Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

Activists from throughout Snohomish County (where Lynnwood is) and King County (where Seattle is) have come together to stage an alternative to the violently anti-gay Watchmen conference scheduled for the Lynnwood Convention Center this weekend. [Click for all of our Watchmen coverage, or here for Hutcherson coverage.]

The Sunday afternoon even will feature a gathering of speakers, including members of the clergy, and a special free screening of Inlaws & Outlaws, a local-produced documentary featuring the real-life stories of Washington LGBT people.

Everyone is welcome to participate.

Details:

Love and Pride: Lynnwood Responds to Hate

Sunday, October 21, at 3pm
Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church, 8109 224th Street, Edmonds, Washington [get directions]

Equal Rights Washington had this to say today in a press release about the Watchmen gathering:

We're concerned about this group's activities. They have a radical agenda that seeks to roll back rights for members of the LGBT community and a record of violence is associated with the watchmen. Activists from Lynnwood along with many groups are hosting an alternative event to show support and concern for the LGBT community.

Note: Post mirrored from seaQwa.com

Labels: activism, events, religion, watchmen

The violently anti-gay group 'Watchmen on the Walls' will hold a conference this week in Lynnwood, reports the blog BoxTurtle Bulletin. What the organizers are calling a "human rights" conference starts Friday and runs through the weekend at the Lynnwood Convention Center [get directions, just in case... well, you know].

The Watchmen organization was founded by a group of homophobic extremists that includes Redmond's pastor Ken Hutcherson, Oregon activist Scott Lively, and Pastor Alexei Ledyaev of Riga, Latvia. The three of them will address the conference along with Bothell preacher and political-activist Joseph Fuiten and fringe-right Sacramento radio host Vlad Kusakin who also edits a Russian-language newspaper in Seattle, according to Casey Sanchez's superb report on the Watchmen.

The Watchmen claim credit for several demonstrations that have turned violent toward gay people, including protests against gay gathering in Riga, Latvia, and Kiev, Ukraine. Gay activists in Sacramento blame the summer death of a young man there at least partly on the spirit of intolerance that had been generated in that city by Kusakin and local preachers at Slavic churches.

BoxTurtle's Jim Burroway discovered a transcript of a speech Scott Lively had given at an earlier Watchmen conference in which Lively offers this preposterously inaccurate tale of the Sacramento death:

...[W]e've come to a place in the United States where the homosexuals have achieved very high power. And they?ve begun to punish... They?ve begun to cause the political powers to punish anyone who says that homosexuality is wrong.

There was a situation in Sacramento a few weeks ago in a public park. There was a group of homosexuals and they were very drunk and one of the homosexual men was taking off his pants. And there were children in the park. And a Russian man went over to these homosexuals and he was rebuking them and there started a fight. And the Russian man punched the homosexual. ...

Now the Russian man has been accused of murder and the FBI is seeking him. And all of the powers in Sacramento have been accusing all of the Russian community of being murderers. And the goal is to silence everyone who speaks against homosexuality. And this is a very dangerous situation because we don?t want homosexuals to be killed. We want them to be saved. Amen?

Could have fooled us, Scott.

But this is one of the man who will be in Lynwood next weekend to talk at a "human rights" conference.

BoxTurtle offers this Google translation of the Lynnwood conference announcement.

Related items we'd missed:

• David Schmader posted a scary summary on Slog of the Watchmen sent him by BoxTurtle's Jim Burroway here, along with links to prior Slog coverage of the conference.
• Pam Spaulding today offers a summary of the conference at Pandagon.
• She points to a post about the conference at Orcinus:

The Watchmen movement's strategy for combating the "disease" of homosexuality calls for aggressive confrontation. "We church leaders need to stop being such, for lack of a better word, sissies when it comes to social and political issues," Lively argues in a widely-circulated tract called Masculine Christianity. "For every motherly, feminine ministry of the church such as a Crisis Pregnancy Center or ex-gay support group we need a battle-hardened, take-it-to-the-enemy masculine ministry like [the anti-abortion group] Operation Rescue."

Lively identifies "the enemy" as not only homosexuals, but also what he terms "homosexualists," a category that includes anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, who "actively promotes homosexuality as morally and socially equivalent to heterosexuality as a basis for social policy."

And one more: A Salon blog, "Bartholomew's Notes on Religion" has a review of the Lively/Latvia nexus that we've detailed here with some choice new links and quotations.

Oh, and had I not been a bit too busy of late with the nerdish underpinnings of "our" new blog site, I would surely have noticed this post by Postman that links to the Slog posts about the conference.

