Soulforce's 2012 Equality Ride rolled through Chicago March 15-19, bringing with it 18 young people who met with local LGBT leaders and schools that lack LGBT protections.
The two-month bus tour, a major project of LGBT faith organization Soulforce, aims to educate colleges and universities across the country that often use religious teaching to discriminate against LGBT students.
However, this year's tour is different than past tours, said Bethany Meier, a rider who planned the Chicago leg of the trip. Unlike past rides, the 2012 tour is not just focused on schools. This year, the riders are meeting up with local organizations, churches and religious leaders.
The riders even had an accidental run-in the "Rick Bus" (a bus touring in support of Rick Santorum's presidential campaign, led by Maggie Gallagher). The bus (sans Gallagher) landed in Atlanta at the same time as the Equality Ride. The "Rick Bus" sports a large picture of Santorum, a widely-known anti-gay candidate, while the Equality Ride bus boasts a rainbow and a slogan about the ride's commitment to social justice.
"I think that one of the most powerful things about that moment was seeing our bus right alongside her bus," said Meier. "That was pretty fantastic."
The Equality Riders also arrived in Chicago the same weekend that GOP presidential candidates were in the city campaigning in anticipation of the March 20 primary, but the two camps did not cross paths.
In the Chicago area, the ride stopped by Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute. Wheaton was a target for several reasons, said Meier, among them college Provost Dr. Stanton Jones' advocacy for gay reparative therapy. Both schools, Meier said, have a long way to come in making LGBT students feel safe. Students at Moody contacted the riders just days before the ride arrived in Chicago and asked them to come.
The group also ventured beyond the schools. On March 19, the riders toured Center on Halsted. During their time in the city, they also held a social-justice symposium and poetry slam at the People's Church of Chicago and joined a potluck at Urban Village Church.
"We've really opened it up from just a narrow focus on these schools to a focus on the community in general and how we can make dialogue happen in all sorts of places," Meier said.
The tour, which kicked off in late February, will be stopping through 12 cities in total and wrapping up in early May. At some of those locations, the riders will be doing community service. They will also be holding panels and workshops.
Still, the focus of this ride remains on the schools; the Equality Ride has visited more than 80 since it began in 2006.
"I just think that it's really important that, as a community as a whole, we start having these conversations," Meier said. "We're never going to grow in society if we don't talk about stuff that can be really difficult to talk about sometimes."