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Christian Union perpetuates culture of homophobia at elite universities

Matt Bennet founded organization in 2002

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(Image via Christian Union's Facebook page)

The Christian Union was founded in 2002 by CEO Matt Bennet to fight what he saw as the secularization of top universities and to raise up a generation of global leaders with Christian values. Since it established its first ministry program at Princeton University in 2002, Christian Union has established chapters at all eight Ivy League Schools, as well as at Stanford University and Harvard Law School. 

To most onlookers, the Christian Union appears to be a relatively benign presence on these campuses.

Christian Union’s Dartmouth College chapter, for example, until the middle of last year made waffles late on Friday nights to give to students walking home from Frat Row, and these “Christian waffles” made the group somewhat of a hit among the college’s partying community. Dartmouth Christian Waffles, which now operates independently of Christian Union, now makes the waffles.

Behind the Christian Union’s friendly aesthetic and glossy promotional materials, however, there is a sinister and well documented history of homophobia, and queer student members have felt the consequences of the organization’s fundamentalist approach to sex and sexuality.

In the wake of the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the Christian Union Magazine published an article titled “After Obergefell: What Can the Church do?”, describing the ruling as “egregious” and calling on the church to reach out to “those with same-sex attraction and gender identity confusion” and help them form a “Biblical view of themselves.” Under all of the coded religious language, this means, at worst, praying the gay away, and at best, celibacy. 

On July 21, 2016, the Christian Union Magazine published an article titled “Christianity Can’t Be Stretched to Endorse Homosexuality,” directly in the wake of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fla. Instead of mourning this instance of extreme violence against the LGBTQ community, the article launched into a defense of the organization’s non-affirming theology, arguing that a true Christian could never accept “gay sexual practices” while remaining faithful to the Bible.

This article is one of many on the topic of what the Christian Union calls “same-sex attraction” — even that phrase robs queer people of humanity and minimizes what it means to be gay — and all are available on Christian Union’s website for the world to see. However, the Christian Union is first and foremost an organization that engages with college students, and to understand the human impact of their fundamentalist theology, the Washington Blade reached out to several current and former Christian Union members about their experiences with the group. 

Darby Aono, who graduated from Yale University in 2017, became involved in Yale Christian Union at the end of her freshman year. She was invited to the group by a friend from her dorm, and Aono’s interactions with the first ministry fellow she met were overwhelmingly positive. She continued to get involved with Christian Union, including joining a Bible study later that year.

“I was at Yale over the summer, and I was invited to their Bible study, so I started going to that. There were definitely suspicious things — not about queer stuff, yet — but at that time they did not have women in leadership roles, and it was understood that were would not be,” Aono said. 

Valentina Fernandez is a current sophomore at Dartmouth College, and she shared that her experience with Christian Union at Dartmouth has been generally positive. But, similarly to Aono’s initial experience at Yale, Dartmouth’s chapter had an off-putting approach to gender.

Fernandez shared that everyone in the group was very welcoming during her first year, and as someone who was raised Christian but wasn’t very knowledgeable about traditions or the Bible, she was mostly there to find community.

“The reason why a lot of [sophomores], particularly girls, are not as involved this year is because apparently a girl can’t be president by herself — she needs to be co-president with a guy. And a lot of us were like, what?! I wish I knew more about that,” Fernandez said.

While the Christian Union’s approach to women in leadership was concerning for both Fernandez and Aono, it was when Aono started to question her own sexuality that more contentious conversations about queer identities started to surface within Yale Christian Union.

“I think it was maybe during my sophomore year, when I was like, oh, like, maybe I’m not straight. And so I would sometimes talk to my friend in my dorm who was in Christian Union, who originally invited me, and we would get into arguments about homosexuality,” Aono said.

“The party line of Christian Union at that time was ‘love the sinner, hate the sin,’ where we all sin, so we aren’t going to excommunicate anyone for feeling same sex attraction, but just don’t act on it. Don’t sin. I would say that was generally how people seemed to feel about it.”

Then, Aono joined a Christian Union book club, where they read Wesley Hill’s book “Washed and Waiting,” in which Hill advocates for gay Christians to live celibate.

