Faith in Values: Political Pluralism: How Government Can Support Conflicting Religious Beliefs

By Sally Steenland | April 16, 2014

When World Vision USA announced three weeks ago that it would begin hiring Christians in same-sex marriages, the conservative reaction was strong and swift. Individual donors jammed the call center’s phone lines, and within two days, 10,000 poor children had lost their sponsors. The right-wing Family Research Council blasted the organization’s decision, as did evangelist Franklin Graham, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention, and others.

Just 48 hours after the announcement, World Vision reversed its decision. Its president, Richard Stearns, acknowledged the uproar the new policy had caused and asked forgiveness for the “mistake.” Over the next several days, criticism of World Vision’s reversal began sprouting. The online advocacy group Faithful America organized a petition calling for the two Google executives on World Vision’s board of directors to resign. After 17,000 signatures and a spate of publicity, one of them did.

And then a professor at Whitworth University, a Presbyterian school in Spokane, Washington, located near World Vision’s headquarters, wrote a public letter decrying its change of heart. “We rejoiced in the initial announcement and we grieve the reversal,” the letter says. It continues:

Julia Stronks is the professor who wrote the letter. She was thrilled when World Vision made its initial decision. “Here was a faith-based institution showing leadership on how to treat gay people with justice,” she said in an interview for this column. “I was brokenhearted when they reversed their decision.” Stronks wrote down her reflections, shared them with some friends who sent her words to their friends—and thus the public letter was born, gathering more than 350 signatures in less than a week.


http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2014/04/16/88106/political-pluralism-how-government-can-support-conflicting-religious-beliefs/