Labels: ken hutcherson, latvia, religion, scott lively

AlterNet offers a great report today by Casey Sanchez of Intelligence Report. The extensive report begins and ends with the tragic death of a Sacramento man. In between, Sanchez ties together the international anti-gay evangelical cabal spearheaded by Lativia-based preacher Alexey Ledyaev. It's a movement -- centered in the US in Sacramento -- from which Redmond pastor Ken Hutcherson and Oregon anti-gay activist Scott Lively draw considerable support.

In addition to Lively and Robertson, Ledyaev has cultivated the support of Rev. Ken Hutcherson, the African-American founder of Antioch Bible Church, a Seattle-area megachurch. ...

One of Ledyaev's nephews saw Hutcherson speak in Seattle at a March 2006 debate on gay rights and arranged a meeting with the Latvian pastor. By the end of the year, Hutcherson, Ledyaev and Lively had teamed up with Vlad Kusakin, the editor of The Speaker, to form an international alliance to oppose what Hutcherson characterizes as "the homosexual movement saying they're a minority and that they need their equal rights."

We've mentioned Ledyaev before in posts about Hutcherson's Lativian nexus, but the Sanchez's article offers a wealth of new details, including this odd detail:

At 56, Ledyaev is still youth-oriented enough to promote his vision of global theocracy through elaborate, large-scale Christian rock operas that Ledyaev writes, directs and stars in, and which are replete with lasers, smoke machines, and spandex-clad actors in ghoulish makeup. One of the rock operas, which young Russian-speaking anti-gay activists promote on video-sharing websites, features a hero character wearing a tuxedo battling men in black tights armed with tiki torches. Over heavy-metal guitar riffs, a military-like chorus sings of "victory over the gays."

More significantly, however, the article gives details of the theological underpinnings of the pastor's homophobia:

The New Generation theology Ledyaev preaches borrows heavily from R.J. Rushdoony, the late founding thinker of Christian Reconstruction. Pastor Ledyaev's 2002 book, New World Order, calls for evangelical Christians around the world to influence the wealthy and powerful in their home countries to implement biblical law in order to stave off a supposed alliance of gays and Muslims hell-bent on destroying Christianity. ...

They took the name Watchmen on the Walls from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, in which the "watchmen" guard the reconstruction of a ruined Jerusalem. The cities they guard over today, say the contemporary Watchmen, are being destroyed by homosexuality. ...

During the past year, the Watchmen have met twice in the United States, first in Sacramento, then in Bellevue, Wash. They gathered to strategize against same-sex marriage and build a political organization to fight "gay-straight alliances" in public schools and push for the boycott of textbooks that mention homosexuality in any context other than total condemnation.

The group has also convened outside America. In the summer of 2006, the Watchmen and their supporters gathered in Riga, Latvia, to "protect the city from a homosexual invasion." Gay rights activists in Europe counter that it's gays who need protection from the Latvian capital, not the other way around. ...

The Watchmen portray the battle against gay rights as nothing less than a biblical clash of civilizations. "The homosexual sexual ethic" and "family-based society" are at war, Lively proclaimed in his letter to The Washington Times. "One must prevail at the expense of the other."

That sort of militant rhetoric is standard among Watchmen followers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Speaking to his American counterparts in a Watchmen video, a Latvian anti-gay activist intones: "Your generation beat the Nazis, and our country beat the Communists. Together we will defeat the homosexuals!"

Unfortunately, it's an article well worth reading around here because we have two of the movement's leaders in our backyard.

[8:20am. Updated lede.]

Labels: activism, ken hutcherson, latvia, religion, scott lively

After a week of intense meetings in New Orleans, US Episcopal bishops are expected to release a response tomorrow to demands from some fellow bishops in the Anglican communion that the American church abandon its support for lesbian and gay church members.

The American bishops are widely expected to reject calls for them to adopt the anti-gay policies of Anglican churches in some other areas -- particularly the "global south" including Africa and South America. The spiritual leader of the Anglican communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, traveled to New Orleans for discussions with the American bishops.

Williams expressed hope that some sort of compromise could be reached that would avoid a schism among Anglican churches. Williams insisted in a press conference that a schism among the mostly-independent national churches that comprise the communion is not 'imminent'. But London's Telegraph -- whose reports tend to support the anti-gay global south position -- described Williams' mission to New Orleans as hoping for a "miracle".

[B]y the time he headed for the city's Louis Armstrong International Airport ... the archbishop appeared to have accepted that on Tuesday the 159 bishops of the Episcopal Church, as the two-million-strong Anglican congregation is called in the United States, are almost certain to support a bigger role for gays.

American bishops at the summit have been quick to declare their support for Bishop Robinson, who had been so upset by an earlier call from Dr Williams for a choice to be made between gays and the communion that he accused the archbishop of "dehumanising" homosexuals.

In a document seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the US bishops have rejected plans for an Anglican covenant -- or rulebook -- that Dr Williams had hoped could keep the communion together and which dictated a tougher line on homosexuality.