“I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I will say I personally joined the book club because I knew I was queer,” Aono said. “A large part of the discussion was about how to acknowledge the fact that you experience same-sex attraction without acting on it.”

Aono described reading Bible passages in the book club about being gay alongside other passages about being a drunkard or a thief, and feeling a sense of deep incongruity between the two.

“I remember being in the book club and being like: Being gay just is categorically different than stealing. I don’t understand why those two things are listed together,” Aono said.

However, one of the most pivotal conversations about being queer during Aono’s time with the Christian Union happened in the wake of the Obergefell ruling. After seeing the articles Christian Union was publishing about homosexuality after the ruling, Aono reached out to Christian Union via email, asking them to stop spreading incorrect and harmful messages. This email is what got her a meeting with Chris Matthews, the ministry director of Yale Christian Union at the time.

“Somehow, the ministry director figured out that I had sent this email. And so eventually we ended up deciding to have a meeting. At first, we were just arguing about whether you could change the fact that you were gay. At some point, I basically came out to him as queer,” Aono recalled. “And he said, ‘I understand how you’re feeling, because when I was a teenager, I used to have sexual feelings towards office supplies, but I grew out of that.’ I didn’t even know what to say in response to that. I didn’t fight him, because I think I was too shellshocked.”

“I remember walking out of there and then having to go to a ‘welcome the freshmen to Christian Union’ event. And I was like, I don’t know how I’m supposed to go welcome some fucking freshmen after this,” Aono said.

While comparing being queer to being attracted to office supplies is a truly unique instance, moments of casual — and non-casual — homophobia are all too common in the Christian Union. This doesn’t mean that students don’t find meaningful community in the group, or that all of its members are non-affirming of queer people, but the organization itself has a long track record of unsupportive and sometimes outright discriminatory practices.

Harvard University’s chapter of Christian Union, called Harvard College Faith and Action, ignited controversy in 2018 for forcing a student leader to step down after finding out that she was in a celibate same-sex relationship. This led to HCFA being put on probation for violating the university’s anti-discrimination policies for student organizations, only to be re-recognized a year later, despite failing to disaffiliate from Christian Union as the college had required.

A recent Harvard graduate and former member of HCFA, who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns, recalled being caught off guard by how non-affirming the organization was.

“I became interested in HCFA because of some racial justice work that they were doing,” they said. “I didn’t expect them to be fully affirming. I didn’t realize quite how bad it would be.”

A few months after HCFA pressured the student leader to step down for being in a same sex relationship, they again stirred controversy by inviting writer and self-identifying former lesbian Jackie Hill-Perry to Harvard to speak with Christian Union in February 2018. While HCFA characterized this as an “internal” event, Hill-Perry’s presence on campus drew attention, and protesters bearing rainbow flags showed up to the event.

Princeton University’s chapter of Christian Union had also hosted Jackie Hill-Perry in February 2017, so the practice of Christian Union paying a self-identified “speaker to preach on the sins of homosexuality was nothing new.” 

The recent Harvard graduate, who attended Hill-Perry’s Harvard speech, recalled the event and HCFA’s efforts to re-characterize it as an internal, scriptural conversation instead of an anti-gay public forum.

“It was very much spun as, she’s going to talk about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before he decided to sacrifice himself,” the graduate said. “The HCFA kept pushing the idea that this was going to be about this particular Bible story, which is a very important Bible story amongst Christians. Now, she did preach on that — and there was no program given before — but she very much preached on the immorality of same-sex relationships and how you can overcome same-sex attraction.”

Unlike Aono, who ended up talking with Yale Christian Union leadership about her concerns, the anonymous Harvard graduate recalled generally being ignored by HCFA leadership.

“I never got any meeting with any leadership. No one was pulling me into their office — I think they were just hoping I’d shut up,” they said. 

Like this former Harvard student, the Blade also had trouble getting a meeting with Christian Union leadership. Almost everyone to whom the Blade reached out to for this article declined to comment.

Don Weiss and Noah Crane, ministry directors at Harvard and Dartmouth, respectively, both declined requests for an interview. Multiple Dartmouth students who are or were Christian Union student leaders, and neither the communications staff of Christian Union nor Tyler Parker ever responded to multiple requests for comment. 

