c. 1998 Religion News Service

Interfaith group slams gay debate ads by conservative Christians

(RNS) An interfaith coalition of gay rights groups have banded together to condemn a highly visible national ad campaign by religious conservatives to convince homosexuals they can change their sexual orientation.

Leaders from Catholic, mainline Protestant, and Jewish gay-oriented groups told a Washington news conference Friday (July 24) the controversial ads espouse a narrow view not representative of the wider religious community.”We will no longer be silent when a few religious voices claim to speak for all,”said the Rev. Meg Riley of the Unitarian Universalist Association.”We will no longer be silent when our sacred texts are misused and manipulated,”she added, referring to efforts by conservatives to label homosexuality a”sin”by quoting the Bible.

One after another, the religious leaders expressed emphatically that attempts to change the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians are futile and unnecessary.”There has been much ado recently about the so-called cures of homosexuality. As a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience, I am appalled and saddened by these misguided and flagrantly inaccurate reports,”said Marjorie J. Hill.”Homosexuality is not an illness. It cannot be cured nor does it need to be. … Jesus came into the world to free us all.” Hill is president of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Unity Fellowship Church Movement, a group she said is the”single largest gathering of African-American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the world.” At issue is a national ad campaign sponsored by a coalition of 15 conservative Christian groups, including the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association, that appeared last week in the Washington Post, the New York Times and USA Today.

One of the ads featured a group photo of”ex-gay”Christians who said they were”standing for the truth that homosexuals can change”through”God’s healing love.” But the Rev. Mel White, a leader in the predominately gay Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, bashed the ads as disingenuous.”Their full-page ads promising a `cure’ for homosexuality through `ex-gay’ therapies should have labels similar to the labels on cigarette packs: Warning, `ex-gay’ therapies are dangerous to your physical, mental and spiritual health,”said White.”For 35 years I was an `ex-gay’ struggling to overcome my homosexual orientation through prayer, fasting and other spiritual disciplines,”he said.”I suffered endless aversive therapies, Catholic and Protestant exorcism, even electroshock (therapy), trying desperately not to be a homosexual.” Participants in the news conference came from a wide range of denominations and organizations, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., the United Methodist Church, and the Disciples of Christ.

Also, the Brethren/Mennonite Council for Lesbian & Gay Concerns, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Interfaith Alliance, World Council of Churches, the American Friends Service Committee, and the World Congress of Gay & Lesbian Jewish Organizations.

Falwell announces plan for expansion, relocation of ministries

(RNS) The Rev. Jerry Falwell has announced plans for a $200 million expansion and relocation of his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va.

Falwell, whose church has been at its present location for more than 42 years, plans to move his ministry about five miles away, adjacent to Liberty University, the Lynchburg school he founded in 1971.

The well-know Baptist preacher wrote about the plans for the”new Jerry Falwell Ministries world headquarters”in the August edition of National Liberty Journal, a monthly newspaper published by the church.

He said the first phase of expansion on the 1,400-acre Liberty Mountain site will include a 12,000-seat sanctuary, educational facilities, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Liberty Bible Institute. It also will include a 24-hour Prayer Call Center, and offices dealing with church planting, broadcasting, adoption, and other ministries.

Falwell estimated the first phase of the project will cost $20 million to $25 million and will be completed by Christmas 1999.”The relocation will allow us to once again activate our `super-aggressive saturation evangelism’ philosophy,”Falwell writes.”I believe the New Century Vision will result in the salvation of thousands, the multiplication of our church membership and the strengthening of our world missions outreach.” Falwell also noted that the reduction in Liberty University’s debts, which occurred last year, has allowed him to turn his attention to future plans. The university’s debts had reached a high of some $110 million in 1991, traced in part to a lack of confidence in religious broadcasters after the TV ministry scandals of the late 1980s. Falwell’s”Old-Time Gospel Hour”has been a major benefactor of the school.

Additional phases of the expansion, which he expects will cost more than $200 million, are scheduled to include”a mega-children’s world,”recording studios, athletic facilities, a retirement village, a conference center, and an amphitheater for outdoor performances and worship services.

Falwell, who turns 65 August 11, noted he expects to participant fully in the future plans.”I have no intention of filing for Social Security,”he concluded.”It is my personal burden to serve in this vineyard at least another 20 years … perhaps longer.”

