Faked 'Gay Bashing' Incident Not Cause for Derision, Says Former Homosexual
by Jim Brown
May 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - A speaker and author who was formerly homosexual is urging Christians to respond in love to homosexual students who fabricate "anti-gay" incidents on campus.
Police in Mill Valley, California, have revealed that a recent series of homosexual-bashing incidents at a local high school were perpetrated by a student homosexual leader who claimed she was the victim of hate crimes. The student, who heads the school's Gay Straight Alliance, has admitted the hoax, which included scrawling anti-homosexual epithets on her car and school locker and making threatening phone calls to lesbian teachers.
Ex-homosexual Chad Thompson is the founder of Inqueery, an organization that addresses homosexuality on high school and college campuses. Thompson says although the lesbian student faked the incidents to get attention, she should not be treated with ridicule.
"I think the right response from the Christian community is that we need to recognize that some of the hardship, some of the harassment, some of the ridicule that gay and lesbian people face is real -- and we need to be willing to acknowledge that without endorsing homosexuality," Thompson says. "I think a lot of Christians think that if we acknowledge that some of the social problems gay and lesbian people face are real, then we are giving our seal of approval to homosexual behavior -- and we're not."
It is important, he continues, that Christians not lose sight of the fact that homosexuals have spiritual needs. "[T]hey hurt like we do -- and they need a Savior like we do," Thompson says.
But sometimes "politics gets mixed up with people, and we can't tell which is which," he adds. "There is a political agenda behind many gay and lesbian organizations that is evil -- but gay and lesbian people are precious, precious souls that God loves just as much as He loves anyone else."
Thompson is the author of Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would: A Fresh Christian Approach.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