The Americans' document, The Constitutional Crisis, says that "if the Anglican Communion decides to read scripture literally or impose conformity to a single interpretation without attempting objective regard for critical scholarship, it will be a different church".

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola obstinately insisted last week that Episcopal bishops are being "obstinate and intransigent" for not accepting Ankola's intransigent interpretation of scripture.

The most powerful leader of evangelical Anglicans worldwide has issued a last-minute plea to the US Episcopal bishops over their pro-gay liberal agenda, to save the Church from schism.

The Archbishop and Primate of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, was speaking to The Times as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, met US bishops in New Orleans in a last-ditch attempt to avert a split.

Dr Akinola, who heads the Global South group of Anglican provinces from Asia, Africa and Latin America, said the Anglican Church worldwide was in a state of "broken communion".

He said the crisis arose from the "intransigence and obstinacy"of The Episcopal Church in the US, which had pursued a liberal line on same-sex blessings and the consecration in 2003 of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson. "They were warned not to do this," he said. "Now province after province has declared a state of broken communion with them."

Akinola traveled to the US this week to promote his message of intolerance and schism at a Chicago-area chapel.

Though Akinola did not mention the gathering in New Orleans or Anglican differences over homosexuality, the Nigerian archbishop said that the church is clearly divided and that those divisions stem from a failure to obey the word of God.

"Fornication is fornication. Adultery is adultery. ... These are the areas of primary evangelism," Akinola said.

Outside the chapel, a group of about 20 protesters held signs that read: "Reverend Akinola is a dangerous bigot" and "Akinola preaches hate and division." Many demonstrators criticized Akinola's past comments on gays, in which he has stated homosexuality is contrary to the teachings of the Bible and "a perversion of human dignity."

The archbishop also supports a bill in Nigeria that would make homosexual sex and any public expression of homosexual identity a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Akinola and other African bishops have anointed anti-gay US priests as bishops despite Anglican rules discouraging that kind of interference between national churches. They've encourage Episcopal parishes in the US to split off from the national church.

In Washington, two Episcopal parishes have split off from the Seattle-based Diocese of Olympia.

Poulsbo and Oak Harbor congregations have quit the diocese but continued to occupy church buildings.

In Oak Harbor, dissident self-described "Anglicans" and Episcopal loyalists hold worship services in the same building: Anglicans dictate the terms of sharing.

"The church canons are unambiguous," Lee said. "People can leave the Episcopal Church. Parishes can't. People cannot take property with them. That is theft!"

The Rev. Gregory Rickel, rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, said a separation between the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion may be inevitable.

Rickel was chosen as bishop of the statewide diocese whose headquarters church, St. Mark's Cathedral on Capitol Hill, is run by an out gay priest, Rt. Rev. Robert Taylor.

Rickel wants to see firsthand the arrangement that has two churches aligned with a conservative Brazilian bishop meeting on properties in Poulsbo and Oak Harbor that the Olympia diocese owns.

"What's on the paper looks great to me," he said. "But I want to know how it's working on the ground. I think the property issue is key."

He describes himself as "on the progressive side of theology," but also says it is his "fervent hope" that the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion do not break over scriptural interpretation on issues such as homosexuality.

Rickel says he is comfortable continuing Bishop Warner's stance of letting individual priests decide whether to perform blessing ceremonies for same-sex unions.

Akinola and his fellow anti-gay bishops seek to silence tolerant churches like St. Mark's, but the views of the anti-gay clerics do not appear to be universally accepted even within the global south.

The recently appointed Dean of Central Africa, the Rt. Rev. Trevor Musonda Mwamba, believes Anglican churches will soon return to their grassroots mission to alleviate poverty, disease and injustice and abandon their current "fixation" on homosexuality.

His words of optimism come against a background of growing concern that the on-going "rights for gays" debate in the 75 million-strong worldwide Anglican community could wreck unity in that church throughout Africa before next year's Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England.

That's an interpretation of the church's mission similar to what Episcopal bishops have tried to emphasize, but it's too often drowned out by the emphasis on narrow and intolerant biblical interpretations.

The Very Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire whose consecration symbolizes the theological differences among Anglicans, last month compared intolerance of LGBT people to churches' earlier support for slavery:

Gene Robinson spoke openly about his view on the current controversy surrounding the Anglican Church.

"It's very painful for me," he said. "Coming out of the experience of the United States, where we treated people from Africa as less than human, where we used scripture to justify their slavery and their continued bondage.

"It's very, very painful to have those people in Africa in some sense using the same thinking against gay and lesbian people and against me."

When it was suggested that he might have stepped aside for the sake of the unity of the Communion, Bishop Robinson attributed a vocational call from God for his perseverance, despite the controversy he knew it would cause.