“I imagine a lot of people don’t want to talk to you because they were so incredibly damaged. I have no regrets — I’m glad that I brought this up because I have no idea if other people would have,” said the Harvard graduate. “I’m glad that people know that HCFA can be so harmful.”

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District of Columbia

Taste of Pride serves community, cuisine ahead of WorldPride

Capital Pride Alliance partners with local restaurants to celebrate LGBTQ culture, support small businesses, and raise funds for the Pride365 Fund.

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Taste of Pride (Photo by Mark Mahon; courtesy Capital Pride Alliance)

With WorldPride set to kick off next month, bringing an estimated two million visitors to D.C., the city’s LGBTQ and restaurant communities are preparing for an unprecedented celebration.

Capital Pride Alliance, the nonprofit organization behind D.C.’s Pride events, is uniting the city’s LGBTQ and culinary communities to raise money for the Pride365 Fund through a program called Taste of Pride.

Taste of Pride partners with local restaurants across the District to generate funds for the Pride365 Fund, which, in turn, supports local LGBTQ organizations.

The Washington Blade sat down with Brandon Bayton, Special Projects & Influencer Manager for Capital Pride, to discuss how Taste of Pride is giving everyone the chance to support the LGBTQ community while enjoying incredible local cuisine.

“D.C. has become really known as sort of a foodie city,” said Bayton. “The restaurants that are participating are really stepping up to show their support for the LGBTQ community-especially in these troubling times right now. For them to step up and say, ‘Hey, we support you,’ it’s an opportunity for us to share them with our community and say, ‘We can support you too.’”

For Bayton, who is also the lead planner and producer for Taste of Pride, these restaurants’ open commitment to being safe spaces for the LGBTQ community serves three key purposes. The first is that they create a sense of belonging.

“By these restaurants participating, there is visibility,” he said. “They’re saying the LGBTQ community is here. They are patrons. We respect them and we support them. That, first and foremost, is one.” The participating restaurants are also given a sticker to display in their window that proves they are an official restaurant of Taste of Pride.

The second key aspect, Bayton explained, is that these restaurants are financially supporting an organization that directly benefits Washington’s LGBTQ community. To participate, restaurants must contribute at least $250 to Capital Pride, which serves as a donation to the Pride365 Fund.

“These restaurants are supporting us financially too,” Bayton said. “They are pretty much donating. There are tiers, and those tiers are donations to the Pride365 Fund-which is Capital Pride’s fundraising arm. That fund supports not just Capital Pride, but our sister organizations too, where we do grants and loans. We can disperse funds to SMYAL or the DC LGBTQ Center. Some of the funds that we’ve been raising go into the completion of the LGBTQ Center. It’s a fund that really supports the community.”

Lastly, Taste of Pride provides a platform for restaurants to showcase not only their food but also the queer history of their neighborhoods.

“The third thing is some of these restaurants are doing actual events, from drag events to poetry readings and hosting artists,” Bayton said. “Annie’s is a participant that’s going to be part of the Dupont Circle/17th Street Taste of Pride weekend in June, and they’re hosting a book launch for an author. His name is Erik Piepenburg, and he has featured Annie’s and other LGBTQ establishments in his book, “Dining Out.” The Watergate [Hotel] has four events that they’re doing. The Union Market community is doing special events for its Taste of Pride. It has been a win-win for everyone.”

So far, Taste of Pride has hosted two events: a kickoff event at Hook Hall and a weekend event with the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID). If those events were any indication, Bayton said, this year’s Taste of Pride is shaping up to be both delicious and fabulous.

“We had a great panel of chefs,” he said about the January kickoff party. “We had David Hagedorn, Rob Heim from Shaw’s Tavern, these guys who call themselves Pirate Ventures. And we had Chef Angela Rose, who not only is a member of the [LGBTQ] community but also leads the Go-Go Museum’s café.”

The event also showcased two local drag artists.

“We had two performers-Frieda Poussáy and Dior Couture, a definite rising star in D.C. It was a night of food, camaraderie, networking, and friends getting together. It was a nice community event.”

