World Vision Apologizes for Being Open to Married Gay Employees After Conservative Christian Financial Donors Drop the Charity Like a Hot Potato!

Remember when World Vision's Board revised its employee handbook to include all married people instead of just married heterosexuals? It seems like it was just yesterday -- because it was. Predictably, the religious culture warriors went out of their way to show us that they hate gay people more than they love helping starving children. As a result, they began dropping their child sponsorships by the thousands. Sarah Puliam Bailey of Religious New Service estimated that they were risking potentially $840,000 in long-term childhood sponsorships.

So what's an ecumenical religious charity supposed to do when it creates a gay-related controversy and loses all of its anti-gay evangelical financial support? World Vision apologized for treating gay families like real families, reversed its new employee policy of equal marriage recognition, and reminded the world that it really hates gay families just as much as they do:

Dear Friends,

Today, the World Vision U.S. board publicly reversed its recent decision to change our national employment conduct policy. The board acknowledged they made a mistake and chose to revert to our longstanding conduct policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfulness within the Biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.

We are writing to you our trusted partners and Christian leaders who have come to us in the spirit of Matthew 18 to express your concern in love and conviction. You share our desire to come together in the Body of Christ around our mission to serve the poorest of the poor. We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness.

In our board’s effort to unite around the church’s shared mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ, we failed to be consistent with World Vision U.S.’s commitment to the traditional understanding of Biblical marriage and our own Statement of Faith, which says, “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” And we also failed to seek enough counsel from our own Christian partners. As a result, we made a change to our conduct policy that was not consistent with our Statement of Faith and our commitment to the sanctity of marriage.

We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority. We ask that you understand that this was never the board’s intent. We are asking for your continued support. We commit to you that we will continue to listen to the wise counsel of Christian brothers and sisters, and we will reach out to key partners in the weeks ahead.

While World Vision U.S. stands firmly on the biblical view of marriage, we strongly affirm that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are created by God and are to be loved and treated with dignity and respect.

Please know that World Vision continues to serve all people in our ministry around the world. We pray that you will continue to join with us in our mission to be “an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice, and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God.”

Sincerely in Christ,
Richard Stearns, President                     
Jim Beré, Chairman of the World Vision U.S. Board

So to recap. World Vision was not being pressured (by their own reporting) by any outside entity to recognize or affirm the marriages of its gay employees. It independently updated its employee handbook to recognize-but-not-affirm the marriages of its gay employees -- after all, it is associated with Christian denominations like the United Church of Christ that actually affirm gay families. It then made a huge press announcement. Then evangelical Christians threw a hissy-fit for two days and withdrew all of their money. So World Vision reversed its earlier decision, affirmed that it will not tolerate married gay employees, and asked the conservative Christian world to forgive it. Meanwhile, LGBT people now get to be reminded how much your average Christian really dislikes us and our families.

Thanks World Vision!