Labels: anglican, news bites, religion

Roger Winters' response to "A Constitutional Tipping Point on Marriage" by Richard Land on September 12, 2007 published in the blog of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Land is head of the Southern Baptist Convention's government affairs arm and host of three syndicated radio programs.

It is clear you have concluded -- and almost never question -- that legal marriages for same-sex couples will harm either the "institution of marriage" (an abstraction -- not one couple enters the institution of marriage, each couple enters their own marriage) or will negatively impact marriages of heterosexual couples.

I believe you think this in large part because you do not strictly distinguish the privileged legal relationship given to those who are married by the civil authority from the meaning you give to the term "marriage" by applying your religious doctrines. Becoming legally next of kin through civil, licensed marriage protects any couple in hundreds of ways. You don't even begin to see that there is a huge Constitutional question of equal protection of the laws here. Your religious focus clouds your ability to see the real constitutional issues.

How is "freedom to define marriage" a right, except one seeking to exclude and punish people who do not believe as you do about their homosexuality? Who owns this "freedom to define marriage?" Baptists? All Christians? Only those who vote? The majority! But majority (the greater number prevails) is nothing, morally, but "might makes right!" It is a decision-making principle, not a basis of right. Since majority views change, if majority rule is the basis of right, then right is always changing. (Similarly, "the will of the people" always changes with each vote, poll, or guess by whoever's pretending to know what it is!)

I believe hostility to homosexuality so blinds you that you cannot think clearly on this issue. Indeed, I believe your leaders want you to choose not to think clearly and logically. Only through that kind of willful blindness can give your church standing to object to the free choices by otherwise qualified adults to marry one another even if of the same sex.

Your church has opposed mixed-race marriages (laws punished those who married someone of a different race) -- Loving v. Virginia in 1967 is a parallel issue.

(Opponents of mixed-race marriages don?t speak up now, after the Loving case and social changes in America. My [non-Baptist] father often preached we would never get to the Moon because God had set the limits of our habitation as the Earth -- you can find the Scriptural citation for that. After the Moon landing, Dad never made that point in his sermons again. He never said he had been wrong -- he just stopped saying it.)

The marriage of a same sex couple in no way affects the marriage of any other couple, just as in religion, your ability to believe as you choose does not prevent me from having a similar ability. (Let's not get into absurdities like - what if you believe it's okay to kill babies? Certain conduct is proscribed by law for good reason based in general consensus and a clear distinction between belief and action.)

This matter is like discussing freedom of religion, so what Jefferson observed in Notes on Virginia in 1782 applies:

...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

A marriage by a same sex couple neither does others harm nor prevents them from the free exercise of their beliefs on how marriages should be. The legal content of marriage is the same for non-Baptists and Baptists. Legal marriage -- allowed for imprisoned criminals -- for anyone who are of opposite sexes and otherwise qualified.

Legal marriage does not address love, children, families, or anything but establishing the privileged kinship relationship for the couple. While marital status is used in relation to children, there is no requirement to have children, to have sex, or even be in love to execute a marriage license. The legal side is morally neutral -- with typical exclusions: age, insanity, no brother-sister-cousin marriages.

Finally... Try thinking about this issue again by focusing solely on the legal content of marriage in America. It is there that equality should be mandated and the emotionally-based, religion-based arguments apply only when you explain to other Baptists that the church doctrine requires that they should not marry persons of the same sex (even if other people do so because they believe differently).

Your wish to exclude same-sex couples from the protections of the law by changing the Constitution (and thereby getting that pesky "equality" idea out of the way) is immoral, I believe, and perpetuates an evil against many of your fellow citizens. I hope these considerations lead you to think again and I trust that if you really THINK again, you will reach a different conclusion.

Labels: commentary, marriage equality, religion

Slate offers a remarkable photo essay under the headline "Violent Femmes" of Taliban members in Afghanistan compiled by Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak. He didn't take the photos, but discovered them in passport photo shops in Kandahar that reopened after the downfall of the Taliban there.

Dworzak explains in the video that some misunderstood the remarkably foppish poses when they were first published by Magnum. "I got a lot of criticism in Europe from the liberal PC left who found it 'demeaning' for me to make them look like that. Hey. They chose to look like that."

The photos had to be taken surreptitiously during Taliban rule because images of people were forbidden.

Interviews included with the slide show offer several explanations for the poses, including this:

There is a very strong homosexual tradition in which an older man will adopt a young man and become lover cum student and teach him whatever skills he may have... Given the long-standing tradition of this in southern Afghanistan, it continued, but it was then done surreptitiously because the Taliban had very strong rules about it.

This essay offers an interesting counterpoint to a CNN report by Christiane Amanpour called God's Warriors. Last night's installment of the three-part series looked at "God's Muslim Warriors". There was no suggestion in the report that images like those found by Dworzak might be chosen by some of the warriors.