Taste of Pride will continue throughout the city, with different Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) hosting culinary-focused weekends from now until July 31. Participating neighborhoods include NoMa, Dupont Circle, Golden Triangle, Capitol Hill, the Capitol Riverfront, and more.

This weekend, Adams Morgan will take center stage, serving up its own Taste of Pride. From the famous pupusas at El Tamarindo to the juicy burgers at Lucky Buns, these iconic and top-rated AdMo restaurants will not only be selling delicious food and raising money for the LGBTQ community, but they’ll also be “sharing a story — one of diversity, inclusion, and Pride.”

When asked how people should get involved in the Taste of Pride events, Bayton explained that Capital Pride found an app to “try to take the heavy lifting off of the restaurants by creating a specialized portal and employing an app.”

“One of the things is to download your Bandwango pass, because that gives you access to all the neighborhood groups as they come online,” he said.

Additionally, Bayton said posting a photo on social media is a great way to bring awareness to local restaurants supporting the LGBTQ community.

“When you go into the restaurants, take a picture, tag them, show your support for them,” he said.

This is not the first year Taste of Pride has taken place, Bayton told the Blade. It began in 2021 to support struggling local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since evolved into what it is today.

Bayton also shared his hopes for the future of Taste of Pride and for it to be recognized as much as a foodie event as a fundraising opportunity.

“My vision for Taste of Pride is that it becomes a staple of Capital Pride, not just something we do around Pride weekend. It becomes something that is ongoing. I would like to see it grow to become a major event, similar to the Pink Tie Party or Chefs for Equality, but always with the goal of interacting with the community and the allies of our community.”

That goal, he said, is impossible to achieve without food.

“I think we connect over food,” Bayton said. “When people sit down and they have dinner, it’s that time that provides an opportunity to allow us to connect with one another. Food serves as a key bridge.”

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Argentina

LGBTQ seniors in Argentina face uncertain future

President Javier Milei’s policies have disproportionately impacted retired pensioners

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Puerta Abierta a la Diversidad is Argentina's first home for LGBTQ seniors. (Photo courtesy of Puerta Abierta a la Diversidad)

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Argentina and Uruguay through April 12.

Argentina has undergone significant changes in its economic and social policies since President Javier Milei’s inauguration in December 2023. These changes have had a significant impact on various sectors of society, especially retirees and the LGBTQ community.

Mercedes Caracciolo, a 79-year-old sociologist and lesbian activist, shared her experience with the Washington Blade on how the new measures have affected her quality of life.

“Since Milei’s arrival in government, which began with a brutal devaluation, I am more careful in my spending than I was before,” she said.

Although Caracciolo has additional income from rental properties, she recognizes the situation is much more critical for those who exclusively depend on a pension.

With more than 7 million people receiving pensions, many find themselves “scratching the poverty line” due to the loss of purchasing power. The libertarian government’s economic policies have drastically affected their welfare, leading to a wave of protests across the country.

The reduction of social programs and the lack of LGBTQ-specific public policies have deepened the difficulties that seniors already face. The loss of economic stability particularly affects those who have historically lived on the margins, with fewer job opportunities and limited access to a decent retirement. Many older LGBTQ people, who have spent their lives unable to form traditional families, now find themselves without a support network and with an increasingly less present State.

The advance of conservative discourses has also generated a climate of insecurity and fear.

“There is no more sense of security and stability in old age,” Graciela Balestra, a psychologist who is the president of Puerta Abierta a la Diversidad, the first home for LGBTQ seniors in Argentina, explained. “Many LGBTQ+ retirees fear that there are fewer and fewer rights. They see what is happening in Argentina and globally with the advance of the right wing, and they feel that what they worked so hard to achieve is in jeopardy.”

In addition to economic difficulties, the LGBTQ community has faced additional challenges.

Caracciolo noted many supportive spaces have had their government subsidies reduced or eliminated, weakening community networks essential to the well-being of LGBTQ seniors.

“Community networks are also weakened because many of them require state support for certain types of expenses,” she noted.

Balestra warned about the psychological impact.

