Queering the Spirit: A Lunch Time Special

COURTESY PHOTO/TREVOR LEWIS

Queering the Spirit: A Lunch Time Special

Simon Pierpont
Features Editor
sp1025@plymouth.edu

As the semester opens and new faces are seen walking between rounds and the hub many new programs are also coming to Plymouth State’s campus. One organization, C3: Caring Campus Coalition is working to bring the campus closer together and to open the minds of PSU’s students through their new lunch special Queering the Spirit: Sex. Religion. Pizza.

This program works to share the stories of Plymouth State community members who have faced and overcome internal struggles with his/her religion and sexuality. As Scott Merrill, one of the programs organizers said, “This is a way for people to talk about intersection between sexuality and faith in an open and accepting setting.” Queering the Spirit will be every other Wednesday in the student senate room in the hub from 12-1 p.m. for the next six weeks.

Every week there will be a different presenter at the luncheon talking about his/her experience with religion and sexuality.

Today the very first speaker was sophomore music major, Trevor Lewis, a homosexual male who recently parted ways with the Mormon Church. Having grown up in a Mormon household, Lewis was around religion his whole and was very close with his family.

As he became a senior in high school Lewis knew that it was time he talked to his parents about the true Trevor Lewis. He found that his parents were very open and accepting of his sexuality despite their religious standpoint.

Trevor attended Bringham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, a primarily Mormon university; for his freshman year of college.

After spending two semesters in Provo, Lewis found that BYU was not the home he thought that it would be and for reasons aside from his sexuality and the Mormon Churches stance on homosexuality of “Simply being gay isn’t against the religion, acting on it is.”

Lewis said he left the university and has found a much better home here at Plymouth State University.

The next installment of Queering the Spirit will be on February 17th, in the student senate room at 12 noon and yes, there will be free pizza.