After leaks showed him banning an LGBT club at the Christian school he co-founded, the novelist apologises for any hurt caused

Romance novelist Nicholas Sparks has apologised for “potentially hurt[ing] young people and members of the LGBTQ community”, after leaked emails showed him banning students from forming an LGBT club at a school he co-founded.

The Daily Beast published emails from Sparks last week, in which the novelist criticised the headmaster of Epiphany school in North Carolina for “what some perceive as an agenda that strives to make homosexuality open and accepted”. Sparks told the former headmaster, Saul Benjamin, who launched a lawsuit against him in 2014, that his decision to stop LGBT students from forming a club was “NOT discrimination”, adding: “Remember, we’ve had gay students before, many of them … [The previous headmaster] handled it quietly and wonderfully … I expect you to do the same.”

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Benjamin’s lawsuit alleged that Sparks and other members of the school board had “unapologetically marginalised, bullied and harassed” people at the school, including Benjamin, “whose religious views and/or identities did not conform to their … bigoted preconceptions”. A November pre-trial hearing ruled that Benjamin had not shown the evidence needed to prove he had been forced out when he supported LGBT students, but the case is still set to go to trial in August, when a jury will consider if Sparks defamed Benjamin and violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by telling colleagues he was mentally ill.

Sparks initially dismissed the Daily Beast story, saying that it “largely ignores the overwhelming evidence we have submitted to the court”. But in the face of mounting criticism, the bestselling author released a second statement on Monday, in which he said that as someone who “understands the power of words, I regret and apologise that mine have potentially hurt young people and members of the LGBTQ community”.

Sparks acknowledged that “on the surface”, the emails released by the Daily Beast portray him as “someone intolerant of having an LGBTQ club at the school”. But he stressed that he believed in Epiphany’s founding principle of “loving God and thy neighbour as thyself”, adding that that “includes members of the LGBTQ community”.

When he wrote in his email that “there will never be an LGBT club” at his school, Sparks added, he was responding to how Benjamin had gone about forming the club. If such a club was to be founded, it needed to be done “in a thoughtful, transparent manner … not in secret”. And when he said that a prior headmaster had dealt with gay students “quietly and wonderfully”, he “meant that he supported them in a straightforward, unambiguous way – NOT that he in any way encouraged students to be silent about their gender identity or sexual orientation”.

“I believe in and unreservedly support the principle that all individuals should be free to love, marry and have children with the person they choose, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation … I am an unequivocal supporter of gay marriage, gay adoption, and equal employment writes,” wrote Sparks.

The case goes to trial in August.