The president of American Baptist College is defending an invitation to a lesbian bishop to speak at the college, USA Today reported. Bishop Yvette Flunder of the United Church of Christ will speak this month on her work advocating for people with H.I.V. and AIDS.

The National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors issued a statement denouncing the invitation. "For a Baptist college president to invite a lesbian bishop legally married to a woman to be a guest speaker and worship leader on a Baptist college campus is irresponsible, scandalous, non-biblical and certainly displeasing to God," said the statement.

But the college's president, Forrest Harris, said that demands that the college revoke the invitation "fly in the face of everything that A.B.C. stands for as an institution of higher education rooted in the cause of social justice and equality for all."