Alleged Course on "Homosexuality as Gateway Drug" Brews Storm

Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has caused outrage over the past few days for apparently advertising a course entitled "Homosexuality as Gateway Drug" on its website. Baylor, which is the largest Baptist university in the country, with 15,000 students, claims the "course"—posted under "Course Listings"—was actually meant to be an independent study, proposed by one student for investigation and supervised by Assistant Professor of Sociology Martha Sherman. In any case the title was hastily changed after it was picked up by websites such as Buzzfeed: it now reads, "Family Studies." Baylor—which has a policy against "engaging in homosexual acts," on pain of expulsion—refused to grant a charter to a student sexual identity forum earlier this year. Samantha Jones, president of the forum at the time, described a "lingering culture of fear" for gay students at the school. But damaging attitudes to sexuality and addiction reach right to the top in Texas: Governor Rick Perry made a moral comparison between homosexuality and alcoholism in his 2008 book, On My Honor, which advocates sexual abstinence for gay people.