Only two days after announcing that they would hire gay employees only if they were in same-sex marriages, World Vision U.S. has caved under pressure from evangelical leaders and backpedaled on the decision.
Funded in 1950 by an Evangelical Christian, World Vision International is one of the largest relief organizations in the world, and does work with impoverished communities and areas ravaged by disaster all over the world.
On Tuesday, President of World Vision U.S. Richard Stearns announced the company’s decision to hire Christian employees in same-sex marriages in a self-congratulatory interview with Christianity Today:
“Changing the employee conduct policy to allow someone in a same-sex marriage who is a professed believer in Jesus Christ to work for us makes our policy more consistent with our practice on other divisive issues. It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.”
Apparently it wasn’t too important to Stearns or World Vision U.S. to keep the policy consistent, because today he released another statement reversing the decision and pretty much throwing the nameless and faceless “Christian leaders” who opposed the move under the bus.
How about we take this to the next level?
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There’s a lot of tap dancing going on in the official statement from World Vision U.S., but one quote stands out to us:
“While World Vision U.S. stands firmly on the biblical view of marriage, we strongly affirm that all people, regardless of sexual orientation, are created by God and are to be loved and treated with dignity and respect.”
If 48 hours is all it took for them to reverse course, the “dignity and respect” they speak of can’t possibly extend to the gay Christians they’re now refusing to hire. Were they not aware that there was the possibility for a backlash of biblical proportions from the move?
Christianity Today has a much longer and more insightful piece on the initial decision, delving into complicated issues with the acceptance of same-sex marriage in some denominations and not others, as well as the growing realization within high level Christian leadership that marriage equality is pretty much inevitable.
We’re sure having openly gay Christian employees working for an organization like this is inevitable as well, but we do hope that they’ll stick with the decision next time it comes up.
Cam
This isn’t a complicated issue at all. It is simple bigotry that they are just trying to excuse by claiming it is a religious issue.
They claimed the same thing about blacks being treated as equals, they claimed the same thing about Women’s Rights.
What organization was one of the largest opponents of the Equal Right’s amendment for Women? Two hints, the SAME group that didn’t allow blacks to fully join until nearly 1980 AND who were the major funders of Prop 8 in Ca. and the group NOM.
Yep, the Mormons. Was it religion? Obviously not since as soon as public opinion fully turned against them with Blacks and women they changed their tune.
Same with these evangelicals. They just love their bigotry and will lie and use any excuse to keep it.
oldbrit
That’s why I don’t donate money to any religiously-affiliated charity. If they’re not bigoted against gays, scratch the surface and you’ll invariably find someone God told them to hate.
oldbrit
P. S. If you think it’s worth the effort, you can express your outrage here:
Johnny Cruz
National Director
[email protected]
m 206.653.4689
p 253.815.2072
Interesting, I thought Johnny Cruz was a male porn star into bathroom glory holes.
oldbrit
PPS: There actually is a gay porn star named Johnny Cruz. I wonder if he’s the one that works for World Vision?
https://www.google.com/search?q=porn+star+johnny+cruz&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb