Exchanges of Support for Bullied Gay Teens Draws Attention to Oppressive Atmosphere on Christian Campuses!

The L.A. Times has turned its focus to a letter of support from a group of LGBT alumni at Westmont College, a Christian college in Montecito, for bullied gay teens. The support comes in the form of a letter written to the college's newspaper in November from an outsider named Artie Van Why, who attended school at a different Christian college in Kentucky.

Here's Artie Van Why's original letter published by Westmount's student paper, Horizon, in November. It reads, in part:

The recent suicides of gay teens has moved me to think of students currently on Christian campuses who are gay. This letter is to them.

I know what it is like to be gay and to be at a Christian School. In 1972 I was a freshman at a Christian college. I was a fairly new Christian. And I was gay. My four years there I lived with that secret and a fear that I was going to hell, pleading with God to change me, afraid to tell anyone.

We are assuring our gay youth that “it gets better.” And it does. I also want you to know you have choices. You didn’t choose to be gay (just as no one “chooses” to be heterosexual), but you can choose how to live with your sexuality.

Read it in full here.