Senate committee effectively kills religious persecution bill

(RNS) The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday (July 23) apparently killed _ at least for the rest of the summer _ a bill designed to penalize countries that engage in religious persecution.

The committee removed the bill, sponsored by Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., from its docket for consideration after it became apparent that at least three of the panel’s 10 Republicans planned to join the eight Democrats in voting to reject the bill, The New York Times said.

Nickles’ bill was a more moderate version of legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House in May. Under the House version countries found to engage in religious persecution would have been subject to automatic economic sanctions involving aid and trade.

Some form of religious persecution legislation has been a top priority of a number of social conservative advocacy groups, such as the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition, and has the support of a wide range of religious groups, including Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish groups. Other groups, such as the National Council of Churches, have opposed the measure.

But the bill has also divided two wings of the GOP _ the social conservatives and economic conservatives, such as the Chamber of Commerce and major farm organizations who believe in free trade and generally oppose the use of economic sanctions.

Under Nickles most recent version of the bill, the government would publish a list of countries declared guilty of religious persecution and would give the president a broad range of options _ from a diplomatic rebuke to strict economic sanctions _ in responding.”There is not a senator who’s not opposed to religious persecution,”said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., one of the Republicans prepared to vote against the bill.”But in foreign policy, you rarely have the opportunity to choose between all good and all bad,”he told the Times.

James M. Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, called the yearlong national debate over the proposed legislation”a teachable moment regarding the United States’ role in dealing with religious persecution in other lands.”We … know better than before that although there is a universal agreement that the United States should affirm religious freedom around the world, it is much more difficult to know how to craft legislation to achieve it,”Dunn said.

Jury awards $37.8 million in burning of black church in S.C.

(RNS) A jury Friday (July 24) said Ku Klux Klansmen must pay $37.8 million for creating a climate of hate that led to a fire that destroyed a predominantly black church in 1995.

The verdict went beyond the $25.2 million in damages sought by Macedonia Baptist Church, the Associated Press reported.

The jury of nine blacks and three whites deliberated just 45 minutes.

The award includes $300,000 in actual damages and $37.5 million in punitive damages against KKK organizations in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Morris Dees, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the lawyer for the church, called the verdict”an overwhelming repudiation of the actions of these people.” The church argued that South Carolina and North Carolina branches of the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and several individuals associated with the groups conspired to burn the churches. During the trial, one of the men convicted in an earlier trial of actually starting the fire, testified it was meant to start a race war.

Clinton administration condemns hanging of Iranian Baha’i

(RNS) The White House and the State Department have both sharply criticized the government of Iran for hanging an Iranian man accused of converting to the Baha’i faith from Islam.”The United States strongly condemns the execution of Mr. (Ruhollah) Rowhani for the exercise of his freedom of conscience,”State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said in a statement Thursday (July 23).”We call on the government of Iran to protect the lives of 15 other imprisoned Baha’is,”Rubin added.

The Baha’i faith, founded in Iran in 1863, stresses the spiritual unity of all humankind. Many Muslims consider it a heretical offshoot of Islam.

The execution of Rowhani _ the first reported since 1992 _ comes at a delicate time in U.S.-Iranian relations as both governments have sought to ease the persistent tensions between the two countries since 1978.

White House press secretary Michael McCurry, in his statement, said the United States deplored”the gravely flawed process by which Mr. Rowhani was charged and executed, including the absence of due process or the announcement of a sentence.” McCurry noted”the world has been encouraged by the recent statements from Iranian leaders about the need for the rule of law and the rights of individuals,”he said, but”such words have little meaning as long as the human rights of the Iranian people, including the right to worship freely, are not upheld and until the persecution of and violence against Iranians of the Baha’i faith stops.” He said the United States will”continue to monitor closely Iranian treatment of the Baha’i community, and particularly the treatment of those who remain imprisoned or under sentence of death for their religious beliefs.”

Quote of the day: Ian Jameison, husband of an Anglican bishop

(RNS)”If I’d been a woman, wife to a male vicar, there would have been (an assigned) role, indeed: Sunday school teacher, flower roster welcomer, organist perhaps. I ended up as a Sunday school teacher, a mower of lawns, a sidesperson (usher) and as the relief organist but in my case, I felt I had the freedom to choose them. For that freedom I was very glad.” _ Ian Jameison, husband of Anglican Bishop Penelope Jameison of Dunedin, New Zealand, on the differences between men and women as the spouse of a cleric.

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