Exeter, one of the oldest universities in the UK, is planning to host a conference for an evangelical group called Christian Concern this spring, according to the Oxford Student.
The thing about Christian Concern is that they don’t like the gays so much. In an interview with the Telegraph, CEO Andrea Williams says she thinks homosexuality is a “sin.”
Why is it that all the most vile groups use the word “concern” as a stand-in for their bigotry?
Christian Concern’s website has a special section for the homosexuals. While it doesn’t spout anything fire and brimstone, you can detect the faint whiff of homophobia:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Although both religious belief and homosexuality are protected in some ways under equality law, these two strands are often incompatible with one another… This has led to Christians losing their jobs after refusing to compromise their beliefs at work, and Christians being stopped from fostering children.
Yes, Christians are the victims here. The Oxford Student also says that Christian Concern has compared gays to pedophiles and advocating for “reparative therapy.”
The group has also been accused of equating homosexuality to paedophilia, after publishing an article objecting to the possible declassification of paedophilia as a mental illness in the US. In discussing the outright declassification of homosexuality in 1973 the piece complained, “Academic discussion of the adverse effects associated with a homosexual lifestyle has virtually ceased amongst psychologists.”
The evangelical group has also generated controversy through its consistent support of ‘corrective’ or ‘reparative’ homosexual to heterosexual conversion therapy. CC’s sister company the Christian Legal Centre (of which Williams is also CEO) is currently lobbying in defence of psychotherapist Lesley Pilkington. Pilkington faces being struck off by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) for offering the ‘corrective’ therapy. The treatment has been widely discredited by the BACP as being based on “no scientific or rational reasoning.”
Oxford’s administrators haven’t responded to student outrage, so why not shoot their public relations man an e-mail yourselves?
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
x
Exeter college is one of the 38 colleges that make up Oxford University. (exeter university is an entirely different place).
Jonathonz
I think we need to start advocating for reparative therapy for unhappy heterosexuals that want to go gay.
Alex
Guys, guys, guys, you really need to get your facts right. It is Exeter College, part of the University of Oxford, which is hosting the conference, NOT Exeter University. So that email you’ve provided is incorrect.
Relevant email addresses are here:
http://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/college/contact/
You’re welcome.
Chad
The poor christians loosing their jobs, they must have it so hard. Im so glad we gays don’t have to face discrimination or hatred.
Robert in NYC
Very very few people if any have lost their jobs based on their “christian” beliefs. “Christians” who work for the UK government in whatever department for example are subject to the equality laws of the UK. If they don’t like the fact that they can’t proselytize in the non-religious workplace or practice it, then they just find another job. None have been fired. It also applies to non-religious private companies.
dsp
Agreed Chad, GLBT people have never been the victims, have never lost their employment because of being GLBT, were never refused housing, etc.. No we are the bullies. We bully these pour christians. I wish to apologize to all christians on behalf of all GLBT folk. changed my mind…to all christians….STFU
cwm
If I recall there has been a total of one (OMG one!!) couple who were turned down as foster parents, because they stated during the interview process: they’d be unwilling to foster an LGBT child.
Which presumably means they’d balk at fostering any child! Except one who’d somehow been guaranteed in advance to turn out hetero?
Or perhaps it was a statement of their intention to make certain no child in their home would ever “come out.” Sounds like a promise to engage in emotional (and possibly physical) abuse.
BTW said couple also firmly stated their animosity to queer kids is separate from their Christian beliefs. i.e. that their hate for us would remain constant, regardless of their religious practice, denomination etc.?
cwm
the UK couple in question: Owen and Eunice Johns of Derby, England
according to a BBC report:
Robert in NYC
@cwm: NOM is also using this couple to promote the nonsense about freedom of religion being attacked.
Frank in LA
As someone who attended OU, please denote that this is only one college within a very large university. The support and friendship I found there helped me in coming out, shocked by the fear I had of the hatred in the states. The students there will certainly make voices heard and we should support them- this is the home of the Town and Gown! Sad to hear any group like this will be there- but Ox view has always been one of, that all the world views should be debated there. Equality will win every debate, what better place for the argument to be hashed out, unfortunately hate is still everywhere.
Patrick
You have got, got, GOT to edit this article – it’s Exeter College, Oxford (one of the autonomous colleges which together constitute the University of Oxford) that’s responsible and NOT Exeter University, which is in Exeter, not Oxford.
Jackie
I don’t support the views of these Christians and I quite frankly think their beliefs and their assumptions are completely wrong. I myself am a Christian, but I don’t believe that homosexuality is a sin. If the worst thing you have done in your life is love someone else, then you are better off than the hypocrites that have no business persecuting in the first place. Please don’t judge all Christians because of their religion. We are not all the same as the bible thumping bigots 🙂
TASTEY GOODIES
COSERVATIVE EDUCATION AND LIBERAL THINKING DON’T MIX. THESE UPPITY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS NEED 2 GET OFF THEIR HIGH HORSE AND DEAL WITH CHANGE AND EQUALITY.
Dr Christopher Shell
Oxford University of all institutions ought to be on the side of research and opposed to reliance on unresearched ideology and fashionable political correctness. Also opposed to censorship. It is difficult to find (among opponents of Christian Concern’s booking) even one reference to even one paper on even one of the following central topics: comparative rates of promiscuity, transient relationships, concurrent relationships, STIs, drug use, early death, abuse when young, pederasty. I have heard of people shutting out evidence when it does not agree with their predelictions (a practice which is not honest) – but here we have people shutting out absolutely stacks of evidence, or choosing not to become acquainted with it in the first place. Yet until they do become acquainted with it, how are they in a position to hold an opinion or comment?
Chirstopher Shell
Mention evidence or research and you can’t see Oxford students for dust. Oxford University now has an anti-research policy, I see(?).