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HeartStrong is a Seattle-based non-profit "established to provide outreach to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and other persons adversely affected by the influence of all denominations of religious educational institutions" and "committed to educating the public about the persecution of GLBT's and others at religious educational institutions."

The group's founder and executive director, Marc Adams, attended the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Not surprisingly, he doesn't offer a warm remembrance of the pastor and political activist, but offers this personal remembrance on the group's mailing list:

Twenty years after I watched friend after friend outed and expelled from Liberty University for being gay or lesbian, I feel hope. Twenty-two years after watching my friend Denise doubled over and dissolved in tears after being kicked out of Liberty University for getting pregnant, I feel peace. Twenty-three years after watching my Old Testament Survey professor committing adultery with his sister-in-law on more than one occasion and virtually getting away with it, I feel honest. ...

I spent three and a half years as a student and employee at Jerry's university. I left during the middle of my senior year, not necessarily because I was gay, but mostly because I had begun my personal journey to wholeness and peace by challenging my fundamentalist Baptist Christian beliefs.

Over and over again, I found myself in pain for my friends. So many people that I knew struggled to survive in an environment that taught women they were to be submissive to men and gay and lesbian people that they were giving the devil pleasure by thinking about self-acceptance instead of self-hatred.

Bisexual and transgender issues were never discussed since most evangelicals do not see them as actual issues. This is mostly because they see the Bible from a male/female point of view. However, this certainly doesn't mean that bisexual and transgender people are not attending these schools.

After a few years of seeing friends and others devastated by the theology of Jerry's Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University, I began to question the things that I was taught as truth. Too many tears, broken spirits and lives forced me to choose my path. I could choose to continue the legacy of hatred, intimidation and shame laid out for me or I could choose to break the chains. In doing so, I could help provide healing to those devastated not just by Jerry Falwell, but by the millions who perpetrate the same physical and emotional life-ending message of self-hatred.

I chose the latter.

And my life has never been the same.

For the first time in my life, I found personal peace which gave me the courage, in 1996, to begin the work of HeartStrong. Out of respect for my friends who committed physical and emotional suicide and out of hope for my friends still stuck in restorative therapy, I founded HeartStrong as a way to provide hope and help to the countless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students persecuted at religious educational institutions in the United States and around the world.

Jerry acknowledged that in a room full of people, a homosexual can pick out the other homosexual in the room. I had never heard of gaydar before but as soon as he said that, I knew I had always had it. It was one of the things that eventually helped me in my self-acceptance process.

Had I not grown up in the ridiculous home I grew up in and had I not attended Jerry's university and worked for him, I doubt I would care at all about my GLBT brothers and sisters struggling to survive in these schools. Jerry's hatred for what he calls the sin of homosexuality provided me with the inspiration and the ongoing energy needed to continue to provide hope and help to those injured by his former belief system.

His evangelical university and church was also a stepping stone for me to escape my self-hatred brought on by my fundamentalist Baptist Christian beliefs and eventually find true personal peace as a Unitarian.

Jerry Falwell taught me that the greatest thing a Christian could do to show god how much you loved him, was to die for what you believe. (Where else do we hear this theology?) Well, now that Jerry has died, perhaps others can learn how unimportant the things are that he thought were so important and how important the things are that he never was able to experience.

So, thanks Jerry, for the inspiration. It was your persecution of me, people like me and every girl I ever knew at your schools that empowers HeartStrong to help heal the scars from the wounds you inflicted.

Adams suggests that the best way to counter Falwell's continuing "legacy of being the ultimate anti-GLBT fundraiser" is to give now to his group or another that attempts to build equality and tolerance where Falwell and his followers would do the opposite.

Labels: activism, gay organization, religion