Heartbreaking and Cruel

We know that Christine O’Donnell’s interpretation of her “Christian” faith (you will see why I put that in quotations in a moment) has led to take rather arcane, draconian, and oppressive positions on sex, homosexuality, women’s rights, stem cell reseach, civil rights and reproductive rights. We can understand why she is taking positions that were outdated in the 1950’s, it is because of her extreme Christian fundamentalist views. We vehemently disagree with everything she stands for, but at least we know where it comes from.

But what I cannot understand, especially from someone who claims to be Christian, is why Christine O’Donnell is such a cold, cruel and unforgiving person when it comes to the important people in her life.

Consider the story of Wade Richards.

A little more than 10 years ago, Wade Richards, a tormented, deeply religious 20-year-old gay man, took his Bible school tuition money and used it to fly to Los Angeles to join forces with Christine O’Donnell, a budding Christian right activist. O’Donnell, a former spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, had founded an organization called The Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth, or The SALT, in 1996; it was meant to organize young people around opposition to abortion, sex education, and homosexuality. Richards had just graduated from an ex-gay rehab program and had been interviewed about it on 20/20. Ostensibly cured, he got in touch with O’Donnell and became The SALT’s outreach coordinator and spokesman on homosexuality.

The SALT wasn’t much of an organization. It was run out of O’Donnell’s apartment, where Richards lived for his first month in California, and the two of them seemed to be its only employees. But O’Donnell was good at getting publicity. She appeared frequently on Politically Incorrect and other talk shows, and the two of them toured the country, giving press conferences and speaking at churches and colleges about sexual purity and curing homosexuality. Richards, though, was having doubts, which he confided to O’Donnell. “I told her, ‘You know, Christine, I’m still super struggling with same-sex attraction,’” he says. “‘I don’t really know if this is real, if I can really be this changed person that I’m going around the country speaking and saying that I am.’” She paid little attention, he says. Campaigning against gay rights was too central to her mission. [..]

O’Donnell’s demonization of gay people is especially striking given the fact that, according to Richards, she has a sister who is openly lesbian. Indeed, it was meeting her sister, he says, that helped him begin to accept his own sexuality. “What helped me really come to grips was that her sister is an open lesbian and was living in L.A. and was in a long-term relationship and was working with a youth organization,” he says. “By hanging out with her, I saw, wow, she has a pretty normal life.” Being gay, he started to realize, needn’t condemn him to a life of seedy anonymous hookups, drug abuse, and nihilism.

Still, it took Richards several more months before he was ready to become ex-ex-gay. [..] Eventually, Richards reached out to Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out, a group that battles anti-gay religious extremism. The two had met when they debated on Alan Colmes’ radio show. Richards finally came out in an article in The Advocate in 2000. After that, he says, O’Donnell “totally turned her back on me. I never heard from her ever again. That’s been my experience with the Christian community in general. The minute I was struggling and saying, ‘Hey, listen, I don’t know really where I am with this,’ that’s when everyone really turned their back on me.” [..]

Today Richards, who works as a hairdresser in Arizona, says he is doing fine, but, says Besen, “I think he was harmed by Christine O’Donnell. Christine O’Donnell was toeing the party line at the expense of an individual. Often these groups, in pushing their dogma, they overlook that there’s a human being that’s having their lives upended.”

Now to be Christian means you follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. At least it is for me. Tell me, Christine, would Jesus turn His back on Wade, like you did? Would Jesus Christ hate homosexuals as much as you do? No. He would not. He would say that we are all God’s children. And even if you think homosexuality is a sin against God’s will, Jesus would abandon Wade, He would embrace him, and forgive him.

For someone as self righteous as Christine O’Donnell, she is a pretty horrible person.