AfterElton reviews tonight's installment of the series [6 pm PT], "God's Christian Warriors", that focuses on US evangelical groups:

If looked at through the prism of understanding what the religious right wants for America, however, then the documentary can be considered a success if even only a few Americans -- especially gay ones -- wake up to what these Christian fundamentalists aspire to. And for anyone paying attention for the last twenty years, no explanation is needed as to what it is the religious fundamentalists want for America.

As God?s Christian Warriors makes amply clear, their goal is an America that is governed by biblical principles; principles that leave no room for gay people to co-exist in any meaningful way except by going deeply back in to the closet.

This video from GodTube, a fundamentalist copy of YouTube, makes frighteningly clear how how seriously some take the war part of all that and how some of them would like to get to where they want to be:


It's not known if some of these warriors might sport black eye-shadow in private moments.

Labels: link bites, religion

Anti-gay American crusaders, including Redmond's Ken Hutcherson and Oregon's Scott Lively have celebrated the anti-gay energy brought to their movements by evangelical churches for Russian-speaking emigres from former Soviet republics.

A recent assault in Sacramento shows the danger of that "energy" when misdirected.

The death in Sacramento early this month of Satender Singh, a 26-year old immigrant from Fiji, has riled tensions there between the city's large Slavic immigrant population and the LGBT folk against whom some of the Slavs have demonstrated.

The Sacramento Bee has detailed the still-unsolved July 1 hate crime and reactions to it.

Singh was picnicking near Lake Natoma with a small group of Fijian and Indian friends when the attack occurred, according to two people with him that day. The Bee is not identifying the friends because they fear retribution.

Singh was at the park that Sunday to celebrate a promotion he had earned at his call center job, according to the friends, and the group was drinking and dancing to Indian music. Singh was the only one without a date, and was hugging and dancing with other men.

In the hours preceding the attack, a group described as Russian-speaking hurled explicit gay slurs and racial remarks at Singh and his party, according to witnesses and sheriff's officials. When Singh and his friends tried to leave around 8 p.m., they were confronted by the Slavic group and a fight ensued, the witnesses said.

Singh was punched -- once -- in the face. He fell backward and cracked his head, rupturing a part of the brain stem that controls most of life's functions. He died four days later.

A 911 call to the sheriff's office from Wolfgang Chargin warned them that tension was brewing at the park between the two groups.

The Russian-speaking group seemed especially offended by Singh, 26, who was dancing with both men and women, Chargin said.

At one point, Singh's party went into the water and one of the men in the other group walked over and spit on their blankets, Chargin said. The man then went to the lake's edge and shouted something at them that they seemed to find especially shocking, Chargin said.

After watching several verbal exchanges between the two groups, Chargin called 911. He stressed that Singh's group was never aggressive but they were confronted several times.

The county sheriff said his officers responded to the call, but could not locate the groups.


The crime and the reaction to it highlight a social tension that has been developing in Sacramento and other communities for years where evangelical Christian Slavic immigrants have staged aggressive anti-gay protests.

In death, [Singh] has emerged as a symbol of wounds that have festered for some time between Sacramento's gay community and members of the Slavic evangelical community, a thousands-strong group that has become a vocal force denouncing gay rights. It is that rhetoric, some contend, that fueled the attack on Singh earlier this month at Lake Natoma.

"This homicide sort of brings to light what has been feared," said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who attended a vigil for Singh last week. "It's tragic evidence of a larger point." [SacBee]

Although Sacramento police have characterized the case as a "high priority," they haven't yet identified Singh's attackers. One commenter to a SacBee story on the crime speculates, "They will not find the Russians who did this, they are a tight lipped community and we have no Russian speaking Officers. Sad, but true."

Another attempts to correct him, but comes to a similar conclusion: "1.we DO have Russian peace officers, my brother is one of them! and I also have 2 friends on the police force who are Russian! 2.We are NOT a tight lipped community-most of us have been here less than 10 years, and are not familiar enough with the laws to step in, when officers truly need our input they come in with an explanation and we are glad to help. Back in Russia, if you helped solve a crime, the criminals will turn around and commit another crime-this time against you-the witness, so excuse us for being hesitant, we are still getting used to the protection we have here. "

According to the Bee, about a third of Sacramento's 100,000 Russian-speaking residents are members of evangelical churches who claim to follow a "literal interpretation" of the Bible and who emphasize the anti-gay messages they find there. In Sacramento, they've staged protests at area schools, at the state Capitol, and at just about any public event staged for LGBT people.

Those leading the anti-gay protests -- many of whom fled religious persecution in the former Soviet Union -- maintain they're exercising their newfound freedom of speech to spread the message that homosexuality is a sin.

"What's going on is very complicated," Feldman said this week. "It's almost a social war starting in Sacramento."

