Five student groups at Baylor University organized a talk. They called it All Are Neighbors. They invited an openly gay Christian minister, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Baylor professor who supports LGBTQ+ inclusion in churches, and the president of the Interfaith Alliance. They organized it as counterprogramming to a Turning Point USA event scheduled for the same day, featuring Donald Trump Jr., which they described as representing a message of exclusion and Christian nationalism. The event would mark the first time in Baylor's history that an openly gay Christian speaker would be allowed on campus.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas, which represents more than 5,000 churches, responded by announcing a formal review of its 140-year relationship with Baylor University.

Let that be stated plainly. A denomination is threatening to end a 140-year institutional relationship because students organized a peaceful, inclusive event featuring Christian speakers who affirm the dignity of LGBTQ+ people. Not because Baylor changed its official policy. Not because the university adopted a new statement on human sexuality. Because students exercised their right to organize, invited speakers to campus, and asked whether all people might be neighbors.

This is not the first time the BGCT has used financial and institutional leverage to pressure Baylor on LGBTQ+ issues. In 2025, pastors at the BGCT annual meeting demanded that funding be removed from Baylor because the university allowed an LGBTQ+ student group called PRISM to form in 2022. The pattern is clear and consistent. When Baylor students create space for LGBTQ+ voices, the denomination responds with threats of financial withdrawal. That is not theological disagreement. That is coercion. It is the use of institutional power to control what can be said, who can speak, and which students are permitted to feel they belong on a campus that claims to welcome them.

The student organizers of All Are Neighbors framed their event explicitly as an alternative to the Trump administration's message of exclusion and Christian nationalism. The BGCT's response confirms exactly what they were responding to. A religious organization with financial leverage over a university is attempting to dictate the boundaries of permissible speech on that campus, and the boundary it is drawing excludes LGBTQ+ Christians from being heard, affirmed, or welcomed. That is Christian nationalism operating through institutional pressure rather than government power, and it is no less dangerous for being unofficial.

Baylor University approved this event. That decision took institutional courage, particularly at a university with a documented history of excluding LGBTQ+ voices. That decision must be defended. The students who organized All Are Neighbors must be supported. And the BGCT must hear clearly that threatening a 140-year relationship because students invited gay Christian speakers to campus is not a defense of biblical values. It is an exercise of power against the most vulnerable members of a community that claims to follow a teacher who said all are neighbors.

Sign this petition to call on Baylor University to stand firm in its approval of the All Are Neighbors event and resist BGCT pressure to reverse course, demand the BGCT withdraw its threat to review its relationship with Baylor over a single student-organized inclusive event, and affirm that LGBTQ+ Christian voices have the right to be heard on university campuses without triggering institutional financial retaliation.