InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA,
an evangelical Christian campus ministry, has told its employees that
workers who support marriage equality will be fired.
TIME,
which broke the story, reported that the new policy will take effect
November 11.
The group holds that sexual activity
outside of a heterosexual marriage is immoral. Staffers who disagree
with that will be fired.
InterVarsity has chapters on 667
college campuses and employees about 1,300 people. Donations topped
$80 million last fiscal year.
Staffers who disagree with the policy
are being asked to come forward voluntarily in a process called
“involuntary termination.”
“If you are in disagreement, then we
are going to ask you, with integrity, to identify that and leave,”
Greg Jao, an InterVarsity vice president and director of campus
engagement, told
TIME.
LGBT individuals who remain celibate
and affirm the group's policy can remain on staff.
Ginny Prince, 32, worked for
InterVarsity for seven years. She told TIME that as an LGBT rights
ally with a transgender child she “cannot align” with the policy.
“This was very painful for everybody.
I got fired … I sent an email and said, I cannot align, and I
think that this policy is discriminatory, and I cannot align. That
was it. We cried, we cried really hard my last day,” she said. “I
think what they do is very important, and I am very sad to go.”