Steinberg, who last year rode as a dignitary in the city's annual gay pride parade, said he has been struck by the magnitude of vitriol emanating from the evangelical protests.

"Some of the epithets, some of the signs are not only disrespectful of the gay and lesbian community, but they are disrespectful of the entire community," he said. "The words are vile ... and words may give people the implicit license to take the next step and hurt people. ...

Florin Ciuriuc, a former executive director of the Slavic Community Center of Sacramento, said he was disturbed but not surprised to hear of the attack at Lake Natoma.

Ciuriuc said he was among those leading anti-gay protests a few years back but that he stopped participating as the movement became more menacing.

"I saw that people were hungry for violence, for blood; different ideas where we have to be aggressive, where we have to scream," he said. "I don't want people from my community killing each other or other people because they are getting aggressive."

Viktor Chernyetsky, administrator of Bethany Slavic Missionary Church, strongly disagreed with Ciuriuc's assessment. Chernyetsky said Slavic leaders teach homosexuality is a sin, but do not support physical violence. [SacBee]"

There's no indication in the Bee stories that Singh actually was gay. It's clear, however, that his attackers -- who probably weren't all that familiar with the traditions of Bollywood -- perceived him to be so. And that appears -- judging by their reported actions -- to be why they attacked him and his friends.

"Why has Mr. Singh's death galvanized this community?" asked Georgette Imura of the Council of Asian Pacific Islanders Together for Advocacy. "He was targeted because of his ethnicity and his perceived sexual orientation ... and possibly, his racial background. It's touched us on so many different levels."

In Sacramento, LGBT groups have joined with support groups for Asian/Pacific Islanders to stage several well-attended vigils for Singh. In memorial shortly after Singh's death, hundreds gathered to honor a young man that most had never met. The Sacramento gay magazine, Outword, offers this highlight: [magazine in PDF format]

The laugh was infectious, and brought smiles to all those who heard it as it was played from a cell phone and amplified so that all at the memorial service and rally could hear it. It was not meant for that, however, it was simply a phone call to a good friend, a shared laugh and now a treasured memory.

The phone call and the laugh were from Satendar Singh and it was played at a memorial service in his honor before a crowd of over 300 people, most of whom had never met him, nor knew him, but gathered to remember his life that was taken in a senseless and tragic murder and possible hate crime.

The service was held at 8 p.m. in the Peace Garden at the State Capitol on Friday, July 6 and was organized by the Capital Unity Council and members of Sacramento's gay and religious communities.

Singh, a recent immigrant from Fiji, was called "The Lucky One" by his family because he had won a lottery for a visa and the chance to come to the U.S. His luck ran out on Sunday, July 1...

Singh was remembered again yesterday when those attending a long-planned a "West Coast Diversity Summit" in Sacramento turned it into another vigil to the young man's memory. For the first time in weeks, a minister from one of the evangelical Slavic churches spoke out about the attack.

There was no mistaking the fundamental differences between Bishop Nikolay Gelis and most of his audience Saturday at the first West Coast Diversity Summit.

His Russian words reverberating throughout Trinity Cathedral Hall in midtown Sacramento, Gelis preached with the help of a translator that he believes "normal families" are men and women who produce children, building strong communities for the betterment of a nation.

In the audience sat about 50 gay and lesbian activists and allies, undoubtedly with different definitions of family and societal betterment.

But in the end came common ground.

"We do not support any form of hate or persecution," boomed Gelis, a leader at a local Pentecostal Slavic church.

Advocating that everyone "love each other and have peace," Gelis received thunderous applause and the only standing ovation of the afternoon summit.

Good words, of course, and -- no doubt -- welcome in Sacramento where folks have to deal with daily tension built from simmering threats of violence. But Gelis's American anti-gay allies in churches -- including Hutcherson -- have been speaking out against a hate-crimes bill in Congress that would make the very kinds of distinction between speech and violent action that Gelis was making. As long as the preachers insist on a supposed "right" to incite violence, it's difficult to put much faith in those kinds of words.

Labels: crime, gay news, hate crime, ken hutcherson, religion

HeartStrong is a Seattle-based non-profit "established to provide outreach to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and other persons adversely affected by the influence of all denominations of religious educational institutions" and "committed to educating the public about the persecution of GLBT's and others at religious educational institutions."

The group's founder and executive director, Marc Adams, attended the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Not surprisingly, he doesn't offer a warm remembrance of the pastor and political activist, but offers this personal remembrance on the group's mailing list:

Twenty years after I watched friend after friend outed and expelled from Liberty University for being gay or lesbian, I feel hope. Twenty-two years after watching my friend Denise doubled over and dissolved in tears after being kicked out of Liberty University for getting pregnant, I feel peace. Twenty-three years after watching my Old Testament Survey professor committing adultery with his sister-in-law on more than one occasion and virtually getting away with it, I feel honest. ...

