Every collage campus has clubs, and extra-curricular groups. Everything from Anime clubs, to fraternities and sororities. Some still do attack the LGBTQ community, and others accept or even welcome the community, however it is at the collegiate level where people at least have, hopefully, matured enough and have the tools to think for themselves. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, however does not follow this, and have descended into the middle and high school level, to spread bigotry and try to cement the ideals at an early age.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a non-profit interdenominational Christian organization based in Kansas City, Missouri, that works with; colleges, high schools, and middle schools to promote using athletics in order “…to impact the world for Jesus Christ[1].” The Fellowship hosts camps to train athletes in their sport while delivering a Christian message. They recruit not only students, but also the coaches themselves such as the head baseball coach of the University of Arizona Andy Lopez[2], or Tom Miller a coach in eastern Iowa that coaches for Wilson Middle School and Jefferson High School[3]. According to their own website they have camps all over the United States[4].

The FCA require that all leadership positions within the organization, such as student leaders, to agree to:

FCA’s Sexual Purity Statement

God desires His children to lead pure lives of holiness. The Bible is clear in teaching on sexual sin including sex outside of marriage and homosexual acts. Neither heterosexual sex outside of marriage nor any homosexual act constitute an alternative lifestyle acceptable to God. While upholding God’s standard of holiness, FCA strongly affirms God’s love and redemptive power in the individual who chooses to follow Him. FCA’s desire is to encourage individuals to trust in Jesus and turn away from any impure lifestyle.[1]

This effectively bans all LGBTQ from all leadership positions, in addition to reinforce this idea of LGBTQ to be “sinful”. By leaving the statement at “encourage individuals to … turn away from any impure lifestyle,” it could be interpreted in all manner of things, including but not limited to: “beating the gay out of someone,” “gay exorcisms” (not kidding) [5] , or perhaps ostracising the person from the group. It should be noted, that none of this has been correlated back to the FCA, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is open to allow such actions to be in line with the Fellowship. The FCA are working with middle schools; with the leaders who become part of the FCA have to accept to the agreement above[6].

Equality International would like to ask that everyone check their local schools to see if the Fellowship of Christian Athletes are operating at their school. If they are, please email us at fca@equalintl.org. We would also like to extend an invitation for anyone to please volunteer with Equality International. We can beat this, we can make the school equal for all, but we need your help.

Sources:

1. Student Leader Application (pdf): http://image.teamfca.net/siteuploadfiles/FCA/2700706F-CF38-4FCD-B9E09BAEB17A3C29/8D77B8C2-29AE-4056-9AC3104B94D755FD.pdf

2. Andy Lopez: http://www.fca.org/vsItemDisplay.lsp&objectID=2C8C9E38-C296-6C1A-7F014B84003CD28F&method=display

3. Tom Miller: http://fcapowercamp.com/Coaches.aspx

4. Camp Locations: http://go.fcacamps.org/CampSearch.aspx

5. Gay Exorcism: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31528426/ns/us_news-faith/t/church-creates-stir-gay-exorcism-video/

6.A: See Cite-1 B: www.fca.org/hotpicks/mla.lsp C: (pdf) http://image.teamfca.net/siteuploadfiles/FCA/59D89C1C-74BF-4C4F-978D811000467BC8/A88525CA-1D20-4BCE-AF72D1AE8641D366.pdf

To help out more with this campaign please visit http://equalintl.org/fca