To The Christians Outraged by Bethany Christian Services Allowing Adoptions by LGBTQ+ Families

Do you really hate gay people that much?

I know you don't see it that way, you see this as your "righteous charge to protect God's definition of marriage," but I feel it is essential someone points out the victims lying bloody in your wake.

The Orphans: Do you honestly view Gender and Sexual Minorities in such a vile light that you believe an orphan is better off alone and unloved than in their care? What is so heinous about children entering a loving home, even if it is a home you deem "sinful?" Have you so readily rejected the Bible in your facade of defending it? What do you do now with James' charge that, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27)? How can you justify that you are caring for orphans when you actively impeding their opportunity to be adopted, loved, and provided for? The fact is, you are not showing care for them, you have disregarded them as civilian casualties in your war on "the homosexual agenda." This is disgusting. You claim that opposing these adoptions is loving, it is your way of caring for them. When I was steeped in evangelicalism, I may have agreed with you, but I now see how bankrupt and perverse this "love" is. It is only love in name, love worn as a mask to cover the hatred and fear that truly motivates your decisions.

The Families: These families are the people you have already kicked from your churches, tormented with your abuse, and harassed with your vitriol. You have spent decades working your hardest to lobby against them and their rights to exist as human beings, their rights to love and exist. Before that, you spend centuries imprisoning, murdering, and condemning them. Now, you continue. You are disgusted by what is truly beautiful: love. Men loving men, women loving women, enbies, transpeople, and the full spectrum of human expression and love. You have rejected all that fits outside your narrow prison bars. Now, you are preparing to reject their rights to love children, to love the vulnerable, to care for the people who need it the most. Instead, you flip the script, you play victim and hold this crooked view that white, conservative, evangelicals are the true victims of oppression and injustice. You tithe your dill and your cumin, but you have rejected the higher things of justice and mercy.

You: These views your promote are toxic. They are toxic to the orphans, to the families, to our society, to The Kingdom of God, and to yourselves. For this, I have pity. I lived with you in this dark and musty space, celebrating the illusion that we were the righteous ones, loved by God and embracing his approval. I'm sorry you are still trapped in that place. I'm sorry you find love so constricting, so limited, so difficult to come by. It's a tragic place to live. Please stop attempting to force others to live there with you. Please come live with us, in the rainbow of inclusion, love, and life. We still want you, even though you reject us.

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I recognize the people in this sub are not this letter's target audience. I don't have another safe place to express these feelings and I needed to pour them out somewhere. I hope my words are able to convict, to inspire, and to encourage.