A Toledo, Ohio church has erected 9
billboards proclaiming that being gay “is NOT a gift from God,”
the Toledo
Blade reported.
The billboards are in response to a
Central United Methodist Church's billboard that went up in April.
“Being gay is a gift from God,” the
billboard read.
“Being Gay is NOT a Gift from God –
Forgiveness, Love and Eternal Life Are,” said the counter
billboards erected by the Church on Strayer, which claims a
2,500-member congregation.
“I love everyone. There's nothing on
that billboard about hate,” the Rev. Tony Scott, who has led the
church for 37 years, told the paper. “I'm getting hate mail from
lesbian and gay people, but my point is that I love them too much to
let someone believe a lie. I love this city too much to let a lie be
sown.”
In a blog post, however, Scott called
homosexuality a “deviant lifestyle” and suggested that sexual
orientation is a choice.
“In more than 30 years of counseling
with people who have chosen the gay lifestyle, not one of them has
ever said – 'I am delighted to be gay.' No one has ever said to
me, 'My gay lifestyle is a gift from God.' In every case, those
engaged in this deviant lifestyle shared with me the pain of their
choice, along with the shame and guilt they carry,” Scott
wrote.