Mike Curb has given more than $10 million to Belmont University, and an event center on campus even bears his name. Now, Curb is calling on the University to make amends for decisions by school officials that have branded gay Christian students “disruptive,” and have resulted in a lesbian soccer coach being fired because she chose to have a child with her same-sex partner.
“It’s time for Belmont to change and to recognize that we have gay students, faculty and staff,” said Curb, who is also a trustee emeritus at Belmont. “I want to see this board and the school leadership act like Christians.”
It’s probably the harshest criticism that has been leveled at Belmont University to date. And there’s been quite a bit. Students and alumni have protested outside of Belmont buildings. The Faculty Senate passed a resolution saying that employees shouldn’t be fired on the basis of sexual orientation. And local columnists have said that the school is fostering a culture of intolerance and discrimination, cloaked in a misinterpretation of religious values.
But the power of having a major donor to the University call attention to the LGBT problem on campus is pretty significant. Nothing quite catches the ears of administrators like a man with a $10 million wallet.
It always seemed an unlikely pairing. Ted Olson, the conservative lawyer who defended President George W. Bush to decide the 2000 presidential election, now championing marriage equality in California’s Proposition 8 case, paired with David Boies, his opponent in Bush v. Gore. But Olson has another unlikely partner — his wife, Lady Booth Olson, also a lifelong Democrat.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug created the