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Local Church Cancels ‘Teen Pre-Pride Night’

teen pre-pride
Horizon Unitarian Universalist Church sign | Image by Horizon Unitarian Universalist Church/Facebook

A Carrollton church working with the town’s LGBTQ+ organization to host Pride events has canceled the first of those programs apparently targeted toward minors.

Horizon Unitarian Universalist Church and Carrollton Pride are partnering to put on these events throughout the month of June.

The two groups will be hosting the 2023 Carrollton Pride Festival on Saturday, June 3. The festival is free to attend and will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The church also listed a ‘Teen Pre-Pride Night’ as an event on its website for Friday, June 2. However, that web page has since been deleted.

Austin Griesinger, policy director for Texas Family Project, roundly condemned the scheduled event.

“Events like this, aimed at bringing sexuality to the absolute forefront with a focus on kids and teenagers, are disturbing. It is appalling that any church of any denomination would invest their resources in something like this,” Griesinger told the Texas Scorecard.

Horizon’s interim minister Meredith Barber told The Dallas Express that the ‘Teen Pre-Pride Night’ event was canceled due to a lack of interest in attending. However, Barber defended the church’s position.

“Our LGBTQIA+ siblings are sacred, whole, and divine. The full expression of the diversity of gender and sexuality is a gift,” she said in a statement to The Dallas Express. “Support for LGBTQIA+ people is a part of our Unitarian Universalist values and has been for decades.”

“Carrollton Pride is one way that our congregation is making sure that LGBTQIA+ people in our community are aware of our support,” she continued. “We hope it will be a wonderful event for people of all ages!”

Horizon openly promotes LGBTQ+ inclusivity as a feature of the congregation.

The church also teaches a sex education curriculum called Our Whole Lives (OWL) to children as young as six years old.

The OWL curriculum, intended for kindergarteners and first-graders, “offers new and expansive ways of addressing gender identity and roles [and] sexual orientation.”

Horizon offers the course every other winter.

Kelly Neidert, executive director of Protect Texas Kids, told The Dallas Express that the church offering a sex education course to children of these ages is “extremely disturbing.”

“Young children shouldn’t be learning about LGBTQ+ topics,” she asserted. “And churches certainly shouldn’t be teaching them.”

“Given this church’s history of hosting  ‘kid friendly’ pride events … it’s no surprise that they would also [have] a program like this,” Neidert suggested.

While Barber is currently serving as interim minister, Horizon has announced its next long-term minister will likely be Chris Rothbauer, who uses “they/them” pronouns and “find[s] inspiration” in “the rituals of Paganism and Druidry.”

While it identifies itself as a “church,” Horizon is not part of a traditional Christian denomination.

Unitarian Universalism is descended from Christian tradition and maintains Christian influence in its “style of worship” but also utilizes the beliefs and practices of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Paganism, and other belief systems, according to the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Furthermore, Unitarianism rejects the traditional Christian doctrine of trinitarianism — the belief that God exists as three persons in one being — which many Christians claim is an essential doctrine of the faith.

As previously reported by The Dallas Express, another Texas church just south of Austin recently hosted a dinner to affirm pubescent LGBTQ+ children.

The topic of youth involvement in LGBTQ+ events has caused controversy throughout Texas in recent months, especially on the issue of “kid-friendly” or all-ages drag shows.

A bill aimed at protecting children from sexualized performances, including drag shows, was recently passed by the Texas Legislature, as reported by The Dallas Express.

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  1. Local Church Cancels ‘Teen Pre-Pride Night’ – Round Up DFW - […] Dallas ExpressJune 3, 2023Uncategorized […]

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