[HeartStrongList] Liberty University At It Again; HeartStrong Invokes Outreach Effort

[press at heartstrong.org]

October 13, 2008

Dean of Liberty University School of Law Gets Away with Gay Bashing;
Welfare of Persecuted GLBT Students at Liberty Once Again a National Concern


In a serious instance of religious school leadership openly attempting to
create a culture of religion-based fear self-hatred for gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender students, Mat Staver, the Dean of the Liberty
University School of Law and head of the Liberty Counsel, stated that
Washington Mutual, Wachovia Bank, and even Kmart, "both of which actively
promoted the homosexual agenda, have come to realize that anti-family
policies will bankrupt the bottom line."

As a former student and employee of Liberty University, I can tell you
faith-based anti-GLBT bullying and persecution is nothing new coming from
religious leadership at this place.

For more than a decade, HeartStrong has spent countless hours and hundreds
of thousands of miles not just providing support to GLBT students who are
subjected to faith-based GLBT bullying and persecution at religious
educational institutions but also educating the public about what goes on
in these schools.  Specifically, HeartStrong has made a great effort to
make sure the public understands the reality of what students are being
fed when it comes to leadership making anti-GLBT comments and positioning
them as truth that must be accepted and respected.

Everyone is free to say what they like.

However, students who are suffering in these environments tend to believe
the leadership.  And when Mat Staver makes comments like this, it can be
very harmful to GLBT students who are doing their best to survive in a
very difficult situation.

GLBT students at Liberty University (and any other religious school for
that matter) need to know that they don't need to believe the lies that
they are being taught about themselves or others.  The message of
HeartStrong has always been and will always be that there is hope, love,
peace and happiness to be found and lived as a self-accepted GLBT person. 
All it takes is discarding the information provided by people who are not
GLBT or allies and listening to our own hearts.

It's not clear in the press materials from this Dean of the Liberty
University School of Law where he thinks his facts come from and that is
of course because there are no facts behind his flippant, incorrect
comments.
Don't we teach children that it is not nice to tell lies?

Clearly the same argument could be used to state that those companies had
financial difficulties because they provided equal opportunities for
employees not for GLBT employees but for those employees who made a choice
to join a religion, or for those employees who made a choice to get
married or have children or even for those employees facing physical
challenges.

Funny that when religious organizations go bankrupt no one ever points to
their tolerance of religious choice or an inability to live without
judgment as a culprit.

Words can kill.

Words can also motivate someone who is suffering and not focused on loving
life to consider other options.

As a teenager, I remember hearing religious school leadership make
statements against gay people which I found out later were lies.  These
weren't attacks against me by name.  They were blanket statements made to
the general public.  Back then I was a fundamentalist Christian so I
believed the religious leadership.  They were after all, speaking for God
and no one around me in the country I was living in had proof otherwise.

Their words sent me into a downward spiral of despair and self-loathing. 
I remembered their words when I sat with razor blades on the hill
overlooking the baseball diamond on the Liberty University campus and came
so very close to slicing my skin, hoping that the biblical lesson that
it's better to "enter Heaven maimed, then not enter Heaven at all.”

It's always amazing that religious leadership including those like Mr.
Staver who are part of a religious school will take credit for their words
when they speak them and they compel people to take action and make the
choice to join their religion.  However, Mr. Staver and others never take
responsibility for the words they say which compel people to take action
and make a choice to try or succeed at ending their life.

He certainly is free to say whatever he feels, thinks or believes
including whether it's truth or not.  But,
once again, Mr. Staver is living proof that work of HeartStrong is still
desperately needed.

Historically, HeartStrong has always taken immediate action to work to
clean up the messes in the emotional lives of GLBT students in these
schools when incidents like this happen.

It's been twelve years since the work of HeartStrong began and with
incidents like this happening more now than back then, the work of
HeartStrong is relevant today than it was back in 1996.


Final Note:  Mr. Staver mentioned in his press release available on the
Liberty Counsel website that people stop using Google as a search engine
since they support gay marriage in California.  He suggests using
goodsearch.com (powered by Yahoo which I’m pretty sure has pro-gay
employee policies) since goodsearch.com gives money for every search to
acceptable charities like the USPCA.  Apparently, Mr. Staver didn’t do his
homework.  Goodsearch.com also gives donations for every search made
through its site to groups like HeartStrong!

http://www.heartstrong.org