I spent three and a half years as a student and employee at Jerry's university. I left during the middle of my senior year, not necessarily because I was gay, but mostly because I had begun my personal journey to wholeness and peace by challenging my fundamentalist Baptist Christian beliefs.

Over and over again, I found myself in pain for my friends. So many people that I knew struggled to survive in an environment that taught women they were to be submissive to men and gay and lesbian people that they were giving the devil pleasure by thinking about self-acceptance instead of self-hatred.

Bisexual and transgender issues were never discussed since most evangelicals do not see them as actual issues. This is mostly because they see the Bible from a male/female point of view. However, this certainly doesn't mean that bisexual and transgender people are not attending these schools.

After a few years of seeing friends and others devastated by the theology of Jerry's Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University, I began to question the things that I was taught as truth. Too many tears, broken spirits and lives forced me to choose my path. I could choose to continue the legacy of hatred, intimidation and shame laid out for me or I could choose to break the chains. In doing so, I could help provide healing to those devastated not just by Jerry Falwell, but by the millions who perpetrate the same physical and emotional life-ending message of self-hatred.

I chose the latter.

And my life has never been the same.

For the first time in my life, I found personal peace which gave me the courage, in 1996, to begin the work of HeartStrong. Out of respect for my friends who committed physical and emotional suicide and out of hope for my friends still stuck in restorative therapy, I founded HeartStrong as a way to provide hope and help to the countless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students persecuted at religious educational institutions in the United States and around the world.

Jerry acknowledged that in a room full of people, a homosexual can pick out the other homosexual in the room. I had never heard of gaydar before but as soon as he said that, I knew I had always had it. It was one of the things that eventually helped me in my self-acceptance process.

Had I not grown up in the ridiculous home I grew up in and had I not attended Jerry's university and worked for him, I doubt I would care at all about my GLBT brothers and sisters struggling to survive in these schools. Jerry's hatred for what he calls the sin of homosexuality provided me with the inspiration and the ongoing energy needed to continue to provide hope and help to those injured by his former belief system.

His evangelical university and church was also a stepping stone for me to escape my self-hatred brought on by my fundamentalist Baptist Christian beliefs and eventually find true personal peace as a Unitarian.

Jerry Falwell taught me that the greatest thing a Christian could do to show god how much you loved him, was to die for what you believe. (Where else do we hear this theology?) Well, now that Jerry has died, perhaps others can learn how unimportant the things are that he thought were so important and how important the things are that he never was able to experience.

So, thanks Jerry, for the inspiration. It was your persecution of me, people like me and every girl I ever knew at your schools that empowers HeartStrong to help heal the scars from the wounds you inflicted.

Adams suggests that the best way to counter Falwell's continuing "legacy of being the ultimate anti-GLBT fundraiser" is to give now to his group or another that attempts to build equality and tolerance where Falwell and his followers would do the opposite.

Labels: activism, gay organization, religion

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Riga, Cardinal Janis Pujats, Latvia has issued a public letter asking his countrymen to take to the streets to oppose any attempt by gay and lesbian folks in the Baltic country to march. Riga Pride and Friendship Days is scheduled to start in less than four weeks.

"If there are 1,000 sexually crazy people acting foolishly in the square of Pride, then the people's march in Riga should have at least 40,000 or 50,000," Pujats wrote.

"That is a conflict situation. It would be better, therefore, if the provocative demonstration were to occur in a location that is closed and limited some way -- a garden or square. Security services will decide on this, but that is not a long-term solution." [UK Gay News]

PinkNews reminds its readers what happened last year when gay pride organizers tried to hold a meeting in a "closed and limited way":

A group of around 50 activists instead held a service of tolerance at a local Anglican church.

Hundreds of neo-Nazi skinheads, ultra-nationalists and members of the Orthodox church besieged the church, pelting the activists with excrement.

It was reported that local police stood and watched as events unfolded and declined to intervene.

In his open letter, which was published by a Latvian newspaper, the Cardinal calls as a "total corruption in the sexual arena," and an "unnatural form of prostitution" and calls on the government to protect "the values of the traditional family against the licentiousness of homosexuals."

Redmond's Pastor Ken Hutcherson met with Pujats and other religious and government leaders during a visit to Riga earlier this year. This reminder -- again from PinkNews [#]:

Last month Christian groups in Latvia welcomed fundamentalist US preachers and to the country and talked tactics about opposing gay rights.

A meeting organised by Janis Vanags, Archbishop of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, was attended by Cardinal Pujats and representatives of the Orthodox, Penecostals and other Christian groups.

They were addressed by Kenneth Hutcherson, who runs a 'super-church' in Seattle and is a vehement opponent of gay rights.He told the Latvians that homosexuality was spreading rapidly, and that the "gay lobby" had increasing political influence across the world.

