Rizzotti answers to ‘anti-gay’ accusation

Burbank City Council candidate Christopher Rizzotti said he’s being unfairly criticized for his faith and affiliation with an evangelical youth group after a Burbank man alleged that Rizzotti holds anti-gay views.

“I don’t understand why I’m the only candidate that’s being singled out because of my faith or being asked questions about my faith, but I’m happy to talk about it,” Rizzotti said in an interview Thursday.

His comments follow Tuesday’s City Council meeting in which resident Brett Loutensock said that Rizzotti is “anti-gay by [his] association” with a program called Young Life. Loutensock sent a letter with similar allegations to the Burbank Leader.

During the public comment section of council meeting, he called for Rizzotti to renounce the group because of its “sexual misconduct policy” prohibiting members of the group’s leadership from engaging in sexual activity outside of a heterosexual “marriage covenant.”

Loutensock also leveled his accusations in a letter to Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale), who has endorsed Rizzotti and who Loutensock called “gay friendly.” Gatto said in a phone interview earlier this week he thinks the accusation is a nonissue.

Young Life began as the project of a Presbyterian seminary student and youth leader in 1939 as a way to evangelize Christianity to high school students in Gainesville, Texas.

The organization, now based in Colorado Springs, Colo., and active in all 50 states, has been in Burbank for more than 50 years, according to Alan Smyth, Young Life’s local regional director. He said the group is welcoming to kids of all faith backgrounds and sexual orientations.

“Our goal is to surround them with loving adults,” he said, though he acknowledged adults interacting directly with teenagers would need to be heterosexual.

Smyth said Rizzotti is on a committee with around a dozen other civic and business leaders from Burbank who act as a “steering committee” and help raise funds for things like summer camps.

Rizzotti, who said he got involved as a way to help at-risk kids and to help young people “find Christ in their lives,” said he was unaware of the sexual conduct policy until Loutensock raised his concerns.

Rizzotti and Loutensock both say they’ve never met or spoken to each other, but Rizzotti said he wished Loutensock had come to him with his concerns before making accusations.

Rizzotti said the idea that he is biased against gay people was “hurtful” and “misguided.” He said he’s involved in more than 30 organizations, including several faith-based groups, but he’s never been part of discussions about sexual orientation, gender or homosexuality in any of them.

“Those are conversations that have never, ever been had,” he said.

The latest version of the policy, provided by Young Life Vice President of Communications Terry Swenson, states that scripture “draws boundaries outside of which God’s purposes for our lives are not fulfilled” and says “men and women are to engage in intimate sexual activity with each other exclusively in the context of the heterosexual marriage covenant.”

Smyth said the sexual misconduct policy applies only to paid Young Life staffers and volunteer adult leaders who interact with the youth group members at weekly meetings and summer camp programs, who are asked to abstain from sexual behavior that is inconsistent with the tenets of the Gospel.

Smyth said that while committee members are unpaid, they are not considered volunteers in the same sense, since they don’t directly interact with the teens, and are not normally given information about the sexual conduct policy. Nor are they typically consulted in the administration of those policies, he said.

Additionally, Rizzotti said he’s received calls and emails from his friends who were shocked by the accusations — including at least three women who identify as being gay.

“My partner and I have lived down the street from Chris in the Burbank Rancho for four years, and he has only been supportive and generous with us from day one,” wrote Jennifer Krause in an email to the Leader that she first sent to Rizzotti.

As for his personal position on gay marriage, Rizzotti said he thinks people should be able to marry whoever they want, but he said he didn’t think he should have to defend his position on the issue unless all of the candidates will have to answer the same question.

“Everyone should be under that same microscope,” he said.

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