Ex-Gay Basketballer Says College Rescinded Coaching Job Because She's Straight

A former University of Southern California basketball player who played professionally overseas and who now considers herself to be ex-gay is suing New Mexico State University alleging that she was offered a coaching position there that was rescinded because of her religious beliefs and because she identifies as a heterosexual, The Washington Post reported. Since renouncing her lesbianism about seven years ago, Camille LeNoir recorded an interview with the anti-LGBT Forerunner Chronicles that students could easily access.

I felt the job was taken away because of my heterosexuality," LeNoir, 31, said in an interview.

When a former coach of LeNoir's offered her an assistant coaching position at New Mexico State, she accepted, but just days before her start date she received a call from the college's coach Mark Trakh, who rescinded the job offer based on a 2011 interview he'd seen that she'd recorded entitled "Sports, Fame, and Fornication" in which she lambasts LGBT relationships.

"If you are in a same-sex relationship, it is not worth losing your soul. Whoever you're in that relationship with, like the Lord told me, it will be the death of you. I just believe that you can overcome it. You can overcome and defeat sin," LeNoir said in the YouTube video.

"If you believe something that you were born gay or homosexual or whatever -- if you feel you were born that way -- I would say that you weren't. God wouldn't create you homosexual, then say in the Bible that it's wrong, and then send you to hell. He doesn't operate like that," she added.

Meanwhile, according to court filings, New Mexico State said that it rescinded LeNoir's job offer because her antigay sentiments could adversely affect players who identify as LGBT, the Washington Post reported.

LeNoir, who came out in her junior year of high school and who said she never felt pressure to be gay, adding that she ended a relationship because she could no longer reconcile being gay with her faith, said that despite her views on LGBT relationships that she could effectively coach all students.

"I have not left the basketball world. I know what the culture is like, and that has never affected how I am as a teacher, as a person," she told the Washington Post. "I love everybody."