This past week, I was assigned to read a chapter from John D. Roth’s, “A Mennonite College for Everyone (?)” for junior seminar. Our discussion focused predominantly around the role of love in historical analysis: Is this Christ-like love — the kind that prompts empathy, and is void of quick judgment — a helpful tool in academic research?

Though after class, I found myself juggling a rather different question: at what point is an unwavering allegiance to a particular cause … necessary?

In the chapter, “Redefining Community: The Long  Struggle for LGBTQ+ Inclusion, 1990-2010”, Roth covered Goshen College’s internal and external debates surrounding homosexuality. This section then goes on to chronologize moments leading up to the college’s change in policy. One moment in 1998 was coined, “the ‘chalking’ incident”. I found this instance and the events that followed deeply disturbing.

After eight years into the debate, on Sept. 24, 1998, Advocates members wrote messages in chalk to spread awareness about their club cause. The writings included, “Heterosexism kills” and “Are you prejudiced? So were the Nazis.” A little aggressive in my opinion and proved less effective than they thought.

However, it was not their writings that shocked me, but the responses they received. The following day, new chalk messages were written: “SMAFQ: Straight Males Against F**king Qu**rs” and along the railroad tracks, a chalk outline of a body captioned, “another dead f*g.”

I do not mention this incident to remind us of our college’s past. As a student of history, I try my best to not be a presentist, but there is something to learn here.

Thus, I pose these questions to you now: At what point is picking a side necessary to prevent further harm? What will it take?

As of late, it has become increasingly difficult for me to maintain my optimistic demeanor. I mean where do I begin? The ongoing war and genocide, growing political partisanship and for goodness sake, our federal government just retracted grant funding for Hispanic serving Institutions.

Am I bad for admitting things suck right now? I cannot encourage you to hold on to hope and wait. I am afraid this rationale only perpetuates a form of violence we repeatedly fail to consider: silence and neutrality.

Leading up to the chalk messages, the college repeatedly chose neutrality for nearly a decade. It took derogatory graffiti on our campus, and the news of Matthew Shepard’s death, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, for GC to officially reconsider the moral standings it rested upon.

The chapter wraps up as one step further in GC’s commitment to inclusion. While it concluded well, I kept thinking about our LGBTQ students of the 1990s. What is their version of GC?

As GC students of the 2000s entered a new era and as current students now, we get to reap the benefits of their pain.

So, in this time of social and political unrest, what will it take? How much funding will be taken before we call for change? How many people will die before we can unanimously agree to call it genocide? What has to happen to see that America is moving further away from democracy? Or is this a conclusion we can only come to once these stories become history?