Small Moments of Grace

Sunday, November 23, 2025

The Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp (he/they)

Executive Director, LOVEboldly

Queer Christian

When [the shepherds] saw [Jesus], they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Matthew 2:17-19)

Today is our last Sunday before Advent. Many of us are getting ready for Thanksgiving on Thursday, finalizing our plans for hosting or cooking for dinner, strategizing about how we can most creatively deal with family, and getting ready for the onslaught of post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas chaos.

Yet, Advent—which starts next Sunday, like you needed something else to worry about—is meant to be a time of slowing down. Perhaps, you, like me, find it near impossible to slow down during this time of year, then Advent can be about recognizing the small moments of grace and wonder. We’re told in Matthew 2:17-19 that “When [the shepherds] saw [Jesus], they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” I imagine Mary taking it all in and trying to mix her exhaustion and worry with the grace and surprise of what she was witnessing.

Reflection

Where do you find wonder during Advent and Christmas?

What small grace are you experiencing?

Action

Find one or two times or places in your daily life where you can be or can offer a small moment of grace to someone else.

Testimony in Opposition to Ohio House Bill (HB) 172

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Chair Schmidt, Vice Chair Deeter, Ranking Member Somani, and members of the Ohio House Health Committee:

My name is the Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp, and I serve as Executive Director of LOVEboldly, an Ohio faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to creating spaces where LGBTQIA+ people can flourish in Christianity and beyond. I also serve as Pastor of Blue Ocean Faith Columbus, a progressive Christian congregation in Columbus. I submit this testimony in strong opposition to House Bill 172.

As a person of faith and as someone who has dedicated my life to education and advocacy, I am deeply troubled by this legislation. While HB172 is framed as a parental rights bill, its practical effect would be to deny vulnerable children access to mental health care precisely when they need it most. This is why opponents have begun calling it the “Child Abuser Protection Act,”because it would functionally protect abusive parents by preventing their children from seeking help.

The Core Problem: Eliminating Minor Consent for Mental Health Services

The most alarming provision of HB172 is that it removes the ability of a minor to consent to their own mental health services. Currently, Ohio law recognizes that there are circumstances where minors need to be able to access mental health care without parental consent. This bill would eliminate that protection entirely.

The practical impact cannot be overstated. Children experiencing abuse, neglect, or trauma at home would be required to obtain permission from the very adults who may be causing that harm before they could speak to a mental health professional. A teenager struggling with suicidal ideation due to parental rejection would need to ask those same rejecting parents for permission to see a counselor. A young person questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity in a hostile home environment would have no confidential avenue to process those feelings with a trained professional.

HB172 creates an impossible situation for our most vulnerable young people. Many children in crisis cannot safely disclose to their parents what they’re experiencing. Requiring parental consent doesn’t strengthen families, it silences children and leaves them without recourse.

Real-World Consequences for LGBTQIA+ Youth

I want to speak specifically about the impact this bill would have on LGBTQIA+ young people, as this is a community I serve directly through my ministry. The statistics are sobering, LGBTQIA+ youth contemplate suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth. LGBTQIA+ youth who come from families who reject them are 8.4 times more likely to attempt suicide than LGBTQIA+ peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection.

Access to supportive mental health care is literally lifesaving for these young people. Many LGBTQIA+ youth live in homes where they cannot safely come out to their parents. Some face religious condemnation, some face the threat of conversion therapy, and some face the very real possibility of being kicked out of their homes. These are not hypothetical scenarios, they happen in Ohio, in our communities, every day.

Under HB172, a Queer teenager in a conservative household would be unable to access counseling to process their identity without risking parental knowledge and potential rejection. A Transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria would be barred from speaking to a mental health professional without parental consent, even though those conversations might lead to greater flourishing.

This bill doesn’t protect children. It isolates them. It tells vulnerable young people that the State of Ohio has closed the door on one of their few remaining lifelines to safety and support.

Betraying Our Moral Obligation to Children

As a Christian pastor, I can’t ignore what Scripture teaches us about our responsibility to children. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14). He also warned, "If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

HB172 places obstacles before children. It hinders them from accessing care. It creates barriers between vulnerable young people and the help they desperately need. This is not consistent with a faith tradition that calls us to protect the vulnerable, to welcome the outcast, and to ensure that the least among us are cared for.

I recognize that some supporters of this bill believe they are protecting parental rights and family integrity. I understand the desire to be involved in our children’s lives and decisions. But we must grapple with the reality that not all homes are safe. Not all parents act in their children’s best interests. Some children need access to confidential mental health care in order to survive their childhoods.

