Christian College Student President Comes Out ... as Atheist

Eric Fromm: "I don’t have to hide anymore"
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 8, 2013 9:36 AM CST
Christian College Student President Comes Out ... as Atheist
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What's worse than coming out as a gay man at a Christian college? Perhaps coming out as a longtime atheist. Student body president Eric Fromm dropped the bombshell on his peers at Oregon's Northwest Christian University last week in the Beacon Bolt student newspaper, as pointed out by Gawker. "I was baptized Lutheran, and raised Methodist, but as time went on I slowly came to the conclusion that God wasn't real," he wrote. He tells the Register-Guard that now, "I don’t have to hide anymore. I know that people accept me for who I am."

Before he came out, however, Fromm says he was verbally attacked and shunned because of rumors that he was a non-believer, often by people confused about his view of Christians. That's part of what spawned his admission. Though he admires Christian morals, "I want to take my peers to task on their inability to accept those who don’t fit their Christian pattern," he wrote. Since coming out, though, he says he's generally been met with support, even from administrators. Some of his peers have even identified with him. "For the past couple years, I thought I was the only one," he says. (More atheism stories.)

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