One of America's biggest evangelical college groups says it will fire any pro-gay marriage staffers
One of the biggest evangelical Christian college organizations in the country has recently told its staffers that they’ll be fired if they express support for same-sex marriage, divorce or premarital sex.
The 1300 staffers of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA—a group with branches on 667 college campuses around the country—received a letter from the organization’s management telling them their jobs will be terminated if they come forward to express opinions that contradict its positions on sexuality, Time reported this week.
“If they disagree, we trust that they will alert their supervisors and conclude their work,” the letter reads, according to The Daily News. “The news may be hard, like many other aspects of following Jesus, but it is good for all people.”
The letter refers to a position paper which clearly defines “healthy human sexuality” as being strictly between a husband and wife:
One former staffer at Mills College, Bianca Louie, told Time she decided to leave a few months ago when she realized the policy change was coming. Louie was part of a group of staffers who tried unsuccessfully to dissuade the organization from moving ahead with the policy.
“I don’t know how InterVarsity can do ministry on campus with integrity anymore,” she told the magazine. “Mills is a women’s college with inclusive trans policies, and higher ed is overall making more efforts to be inclusive and safe for LGBTQ students … I could see us getting kicked off campus because of this.”
A spokesperson for the group told The Daily News he expects that some current employees of the organization will find themselves at odds with the explicitly stated position against same-sex marriage.
“We recognize employees who disagree or whose beliefs have changed over time will leave us because we have clarified our position,” Greg Jao, InterVarsity’s vice president of campus engagement, told the newspaper.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.