Brent Childers, Executive Director
Brent Childers brings a unique and powerful voice to Faith In America’s mission to end the harm caused by a social climate of rejection, condemnation and violence toward against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans that is so often justified with bigotry disguised as religious truth.
He is burdened by the fact that he knows of at least four families that have been destroyed by the murder of children that has been linked directly or indirectly to their sexual orientation.
He also is saddened to know that there is a young gay or lesbian person someone in America right now contemplating ending their life because of the immense and unwarranted burden placed upon them by a small but vocal group of religious/political groups and organizations that disseminate condemning and hateful sentiment under a banner of moral authority.
Childers for most of his adult life was someone who aligned himself with those groups and their message of condemnation and rejection.
But there came a time in 2003 when he was challenged to consider whether his attitude and actions toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals really squared with what he considers the foundational tenants of his faith. The answer at that point had become obvious – he had sorely missed the mark.
In 2005 while serving as vice president of a marketing and publishing firm in Hickory, N.C., Childers was introduced to Mitchell Gold, a longtime advocate of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans who operates a furniture manufacturing company in western North Carolina. He serve as creative director for a media campaign that Gold and Jimmy Creech formulated as part of an effort to found an organization that would seek to educate Americans about the history of religion-based bigotry and discrimination and how it is still at work today in the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. He joined Faith In America in May 2007 as director of strategy and communications director. He was named executive director of the organization in December 2007.
Childers resides in the western North Carolina community of Cajah Mountain with his wife Roxanne. He has four children.