Cal Lutheran Group Votes to Aid Sanctuary Movement

A student congregation at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks has voted to support the movement of sanctuary for Central American refugees, it was announced Tuesday. The group hopes to encourage churches in the Conejo Valley to establish safe havens for those fleeing political persecution.

However, the student congregation will not physically shelter Central American refugees, as have several Roman Catholic churches around Los Angeles and the nation. And the vote is not an official university action, according to Gerald K. Swanson, pastor for the university and student congregation, Lord of Life Lutheran Church.

Rather, Swanson said, the vote declares the congregation’s support for shielding political refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala who are in the United States illegally.

The declaration was approved on a 47-6 vote of the congregation Sunday and followed a series of seminars held on the issue since November, the pastor said.

No Chapel of Its Own

The congregation, founded in 1976 and open to any California Lutheran student, holds services in a university auditorium but has no chapel of its own.

“Even though we can’t offer them a house here on campus, we can offer them monetary help or clothing or get involved with the sanctuary movement in Los Angeles,” said Leslie Simmen, 20, a congregation member and junior majoring in sociology.

The vote comes during a period of strong political activism among the 2,350 students at the private, four-year institution. Last fall, students pressed for full divestment of university stocks from companies conducting business in South Africa as a protest to that country’s apartheid policy. California Lutheran’s Board of Regents adopted the plan in January, and the university sold the last of its South African-related holdings shortly thereafter.

The declaration indirectly criticizes Reagan Administration policy on Central American refugees, which holds that most left for jobs in the United States and not because of political persecution.

‘Well-Founded Fear’

The declaration contends that refugees have fled “out of a well-founded fear of persecution.”

“We do this out of religious and humanitarian conviction,” the statement says, “ . . . and our national tradition for welcoming refugees.”

Swanson said the congregation will enlist the support of churches and temples in the Thousand Oaks area. The group also intends to raise money for Los Angeles-area sanctuaries and to lobby political officials.

No churches in Ventura County have yet declared themselves sanctuaries for Central American refugees.

California Lutheran’s regents on Saturday are expected to approve a resolution expressing sympathy for those fleeing El Salvador and Guatemala but stressing that the university itself will not provide sanctuary.

No Space or Services

“We just don’t have the space or availability of services to have the campus be a physical place of sanctuary,” University President Jerry H. Miller said.

Student associations at three University of California campuses--Berkeley, Riverside and Irvine--last year declared their schools to be part of the sanctuary movement.