This article on the harm caused by anti-gay churches was written by Matthew Moak and posted yesterday on MCC Anchorage.

If the past summer in Anchorage is any indication, Christian churches are at war over homosexuality and this war is exacting a heavy toll among homosexuals themselves. Homosexuals are the number one persecuted group of people in the Christian community, persecuted by their own friends, families, and church families.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey. A 2007 San Francisco State University Chavez Center Institute study shows that LGBT and questioning youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. And for every completed suicide by a young person, it is estimated that 100 to 200 attempts are made (2003 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey).

If that is not disturbing enough, GLBT youth left homes last year more often (12.38 times) than their heterosexual counterparts (6.69 times). GLBT youth were more likely to leave as a result of physical abuse, alcohol use in the family and conflicts with family over their sexual orientation.

Nothing says Jesus like making a child’s living conditions at home so unbearable that they feel they must either take to the streets where drug addiction, sexual abuse, homelessness, alcohol addiction and more horrific realities await them on the streets, or commit suicide. Nothing says Jesus more than displaying such an utter lack of understanding or compassion that homosexuals are driven from their homes and take their lives.

This summer on the Eddie Burke show, one caller referred to the homosexual community as non-human. Other callers read Scriptures that they interpreted to mean that God did not love homosexuals. I suspect that callers believe this because it is what they have been told as opposed to seeking and searching the Scriptures.

Baptist Pastor Jerry Prevo claims that the idea of homosexuals being protected from discrimination under the law would give them special rights which are unnecessary because homosexuals already have the same rights as heterosexual individuals. Further, in a KTVA interview, Prevo also claims that he doesn’t believe discrimination is actually happening in the city of Anchorage.

In an interview conducted by the Anchorage Daily News, Pastor Prevo asserts:

“I’ve tried to reason with these people. I don’t want the issue to come up. I’ve just dealt with a couple. … Their daughter, 19 years old now, is taking shots to make herself a man. These parents, their daughter never had any signs of being unsatisfied with her assigned sex, which is another terminology in here that’s a legal term, assigned sex at birth, and what they feel like has happened, she just got with this crowd and has been brought over.

“My problem is when I take this stand and I can’t minister to these people. I can’t tell them that Jesus Christ died for them and will forgive them just like he will an adulterer or a murderer and they can be changed. It makes it hard for them to listen to me, because they frame me as being hateful. … But I see it as that I’m telling them the truth. …

“I’ve had those who’ve come out of homosexuality in my church, and I’m sure I have some there now that are homosexuals. Based on scripture, I just can’t allow them to promote it as an acceptable alternative lifestyle.”

Red flags should immediately be raised when the pastor of any church is unable to minister to any individual or a group of people. What Pastor Prevo has asserted here is his inability to love all people.

Often, when we are so close to a subject we are passionate about, we fail to see that it is ourselves promoting hate, intolerance and that individuals who display such an utter lack of compassion, understanding and love (the greatest commandment) are the very people who are enabling children and young adults to take to the streets, and to take their lives.

It is time Anchorage to begin shouting from our churches that the spreading of hate, intolerance and discrimination must end. The lives of so many are being destroyed and countless lives are being lost, largely because churches and spiritual leaders such as Jerry Prevo are far too busy trying to be correct, rather than making an attempt to minister and to love.