March 26, 2014
Right wing Christians lashed out at World Vision in blog posts, articles, and on social media when the organization announced it would no longer prohibit same-sex legally married Christians from being employed in the organization’s US offices.
In an article appearing in Christianity Today, World Vision president Richard Stearns discussed the decision at some length. “Changing the employee conduct policy… allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.”
Conservative leaders suggested that Christians drop their sponsorships of needy children to protest the decision. Rachel Held Evans responded with a post of her own (well worth reading), which included the following summary of events:
1) World Vision announces it will not take a position on debates around gay marriage, but will employ people in same-sex marriages in its U.S. offices.
2) In protest, some evangelicals threaten to halt their current funding for food, water, clothing, and shelter to children and communities sponsored by World Vision.
3) Evangelical spokespeople say they “weep for the children” who will suffer as a result of pulled sponsorships, and blame gay and lesbian people (and divorcees and single parents) for the actions of evangelicals.
It’s as ridiculous as it sounds.
LGBT Christians reacted to this latest assault by those who see every minute concession to our equality as evidence the world is rocketing toward an irrevocable state of moral decay by posting some words of their own. My favorite is this great post that appeared on Benjamin Moberg’s blog, Registered Runaway.
Read “When Evangelicals Turn Against Children to Spite Me.”
posted by Marg Herder
I wanted to direct your attention to a link to this really excellent post by Zack Hunt on his American Jesus blog.
“My friends this must stop. We don’t have to agree about everything, but we can’t continue to put theology above people. We can try to hide behind claims of a false dichotomy between the two, but the reality of our actions demonstrates how disingenuous that defense really is.”
http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=11883