This is Joshua Ryan Alcorn.
November 15, 1997 – December 28, 2014
Last Sunday as our church gathered to worship, a prayer request came in from one of our youth group leaders. He asked for prayers for a family in his brother’s church. Their son died just hours before.
That boy was Joshua Alcorn.
Joshua Alcorn walked out in front of a semi-truck on I-71 early Sunday morning, ending his life. Joshua believed he was transgender. He believed that he was a girl trapped in a boys body. He referred to himself as Leelah.
The LGBT community quickly snatched the story and claimed their martyr. For a week they have exploited this tragedy. They have used the loss to attack Christian, biblical family values. They have dehumanized and vilified his mother in the process.
I don’t know much about transgender issues. I don’t know anything about sexual re-identification.
Here’s what I do know:
A mother’s arms are empty.
There is no loss that devastates a person more immediately and more drastically than the loss of a child.
It is as if a bomb explodes in our soul. It changes the DNA of our heart forever. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, and PTSD become life long companions of a grieving mother.
Tonight, there is a woman walking that road. She is grieving because her child is gone.
His mother loves him like no one else.
From the first positive pregnancy test, moms dream and hope for their child’s future. No one loves like a mother.
I don’t care how discriminatory, callous and religiously closed minded the agenda driven LGBT community paints Carla Alcorn out to be, I know, on this the 2 year anniversary of my own son’s death, no one loves Joshua like she does.
No one is filled with more doubt, more grief, more what-if’s than this woman. She was his mom. She is his mom.
Who is she?
The media is portraying Carla as a religious bully who imprisoned her son with intolerance.
When I think of her I wonder how many tears she shed. I wonder how many prayers she uttered. I wonder how many sleepless nights she spent trying to reconcile her faith and the desires of her child.
She is simply a heart-broken mom.
What does she believe?
This woman anchored her self in the record of Creation found in the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is a sacred writing for millions of people world-wide. She believes a truth that millions of others believe too. She believes that God created her son as he did Adam in the garden, a male.
The media portrayal of her flippant approach to this timeless truth found in the Book of God is the true discrimination.
The real injustice
Rather than the community support that we cherished after our son died, the Alcorns have been forced into an underground life of private funerals and secret grief and personal security.
The real injustice lies in the hate-infused outcry against a grieving mother. From the call to bring charges of neglect to death threats, Carla Alcorn, mother of Joshua Ryan Alcorn is being persecuted for her faith. That is the real injustice.
Today #IstandwithCarlaAlcorn
You may be interested in my personal beliefs on homosexuality.
