wfn.org | Dozens arrested in gay group protest at Episcopal convention

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Note #6109 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

10-July-2000
00246

	Dozens arrested in gay group protest at Episcopal convention

	Soulforce members arrested again

	by Tom Beckwith
	Episcopal News Service

DENVER -- Under the midday sun on the Fourth of July, the group Soulforce
staged a protest in front of the Colorado Convention Center, site of the
73rd General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Both the rhetoric and the
temperature heated up as Soulforce members demanded that the church end
discrimination against lesbian and gay Christians.

	"Open your arms; open your doors; open your hearts," demanded Jimmy Creech,
chair of Soulforce. "Stop the debate. Be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ."

	Soulforce demonstrators punctuated speeches with a capella singing while
observers watched from the relative  coolness of the shade in front of the
center.

	Founded by Mel White, former speechwriter for Jerry Falwell, and White's
partner, Gary Nixon, Soulforce is an ecumenical network of volunteers
committed to teaching and
applying the principles of nonviolence on behalf of sexual minorities,
including gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered persons.

	Episcopalians among those arrested

	Although Soulforce is not an Episcopal Church organization, gay and lesbian
Episcopalians were prominent in the protest.

	Leanne Bryce, a lesbian youth minister from St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in
Boulder, Colorado, spoke passionately during the protest. Bryce was fired
from her job at the church
when a commitment ceremony for her and her life partner became public
knowledge. She accused St. Aidan's rector and the bishop of Colorado of
putting her through "a public inquisition," and of calling the couple
"debased, demonically possessed." She decried the "heartbreaking intolerance
perpetuated by the institution [the Episcopal Church] we love."

	Otis Charles, retired bishop of Utah, also participated in the
demonstration. He said that during most of his life he had not had "the
courage to live the truth of my life," adding, "the time has come to say
that we [lesbians and gays] are fully a part of the church. We refuse to be
silent; we refuse to be invisible."

	Charles was among the more than 70 people arrested at the end of the
protest for blocking one of the entrances to the Convention Center. Fifty
Denver police officers participated in the mass arrests, leading protestors
away in handcuffs while television, radio and print media swarmed about.

	Such protests by gays and lesbians are relatively new to the Episcopal
Church. Integrity, the organization that works for the full inclusion of
lesbian and gay Episcopalians in the life of the church, has traditionally
preferred to work within the institutional structures of the church.
However, Scott Larson, a spokesman for Integrity, acknowledged that
Soulforce "has a role to play."

	The Rev. Michael Hopkins, Integrity president, said, "We were in
conversation with them, so we knew that it was happening. We're happy for
them to be here. Our focus remains on the inside of Convention, and their
ministry is to speak on the outside to the Church, and we're happy for
that."

	Earlier this year, members of Soulforce were arrested during the United
Methodist, the Southern Baptist and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
conventions. The group plans a similar protest for the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops, which will meet in Washington in November. The group
has paid more than $80,000 in fines to date as a consequence of its actions.

	Anti-gay campaign also launched								
	In an unrelated event just prior to the Soulforce demonstration, the
American Anglican Council (AAC) held a press conference at the Denver
Athletic Club, one block away from the
convention center, to announce a new advertising campaign. The campaign
highlights stories of a man and a woman who consider themselves healed of
homosexuality, as well as stories of men and women who have suffered from
sexual abuse, alcoholism, and addiction to pornography.

	AAC admits that the campaign, is "provocative," primarily because it lumps
gay and lesbian people with self-described racists, alcoholics, and victims
of pedophilia, a combination the organization recognizes is not "politically
correct."

	According to the Rev. David Anderson, an AAC board member and rector of St.
James' Episcopal Church in Newport Beach, California, AAC consists of
bishops and priests as well as
affiliated congregations and laypeople who are "biblically orthodox." Its
mission, he said, is to "transform and revitalize" the Episcopal Church.

	The AAC campaign, entitled "God's love changed me," borrows a strategy from
lesbian and gay members of the Episcopal Church, who for years have been
"telling their stories" in hopes of achieving greater acceptance. In the
words of James Stanton, bishop of Dallas and the president of the AAC, the
campaign consists of "compelling stories of change -- living proof of God's
power to change lives."

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