Actually, no, I’m not.
Yesterday, I posted about World Vision and their change in policy to allow married gay couples as employees. Obviously, I spoke too soon. They’ve hit rewind on their decision. I would like to pretend I’m surprised, but I’m not. Pressure from conservative Christians is swift and powerful. (I will not blame this on “evangelicals,” though conservative evangelicals do seem to be at the forefront here.)
I am angry. Yes, partly I’m angry at the hateful bigots who put pressure on World Vision to change their minds. I’m angry with World Vision for not having the backbone to see it through the backlash or the foresight to put protective measures in place. But you know what makes me angriest? World Vision’s apology to straight people.
You read that right. It’s telling that the apology wasn’t to the 2000 children who lost their sponsors yesterday or to the gay people who lost their job opportunities today. No, it was to the conservative Christians who went after World Vision over their policy:
We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Oh, World Vision. You are “brokenhearted” that your friends were upset? Well, gee. I guess that must be hard. Much harder, of course, than applying for a job and then finding out that your legal marriage disqualifies you. Much harder than the fact that your stupid flip-flopping has led arguing of a strand that calls into question the very humanity of the people you just yesterday promised to affirm.
That must suck.
Well, I’m not sorry for offending any conservative Christians—not even a little bit. Come at me, folks. I’ll be happy to have you tell me I’m spreading a “false gospel” or that my eternal soul is in danger of the fire of hell. Remind me again that I’m leading my brothers and sisters (and people who identify as neither, both, or something else) astray. Tell me how I’m corrupting my children and causing someone else to “stumble” in sin.
Because I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to stop challenging the conservative belief that there is something fundamentally flawed about people based on their sexual or gender identity, and I’m not going to stop affirming every single person’s humanity, intrinsic worth, and right to live however and love whomever they choose.
Lest anyone think that there’s no cost in taking a firm, unapologetic stand, let me assure you there is. But whatever minor inconvenience, and whatever difficulties I’ve faced, that’s been nothing compared to what the people I cherish have endured. World Vision could easily have withstood the criticism and the loss of support, but they chose not to try even for a whole day.
Apologies to the conservatives who had a little of their assumed privilege curtailed for a few hours? No. My apology goes to the people who were harmed by World Vision’s indecision and by the fighting that resulted.
I’m sorry this is hurting you.
I’m glad you are part of my life and my church and my faith.
I love you.
Kyrie eleison–Lord have mercy.
Thank you for posting this. I’m with you.
I was heartbroken over this yesterday, but I noticed one beautiful thing that’s come from this. It doesn’t fix anything, but I think it’s worth talking about because it’s such a stark contrast:
Before the reversal, many conservative Christians took enough time away from their pearl-clutching and self-righteousness to end their WV sponsorships because GAYS. More liberal-minded/progressive people became concerned about the consequences of this, and decided to sponsor kids in their place, to make up for the loss and to support World Vision’s policy. And then this reversal… but I haven’t seen a single one of those new sponsors pull THEIR sponsorship in retaliation. The most common response I’ve seen is “This hurts. This sucks. This is wrong and backwards. But I’m not going to hurt a child and her community because I disagree with the organization.”
THAT is the attitude that these conservatives should have had to begin with. These evil liberals are the ones who are showing God’s love and compassion to the world.
The whole thing is horrible. That’s just one nice thing I noticed.
(obviously “evil liberals” should be in quotation marks… 😉 )
That’s an excellent point. In fact, I’ve seen the people (Like Kristen Howerton and Rachel Held Evans) who actively encouraged people to sponsor NOT to pull their support. Many of the people I know have said, “I will still sponsor because it’s not a child’s fault.” When I see people saying things about the “fighting on both sides,” I want to remind them that it wasn’t the “evil liberals” who removed their support.
Exactly.
I just discovered Rachel Held Evans a few days ago. I love how she thinks!
Rachel is AWESOME. You won’t be disappointed!
i wish i could say im shocked, but im not—way to go religious right—the only good thing in this is they are showing their true colors to the whole world, and those colors are pretty damn ugly
They sure are. I told my husband this morning that I was disappointed, having hoped things would be better for our kids’ generation. He said they will be because our kids know enough to outright reject this kind of hate—it’s just that obvious now.
WTF is WRONG with America – the land that claims to be of the Free where every man is ‘Equal under God’? All I see again and again and again is hypocrisy in spades. You know, I was considering applying for a Green Card at one time. I won’t be doing that any time soon.
I hear our neighbors to the north are pretty sensible. 🙂
No worries, the religious weirdos are not representative.
This one hurt a lot. And I’m with you – it was the “apology” that was the worst part of it all. I was upset at the people who were withdrawing their support and child sponsorships, but when the decision was reversed, and I read that apology??? Wow. That WRECKED me. I felt like I got punched in the gut. Sucker-punched. And yes, I was one of those who donated and signed up for child sponsorships (two of them) in the last couple of days…and I will keep those sponsorships. Of course. I believe in the work that World Vision does, and I made a commitment to those children. But, damn, did this whole thing hurt.
Yep. Felt so much like the only people whose humanity deserved affirmation were the same people working hard to deny the humanity of gay people and children. Sickening.
I just shared this on twitter. I’ve been SO disappointed, so discouraged by the haters and bullies I haven’t been able to think straight, let alone write. You wrote exactly what I would have liked to. Thanks!
I read a few other responses, and I’m revising my anger at World Vision to being frustrated that they didn’t take measures beforehand to make sure they wouldn’t be in a position to recant. I have no idea why no one considered the possibility that the reaction would be that bad.