Conclusion: A Call to Reject HB172

I urge you to reject House Bill 172. This legislation, despite its stated intentions, would cause tremendous harm to Ohio’s most vulnerable children. It would eliminate crucial mental health protections for minors and would endanger already marginalized youth, including LGBTQIA+ youth.

Perhaps worst of all, it would empower abusive parents while silencing abused children.

Our moral obligation is clear: we must ensure that every child in Ohio has access to the mental health care they need, when they need it, regardless of their home situation. HB172 fails that test entirely.

I respectfully urge you to vote no on House Bill 172 and not send the bill to full House.

Thank you for your consideration.

This statement may be attributed to the Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp on behalf of LOVEboldly.

Testimony in Opposition to Ohio Senate Bill (SB) 34

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Chair Brenner, Vice Chair Blessing, Ranking Member Ingram, and members of the Senate Education Committee:

My name is the Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp. I serve as Executive Director of LOVEboldly, an Ohio faith-based organization working to create spaces where LGBTQIA+ people can flourish in Christianity and beyond, and as Pastor of Blue Ocean Faith Columbus, a progressive Christian congregation. I submit this testimony in opposition to Substitute Senate Bill 34.

As a Christian pastor, I speak today not against faith in public life, but against the misuse of sacred texts for political purposes. SB34’s inclusion of the Ten Commandments among a list of civic founding documents fundamentally misunderstands both the nature of religious scripture and the proper relationship between faith and government in a pluralistic democracy.

The Ten Commandments Are Not a Founding Document

The Ten Commandments are sacred scripture, a covenant between God and the people of Israel, and for Christians, part of our holy text. They are not, however, a founding document of the United States. Including them alongside the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance creates a false equivalence that distorts both our religious heritage and our civic history.

The Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are civic documents that established and govern our nation. The Ten Commandments are religious law given to a specific people in a specific covenant relationship with God. To present these as the same category of document is to diminish the unique nature of both.

This conflation sends a dangerous message: that American citizenship and Christian faith are intertwined, that to be a good American is to adhere to this particular religious text. This is neither historically accurate nor constitutionally sound.

Impact on Students and Religious Freedom

As a pastor, I am also concerned about the impact of this bill on students from many different religious and secular traditions. Ohio's public schools serve Christian students, Jewish students, Muslim students, Hindu students, Buddhist students, atheist students, and students of many other faiths and philosophical traditions. Each of these students deserves to feel equally welcome in their public school classrooms.

When a public institutions, including public schools, display the Ten Commandments, it sends a clear message to non-Christian and non-religious students: this classroom privileges one religious tradition over others. For Jewish students, the Ten Commandments may be sacred, but they are understood differently than in Christian tradition. For Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist students, they are part of another faith entirely. For atheist and agnostic students, they represent religious claims they do not accept.

These students do not forfeit their right to equal treatment when they enter a public school classroom. Yet SB34 would create an environment where some students’ religious traditions are displayed as foundational to American democracy, while others are implicitly excluded.

An Unfunded Mandate That Burdens Districts

SB34 requires school districts to implement these displays only if they receive donated funds or materials. While this may seem to address fiscal concerns, it creates an inequitable system where outside groups can effectively purchase influence over classroom environments. Wealthy donors or organized advocacy groups could flood certain districts with Ten Commandments displays, while other districts remain unaffected, not because of educational merit, but because of donor interest.

This approach also burdens districts with the administrative cost of evaluating donations, determining compliance, and managing potential conflicts over which documents to display and how to display them. These are resources better spent on actual education.

Religious Texts Deserve Better

As a Christian and as a pastor, I believe the Ten Commandments deserve to be treated as what they are: sacred scripture, worthy of study, reflection, and reverence within communities of faith. Reducing them to a “founding document” alongside civic texts trivializes their religious significance and misrepresents their purpose.

If we want students to learn about the Ten Commandments, that learning should happen in the context of religious studies: examining their meaning within Judaism and Christianity, their historical development, their theological significance, and their similarities and differences with other moral traditions. This is substantively different from posting them on a classroom wall as if they were equivalent to the Constitution.

Conclusion

I urge you to reject Substitute Senate Bill 34. This legislation does not serve our students, it does not respect our religious diversity, and it does not honor the proper boundaries between faith and government.

Thank you for your consideration of this testimony.

This statement may be attributed the Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp, on behalf of LOVEboldly.