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Christian relief organisation World Vision has changed its position on same-sex marriage twice within days in the United States.
On March 24, it announced it would no longer define marriage as between a man and a woman in its employee conduct manual in the US.
But it reversed that stand soon afterwards and said it would no longer recognise its employees’ same-sex marriages.
Heavy criticism from evangelical Christians may have prompted the reversal.
Soon after the earlier groundbreaking decision, the Assemblies of God in the United States urged members to consider dropping their support.
The loss of child sponsorships may also have been a factor in the flip-flop.
“We’ve listened,” World Vision president Rich Stearns told reporters.
“We believe we made a mistake. We’re asking them to forgive and understand our poor judgement in the original decision.”
Since its founding, World Vision has always been a Christian organisation, Mr Stearns said.
“The decision we’ve made is based on biblical principles.”
Supporters made it clear that same-sex marriage was not consistent with the organisation’s views of the Bible.
In an interview with Religion News Service on March 26, Mr Stearns suggested that the number of sponsors lost was under but around 5000.
Those who sponsor a child pay US$35 each month, so the loss could have tallied up to US$2.1 million a year.
About US$567 million of World Vision’s US$1 billion budget comes from private contributions, according to its 2012 annual report
In a letter, Mr Stearns noted that while World Vision supports a biblical view of marriage, “we strongly affirm that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are created by God and are to be loved and treated with dignity and respect”.
He told the Religion News Service “the important thing for World Vision is that every organisation has to clearly define who they are and what they stand for”.
But in the last week, confusion and dissonance has been the result, he said.
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