"I survived my coming out process, truly a dark night of the soul, because of people who saw my humanity and affirmed me."
Dear Dr. Taylor,
Samford University had a gay mascot for two years. Unfortunately, the university did not know this.
Stepping out of the Spike the Bulldog costume back in '08 & '09 after a football game was far easier than coming out of the proverbial closet to my friends and family.
As it regards the recent decision by Samford to exclude certain Christian ministries from campus events, I would like to convey my disappointment.
Samford University was good to me. I consider my four years of an undergraduate education on that campus to be full of sacred memories. During the summer when the school empties and a stillness envelops the campus, there’s a spiritual feeling that seeps into your body that I still find incomparable.
When you love an institution but see when a serious mistake is being committed by it, you call on it to improve, to address its shortcomings, and to repair its wrongs.
In my estimation, this is one of those situations.
A profound and deeply wounding hurt is placed upon innumerable students who don’t feel acceptable to their community, to themselves, and to God. I survived my coming out process, truly a dark night of the soul, because of people who saw my humanity and affirmed me. These people came from within and without Samford as they did from within and without the church.
To call myself a gay Samford alumnus is not my ceding the autonomy of my sexual and spiritual nature to the wicked winds of a lost culture which Samford purportedly hopes to stand firmly against. I spent years wrestling, reading, journaling, studying, and seeking. My home is full of hundreds of books and Bibles. Innumerable notes and journals. I take matters of spiritual faith very seriously.
What I regret most about my time as a student at Samford is choosing to keep my struggles and my identity so close to the chest, rarely revealing my crisis of faith to anyone. Such an act on my part did soul damage from which I am still healing.
This is why I would implore Samford to partner with ministries that seek to understand and affirm the university’s LGBTQ students. Students should have access on campus to ministries that dialogue with them, support them, and minister to them. Repression as it regards one’s identity, which seems to historically be the unwanted birthright of many LGBTQ people, is an evil like no other. Samford should seek to partner with ministries that do not perpetuate that evil.
I stepped out of the Spike the Bulldog costume for the last time years ago.
Never again will I wear a mask that hides who I am.
Sincerely,
Matt Roberts, ‘11