The second issue of the 2023 school year is out now. Check it out by scrolling down the right side of this website. Photo courtesy of Adviser Scott Nairne.

I am a student at San Luis Obispo High School. You can call me a SLOHS sophomore. I take issue with both the content of the most recent issue of the school newspaper that you run (hence why I am writing to you), as well as how it was presented and handled. Specifically the front page and the article, “A Christian Perspective on LGBTQ+ and Homosexuality” by Expressions Reporter Josiah McCarley.

I feel that it is somewhat insensitive to start off the “LGBTQ+ Feature” with an article that is negative towards the community and is written by a straight, cis, white, boy with zero outside input.

This issue is supposed to be a spotlight on the LGBTQ+ community members at our school, so why should the first thing people see (and often the only thing since many people only read the main story) an article such as this?

  In addition to it being a highly offensive portrayal of the community, it is also a bad introduction to the rest of the paper as many of its points are directly contradicted in later articles. This is especially true in regards to relationships. In this article, the author says that relationships and sex have to be exclusive and committed. Whereas in the article “Teen Couples” it is stated that their impermanence and lax nature is the entire point and that it is healthy to experiment and have many relationships.

Now that I have addressed the placement of the article, this leads me on to my second point, the content.

To put it simply, the message of the article is harmful.

Not only is it harmful to members of the community, but it is also harmful to christians and women as well. Despite the author’s half-hearted attempts to convince you otherwise, this article demonizes the community and attempts to speak for all of christianity when that is not in fact what it is doing. 

First off, the use of the bible passages is both disingenuous and offensive. It is disingenuous as it purports that this is “the bible” when in fact there are many translations of the bible and this passage specifically is a highly contentious one. Your reporter is using a biased, recent translation that supports his view of the community and religion. It would have been far more responsible of him to address this discrepancy or use a more widely used translation (such as the King James Bible used by around 60 percent of Christians) that isn’t nearly so offensive. He attempts to create a monolith of Christianity to make his argument seem more credible when it is in fact not so.

I also find the author’s explanation of his views and the bible very hurtful.

He essentially says that homosexuality is a sin just like stealing or lying but that it is ok because god forgives all sins and he can quote unquote “fix you.” Just because god forgives you for it doesn’t mean it’s ok to call it a sin or that it needs to be cleansed or fixed. You cannot just compare homosexuality to “drunkards, revilers, swindlers, and the greedy” it is not evil. It does not need to be fixed. And you can’t just nullify the hurt you cause by spreading those ideas by saying you’re sorry for any hurt Christians cause. That’s not how it works. The author then goes on to demonize non-marital sex and same sex relations as well as non exclusive and non committed relationships even going as far as saying “sex outside of these contexts is a misuse of it and fails to live up to the picture it is meant to paint.”

In their attempts to condemn non Christian-heterosexual marriages, many Christians use logic like his and state that there should be another equal but separate alternative to marriage so as not to destroy the “sanctity of marriage.” That seems harmless on the surface but in reality that is quite literally segregation. That is what the government said about racial segregation during the twentieth century.

When you separate people and restrict their rights based on identity, people like this will try to restrict those rights.

Separate almost never means equal. In addition, the idea of marriage christians fight so hard to protect was not the original purpose of marriage anyway. Initaly marriage was nothing holy or sacred, it was purely an economic proposition similar to a business partnership or company merger. If you applied the same logic that Christians use today about defending traditions and “preserving their sanctity and purity” then they wouldn’t even have any of their traditions. The bible would not exist in its current form, Christmas isn’t even Jesus’s birthday, christians wouldn’t be able to divorce. Whether they like it or not, traditions change. And refusing to change things is just an excuse to exclude people.

This article is not only harmful to those within the community, but also to other groups as well.

For example, this article heavily relies on sex over gender and in doing so excludes non-binary and transgender people as well as being sexist towards women. When the article says things such as “Each sex has specific strengths and weaknesses, but also specific roles in romantic and sexual relationships” and “the relationship between god and man is one of two incredibly different entities. This diversity is represented in romantic relationships by the diversity of two sexes.”

In conclusion, if you won’t listen to me (an Atheist, non-binary bi-person) about the harm this sort of rhetoric does to women and LGBTQ+ people, please consider the harm this does to Christians.

Towards the end of the article, the author states that, “It is not a Christian’s place to judge non believers. Christians should call out other Christians.” and supports this with another passage from the Bible. And while I agree with his first statement (even though this whole article seems to run counter to that very point) it is also harmful to people within the community. It turns them against each other and leads to a scenario where people are constantly fighting each other over who is the most pure and righteous in God’s eyes. And it also leads to Christians hating themselves for something they cant control and/or hating other people and discriminating against them for being themselves. Being gay or bi or trans etc. is a part of who we are. We can’t change it, nor should we. and I think people need to be more conscious and responsible of how their words affect other people. 

All I ask is that you be more mindful of what you publish and how you arrange it in the future. And perhaps issue some sort of statement in the next issue if that’s not too much to ask. Because it does have real life consequences. Thank you so much for your time and I hope you will take what I have said into consideration