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New Jersey passed a law earlier this year requiring public schools to include the contributions of LGBTQ people in the curriculum wherever it was appropriate. The goal of this law is to make sure that certain people are not systematically excluded and that students receive a comprehensive education. But Pastor Ed McKelvey, who is also a mayor of Alloway Township, was not happy about the law denouncing it as “very, very, very sad.” During the sermon he gave in Church, which was clearly anti-LGBTQ, he complained in a very disturbing way about what would happen if homosexuality entered schools.
According to Patheos, McKelvey said: "… I got a phone call this week that the Supreme Court of the state of New Jersey just heard a case where it’s now legal, they say it’s legal, for a brother and a sister to marry each other in the state of New Jersey. A brother and a sister! Incest! They have lived together for years, and they heard this case, and the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. They say the next thing coming up is a father and a daughter. When you let homosexuality in, it opens the door to complete perversion and the church has to — we have to do our job and stand up. Stand up to it."
He actually referred to an article that first appeared on a satirical website and that is the only thing that McKelvey apologized about. His statements provoked several residents to call for the mayor to resign, but McKelvey insisted he wouldn’t step down over this, suggesting that people were taking his words out of context. The mayor's resignation was a topic during a Salem County township committee meeting where opponents calling for resignation clashed with supporters who defended the town’s leader. During the meeting's comment session many people came up to the microphone to share their opinions on Mayor McKelvey.
McKelvey spoke as a pastor, not as a mayor, so this may not be interpreted as an official statement of a town's mayor, but anyway this is an ethical issue. When a mayor is open about his personal bigotry it can't just be ignored and that is why calls for his resignation are getting louder. The reason why people ask for his resignation is not because he is Christian but because of his desire to suppress information and prevent students from learning about persons who played an important role in history. Luckily McKelvey has no influence to overturn the law that started this whole debate so students will get a better education.