“Obviously it impacted mental health. There is much more anxiety, there is fear. People who say ‘I’m afraid they’ll kill me’ or ‘I’m afraid to show myself,'” she said. “Before, they used to walk down the street holding hands with their partner, and now they don’t do it anymore. A lot of hopelessness.”

For Balestra, the concern goes beyond the LGBTQ community.

“The economic issue, the rights issue, the fear that something similar to the dictatorship will return. All of this is very scary. And besides, the hopelessness of believing that this is going to continue, that it is not going to change even in the next elections,” she said.

Civil society organizations have denounced an “adjustment” in policies related to gender and diversity that Milei’s government has undertaken. Pride marches in Argentina have become a stage for protests against the president’s policies, especially over his speeches that activists consider hateful towards the LGBTQ community.

Balestra stresses the fear is not only individual, but collective.

“Human rights no longer exist anywhere, women no longer have the place they used to have, they are once again objectified, machismo is on the rise again,” she said. “This brings a lot of despair to older people.”

Despite the climate of uncertainty, Balestra emphasizes resistence forces are still in force.

“We continue working, as always,” she said. “For 25 years at Puerta Abierta we have been doing reflection groups, cultural workshops, social meetings, all with respect to being able to make LGBT people aware of their rights. We never stop meeting, but lately we are talking more and more about these things that we had already left a little behind. The issue of coming out, fear, visibility. Now we have to talk about it again.”

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Federal Government

Mass HHS layoffs include HIV/AIDS prevention, policy teams

Democratic states sue over cuts

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Tuesday began a series of mass layoffs targeting staff, departments, and whole agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who reportedly plans to cut a total of 10,000 jobs.

On the chopping block, according to reports this week, is the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. A fact sheet explaining on the restructuring says “a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) will consolidate the OASH, HRSA, SAMHSA, ATSDR, and NIOSH, so as to more efficiently coordinate chronic care and disease prevention programs and harmonize health resources to low-income Americans.”

The document indicates that “Divisions of AHA include Primary Care, Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, Environmental Health, HIV/AIDS, and Workforce, with support of the U.S. Surgeon General and Policy team.”

“Today, the Trump administration eliminated the staff of several CDC HIV prevention offices, including entire offices conducting public health communication campaigns, modeling and behavioral surveillance, capacity building, and non-lab research,” said a press release Tuesday by the HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute.

The organization also noted the “reassignments” of Jonathan Mermin, director of the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, and Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Both were moved to the Indian Health Service.

“In a matter of just a couple days, we are losing our nation’s ability to prevent HIV,” said HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute Executive Director Carl Schmid. “The expertise of the staff, along with their decades of leadership, has now been destroyed and cannot be replaced. We will feel the impacts of these decisions for years to come and it will certainly, sadly, translate into an increase in new HIV infections and higher medical costs.”

The group added, “We are still learning the full extent of the staff cuts and do not know how the administration’s announced reorganization of HHS will impact all HIV treatment, prevention, and research programs, including President Trump’s Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative,” but “At the moment, it seems that we are in the middle of a hurricane and just waiting for the next shoe to drop.”

A group of 500 HIV advocates announced a rally planned for Wednesday morning at 8 a.m., at the U.S. Capitol lawn across from the Cannon House Office Building, which aims to urge Congress to help stop the cuts at HHS.

“Over 500 advocates will rally on Capitol Hill and meet with members of Congress and Hill staff to advocate for maintaining a strong HIV response and detail the potential impact of cuts to and reorganization of HIV prevention and treatment programs,” the groups wrote.

The press release continued, “HHS has stated that it is seeking to cut 10,000 employees, among them 2,400 CDC employees, many doing critical HIV work. It also seeks to merge HIV treatment programming into a new agency raising concerns about maintaining resources for and achieving the outstanding outcomes of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.”

On Tuesday a group of Democratic governors and attorneys general from 23 states and D.C. filed a lawsuit against HHS and Kennedy seeking a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief to halt the funding cuts.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withdrew approximately $11.4 billion in funding for state and community health departments during the COVID-19 pandemic response, along with $1 billion to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“Slashing this funding now will reverse our progress on the opioid crisis, throw our mental health systems into chaos, and leave hospitals struggling to care for patients,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said.  

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