How a gay soccer player was hired as first out teacher at a Christian Science school

Furbush, Ross. How a gay soccer player was hired as first out teacher at a Christian Science school. OutSports.com, June 18, 2020. 

The Principia, founded in 1898 as a school for Christian Scientists, consists today of Principia School (K-12 day and boarding) in St. Louis, and Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. Furbush graduated from Principia School in 2011 and attended Principia College in Fall 2014 for one semester to play soccer, at a time when the admission application still read: “I will refrain from premarital, extramarital, and homosexual activity,” along with prohibitions on cheating, drinking and drugs. But on November 18, 2014 “the unimaginable happened … Principia changed its century-long discrimination policy against queer people.” From 2016-2018, he returned to openly teach (science) at Principia School, notably as “the Christian Science institution’s first out faculty member.” His experience was “overwhelmingly positive”—he helped write “a diversity and inclusion statement to welcome all gender identities and sexual orientations” and established “a student LGBTQ affinity group.” He poignantly acknowledges: “Nowhere in the religious texts of Christian Science does founder Mary Baker Eddy write that queer people are not welcome in the religion. In fact, as a woman in her time period she took it upon herself to declare that gender should not play a role in hindering an individual’s expression of God-like qualities, like love.”

Read this article on the OutSports website.