s spokeswoman Rachel White emphasized that the school
“adheres to a traditional definition of marriage. We are transparent
about our belief. Each student must look at the university’s values and
decide if APU is the right place for them. It’s an individual choice.”
