A recent controversy has sparked on my campus, the names of this controversy being "Brother Jed" and "Brother Mikail," two traveling campus preachers with the goal of creating "repentant college students." These men spout claims of spreading the word of God, yet have created a message specifically molded towards shaming the LGBT community and individualistic women.

As a Christian in recent times, I have been especially troubled when friends of different sexualities, political beliefs, and religions are immediately drawn back when they learn of my Christian beliefs, with the assumption that because of these beliefs, I will certainly condemn their way of love, the beliefs their heart holds, and their personhood in general. Perhaps this is because so many Christians have recently forgotten that God commands us to love the soul, even if we don’t agree with the person. Perhaps it is because so many Christians have attacked and harassed members of the LGBT community so much that the victims of this hate have to be on the constant defense of their existence.

However, because of these assumptions, my heart plays a heavy role in what I am writing. In this passage, I ask that the wrongly condemned, harassed, and victimized individuals accept a sincere apology from a friend and Christian. I ask that you set aside the thoughts that come when you meet a Christian and replace them knowing this:

• Whether you are a man that loves men, a woman that loves women, a man that loves both, a woman that loves both, or a human being that loves without definition, I will love you no less. I might just love you even more for loving what you love so bravely. Please, as a gay man or lesbian woman, a bisexual man or woman, a straight man or woman, know that I will always want to hear about your love for someone, and you are not obligated to shelter it to avoid offending me.
• Being a Christian and homosexual can exist within a person simultaneously. Never feel like you cannot be both.
• You are under no obligation to defend or shelter your personhood to bigoted Christians.
• To my transgender female friends, you are always welcome to use the women’s bathroom with me.

Above all, know that you are loved for all that you are, and never in spite of it.