A Texas church has chosen a radically different path from many denominations nationwide. Instead of demonizing LGBTQ+ people, the Galileo Church in Fort Worth has opted to support and welcome the community.
The congregation is particularly disturbed by the state legislature’s recently enacted law that bans healthcare providers from treating trans kids and has launched a program to help families get their children the healthcare they need.
“Health care is a human right, and withholding necessary care for trans kids is state-sponsored cruelty. As neighbors to one another, we seek ways to help each other’s families flourish,” the church says on the website for the new program, the North Texas TRANSportation Network.
The church will assist families who need to travel out of state to get treatment for their children with a $1000 grant. Individual donors and organizations fund the group; no public money is used.
The not-for-profit doesn’t require religious beliefs or church participation from applicants. The only qualification is that families must live in the 19-county northern Texas area and have a trans or gender-diverse child.
“I’m a mother, I have three kids so and I have always been able to get the healthcare for my kids that they desperately needed,” Executive Director Cynthia Daniels told CBS News. “So to me it’s just being a good neighbor to a group of people who have been selected to not be able to receive their healthcare and to me that’s devastating.”
Grants are distributed as the funds become available.
This is the first Christian church I’ve ever seen that has been willing to respond to the violent rhetoric of other churches with something strong than “Oh, well, everyone is entitled to their beliefs”. They need and deserve our critical support.
Eh, there are Christian denominations in my area flying pride flags and BLM flags. Granted, I live in a liberal area. But they’re not all bad. And I say this being very turned off by the idea of religion in general.
but are they willing to go so far as to condemn the others? when someone gets behind a pulpit and says that we need to be murdered in the street, do they say “that man is not a christian” or “my brother and I don’t agree on everything”? those are the ones I’m talking about, the people that believe what they believe, but find it more important to avoid conflict than to do what’s right.
Yes, they absolutely do. But it’s the backlash that people see.
The United Methodist Church just had a schism because the bigots were butthurt by being called out, so they went and started their own denomination (Global Methodist) with hatred of gay people as a foundational principle.