wfn.org | Gay activists plan protest at General Assembly

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Note #5915 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

24-May-2000
00211

	Gay activists plan protest at General Assembly

	Soulforce group demands equal recognition for homosexuals in PC(USA) 

	by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- As Presbyterian commissioners and guests gather for
opening worship at next month's 212th General Assembly (GA) in Long Beach,
Calif., members of an ecumenical gay-rights organization will assemble
outside to protest Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) policies on homosexuality.

	The non-violent demonstration outside the Long Beach Convention Center,
scheduled for June 25, is being organized by Soulforce, a coalition of gay,
lesbian and transgendered people and heterosexuals from a variety of faith
backgrounds, including Presbyterians. The group is pushing the PC(USA) and
other mainline denominations to fully accept sexual minorities in the life
of the church.
 
	"We are there to say, ‘There's an injustice being done, and we'll pay the
price to show you how serious we are in getting that injustice undone,'"
said the Rev. Mel White, a Soulforce co-founder and gay minister of the
predominately gay and lesbian Metropolitan Community Church. "They have
simply made us second-class citizens. They allow us to come and pay our
tithe, but we're not really welcome in the Presbyterian Church."

	Current PC(USA) policy bars sexually active gay members from being ordained
as church officers. Soulforce hopes to chip away at that and other church
policies by blocking a convention-center entrance during services scheduled
to start at 9:30 a.m. Earlier this month Soulforce staged a peaceful rally
during the United Methodist General Convention in Cleveland, and more than
200 of its members were arrested.

	"We're done with the debates; those aren't working," said Jean Holsten, a
Presbyterian attorney from Davis, Calif., who is co-chair of the group
planning the demonstration. "The minds and hearts and souls aren't being
changed in that. So we want to be standing as a witness to the truth that we
see, which is that God's table is fully inclusive."

	White said about 100 Soulforce members will assemble in front of the
Convention Center at 8:30 a.m. on June 25 to invite GA delegates to attend
worship at nearby First Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ
facility that will host services sponsored by Soulforce.

	At 10:30 that morning, participants in the demonstration will march from
First Congregational Church to the convention center, where White said
members will "take our stand to say to the folks inside, ‘God's spirit can't
remain where all God's children aren't welcome.'"

	White said the activists will wear T-shirts with printed messages saying,
"We are God's children, too. This debate must end," and "Stop spiritual
violence."

	"This will be totally non-violent, totally silent, totally non-disruptive,"
he said.
	
	The GA has been center-stage for protesters before, although most past
efforts were led by dissenting Presbyterians. The most recent example is a
protest two years ago, in Charlotte, N.C., by supporters of the National
Network of Presbyterian College Women. In Albuquerque, N.M., in 1996, a
brief demonstration followed the adoption of G-6.0106b, which requires of
church officers either chastity in singleness or fidelity in marriage
(defined as between a man and a woman), and requires officers to repent of
any self-acknowledged sin that is listed in the church's "Book of
Confessions."

	"There's been a long and kind of cherished tradition of the Presbyterian
Church that people are allowed to express opinion," said the denomination's
stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick. "There's always folks outside
the General Assembly passing out brochures expressing opinion of one sort or
another. And we have had other times in which there's been expressions even
in the hall itself."

	But don't look for Soulforce members to take to the Assembly floor, despite
reports that some members disrupted the Methodist proceedings in Cleveland
-- a charge that Soulforce officials adamantly deny.

	 "We don't do interruptions. ... We don't believe in blockades," White
said. "We don't believe in noisy processions. What we do is very quiet and
very symbolic. We don't believe in disrupting. We don't believe in going in.
We're trying to win minds and hearts. What good would that do if we
disrupted?"

	 Soulforce officials compare their movement for inclusion of gays and
lesbians to the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, and say they conduct
themselves in the manner of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas
Gandhi.

	Kirkpatrick said church officials have not discussed the scheduled protest
or decided how they will respond, but said he hopes no added security
measures will be necessary.

	"We hope that if Soulforce feels it's important to engage in
civil-disobedience action ... that a way can be found that enables them to
express their issue of conscience through that without...disrupting the
worship of the General Assembly or its life," Kirkpatrick said. "At least
from the experience of the United Methodist (assembly) and others, I'm
confident that can happen."

	Presbyterian-related groups reaching out to gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered people have applauded Soulforce and its agenda. More Light
Presbyterians and a group named "That All May Freely Serve" said in a joint
statement, "We appreciate that the ultimate goal of Soulforce is to
encourage the conversion of hearts and minds, to the end that individuals
and communities of faith will affirm and celebrate God's love for all
people."

	Members of the two organizations, which are not sponsors of the event, said
standing with Soulforce is a matter of conscience, and every person in the
church must decide whether to participate and how to choose the best means
of combating anti-homosexual discrimination.

	"We are inviting people as a matter of their own conscience to do what they
want to do," said the Rev. Jane Spahr, a minister with "That All May Freely
Serve" who has acknowledged being a lesbian. "I'm hoping that this is not
just about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. This is about
oppression. It's about second-class citizenship. It's about not inviting our
own children and grandchildren into leadership. For a church to have this as
a rule, it's so painful to me. It's like, let the stones cry out."

	Spahr said she plans to participate in the Soulforce protest.

	One member of More Light Presbyterians said he's undecided.

	"I think the goals of Soulforce are admirable," said Scott Anderson, a
co-moderator of the group. "There's a long history in the religious
community of civil disobedience on moral grounds, on non-violence. I really
respect that mode, but it has not been my personal journey."

	He said he believes people's acceptance of gays and lesbians must come
about through a "conversion" that grows out of "getting to know them,
witnessing first-hand the integrity of their Christian faith, and ... that's
been sort of my focus."

	Members of conservative Presbyterian groups could not be reached for
comment or did not return phone calls from the Presbyterian News Service:
Joe Rightmyer, of Presbyterians for Renewal, could not be reached for
comment. Two Presbyterian Coalition board members, the Rev. Mark Toone of
Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, of Gig Harbor, Washington, and the Rev.
Peter Barnes of First Presbyterian Church, of Boulder, Colo., did not return
calls.

	As in Cleveland, Soulforce will follow a carefully scripted plan in Long
Beach. Representatives are taking part in talks with local police and
convention center officials. Cleveland officials said the process worked
well.

	 "We knew what was coming," said Lt. Sharon MacKay, a public-information
officer with the Cleveland police. "We had an approximate number. They were
very up-front with us, very forthcoming with information, and they were no
problem at the time they staged their demonstration. They were no problem
during the arrests. There were essentially no problems at all. It went very,
very well."

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