(March 27, 2007)--Twelve members of a gay-rights group have been arrested after staging a sit-in at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

The Soulforce activists attempted to meet with the seminary's president, the Reverend R. Albert Mohler Junior, to demand a public apology for a recent article he wrote on homosexuality.

Mohler had asserted that gay sex would be sinful even if homosexuality was biologically based, and said he would support a hypothetical prenatal treatment to make an unborn gay baby straight.

A Soulforce spokesman says the gay activists were charged with criminal trespassing.

A seminary spokesman said Mohler was not on the campus and wouldn't have met with them anyway, since he's responsible only to the school's trustees and to the Southern Baptist Convention.

Six members of the group who planned to spend two days last week on the Baylor campus spent a night in jail instead after Baylor police arrested them for writing messages in chalk on campus sidewalks.

Baylor University was the only scheduled stop in Texas of the cross-country bus ride modeled on the freedom rides of the Civil Rights Era focused on Christian colleges and universities with what organizers say are policies that ban the enrollment of openly gay, bisexual or transgender students.

The 50-day 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride involves more than 50 riders on two buses with stops at 32 schools including Bob Jones University, Brigham Young University, Mississippi College and Samford University.

The six riders were arrested Tuesday afternoon in front of Waco Hall where, according to a story Wednesday in the Baylor campus newspaper The Lariat, they were writing messages on sidewalks with chalk.

The Equality Riders, according to organizers, “are determined to open a conversation about the devastating impacts of anti-gay policies.”

Baylor declined to agree to sanction the visit and said while it respects the group’s right to hold its views, it asked that the riders respect the university’s right to hold views based on its Christian mission and Baptist heritage.

Baylor’s statement on human sexuality affirms sex within heterosexual marriage as the biblical norm and considers heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior to be deviations from the norm.

The Baylor student handbook mentions “homosexual acts" along with incest and adultery and fornication under the sexual misconduct policy.

“Misuses of God's gift will be understood to include, but not be limited to, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault, incest, adultery, fornication and homosexual acts,” the handbook says.

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