You may have heard the awful story about how Belmont University fired the women’s soccer coach, Lisa Howe, because she is expecting a child… with her same-sex partner.
The best commentary I’ve read about it comes from Christy Frink, a social worker in Nashville. In her life, she has gone from Southern Baptist to Focus on the Family magazine reader to pro-life-activist to George W. Bush-supporter… to having gay friends over the past few years… to now being completely free of any lingering homophobia:
… I’ll gladly go stand on a sidewalk with a bunch of gay people and hold up a rainbow-colored “Equality” sign if I think it’ll help, and I don’t really care if someone driving by thinks that I’m gay.
What Belmont did to Coach Howe disturbed me enough that I was finally able to shake that last bit of homophobia out of my heart and recognize that treating a human being that poorly because of her sexual orientation is completely and utterly wrong. Because of its position of leadership in this community, the Belmont administration’s enforcement of a policy rooted in ignorance and exclusion is poisoning the city of Nashville and painting a face on all of us that is hateful and unwelcoming. It breaks my heart to think of that attitude driving the future of Belmont and of Nashville, and I’m beyond committed to doing everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. It starts with an open and honest dialogue, and that can start right here.
I’ve said this before, but if there’s one good thing to come out of all the anti-gay forces in the Christian church, it’s that people — young people, especially — are finding it so easy to walk away from the church. They see how their friends get treated by True Christians and they want nothing to do with it. They may still hold on to their god, but the homophobia disappears quickly.
It’s one of the biggest issues on which the church is so obviously wrong. Everyone can see that. And if you’re still attending one of those churches where the pastor rails against homosexuality, you’re part of the problem. As the saying goes, “Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads ‘not guilty'”…
I really do think the longer churches hold on to this position that homosexuality is somehow wrong or immoral or a sin that’s somehow “more equal” than other sins, the more quickly they’re going to bleed young followers. Which is better for everyone, really.
To anyone still in those churches: break away. You’re better off without them and their vile beliefs.
(Thanks to Jon for the link.)
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