"We need to do everything to ensure that even in the European Union it does not lose its principles. "It is a holy right of any nation to decide in what society to live," he told the assembled crowd, which included senior members of parliament.

US envoy to visit Poland's homophobes

Hutcherson claimed to be a special envoy of the White House during his visits to stoke up homophobia in Latvia. The White House later denied his claim.

They'll have no such cover when a credentialed State Dept. official visits a convention of homophobes in Poland later this month.

The World Congress of Families is expected to draw more than 2,500 people from dozens of countries to Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science from Friday through Sunday.

The chief organizer is a Rockford, Ill.-based conservative think tank, the Howard Center. Co-sponsors include more than 20 other U.S. groups allied in opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and other policies they blame for weakening traditional families in Western Europe. ...

Scheduled speakers include a Vatican representative, Monsignor Grzegorz Kaszak of the Pontifical Polish Institute of Rome, and Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant U.S. secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.

Questioning Sauerbrey's involvement, 19 European Parliament members said in an open letter that her attendance would signal approval for "extremist and intolerant views held by some participants."

Hutcherson hasn't yet told his "Prayer Warriors" if he'll be attending, but a different Seattle group will be there.

Co-sponsors of the congress include the American Family Association, Concerned Women For America, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Heritage Foundation and the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which promotes the "intelligent design" concept of the universe's origins.

Labels: ken hutcherson, latvia, religion, witch hunts

Crosscut, David Brewster's new online newspaper for the Northwest run largely by Seattle Weekly alumni, has -- and this is remarkable -- used the word "gay" in a headline today, "Young gay-rights opponents get vocal in Oregon". That's news in itself, but more interesting is the story under the headline.

Those young gay-rights opponents were mostly from Russian-language (Russophone) churches in Oregon. They provide a link that helps explain the reasons for the recent visits to Riga, Latvia by Redmond's Ken Hutcherson and Oregon haulocaust revisionist Scott Lively. [See our previous posts on the visit and Latvia.]

The Oregonian reported on the Russophone anti-gay rally:

Twice in the past two weeks, hundreds of Russian-speaking Christians from Portland and Salem flocked to the state Capitol to protest efforts to bolster gay rights. They arrived by the busload, jamming hearing rooms, singing hymns under the rotunda and providing testimony.

The protests were organized in only a few days by Russian-speakers calling themselves The Voice of Oregon Youth. They pulled it off by using laptops, e-mail and phone calls to the tight network of Russian and Ukrainian churches in the area. Legislators estimated about 1,000 people showed up for a public hearing April 9, with 662 signing up to testify.

"We just went for it, no stopping," said Anna Zaichenko, 19, of Salem, a rally organizer. "I saw how passionate a lot of people became."

In February, months before the protests in Salem, Lively celebrated the activism of the Russophone youth, according to Willamette Week:

In front of about 30 people gathered recently in a Salem church sanctuary to celebrate the reunion of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, Scott Lively found cause for optimism about the rebirth of the anti-gay group.

Lively's reason to believe the OCA could return from dormancy to its glory days of the early 1990s, when it claimed to have more than 3,400 members and earned national notice for getting anti-gay measures on the state ballot, are immigrants from the former Soviet Union who haven't yet been indoctrinated by American culture.

[WWeek traced OCA history in 1998.]

While they were in Latvia, Lively and Hutcherson were guests of Alexei Ledyaev, a Russophone preacher in Riga. Lively showed a video at the February OCA-revival meeting that featured Ledyaev, according to Willamette Week:

The 45-minute video, which repeatedly refers to homosexuals as "terrorists," shows how conservative Latvians successfully stopped gays from marching [*] in their capital, Riga. (European news reports show anti-gay demonstrators throwing feces on the gays.)

The video also features Alexei Ledyaev -- a Kazakhstan-born Baptist pastor and leader of the New Generation Church, whose satellite broadcasts claim an audience of more than 200 million people -- leading large crowds in chants of "In the name of Jesus Christ, we curse the name of homosexuality!"

As OCA members cheered the video and chanted, "Amen," I tried not to laugh out loud at the one-sided images, which portrayed gay men as leather-clad deviants, whipping and licking one another in public.

Lively told the OCA-revival crowd in February, "There is a fairly sizable Russian population in Portland who is not poisoned to the OCA. That's a good place to start. They weren't poisoned by the sexual revolution."

Hutcherson had already started to draw Russophone churches in the Seattle area into his orbit, appealing for their help with his pro-discrimination Initiative 963.

Crosscut links to an LA Times story that focuses on the large and largely anti-gay Russophone emigre population in Sacramento.

Many credit the Slavic Christian immigrant community with filling a void left by the traditional American church and providing reinforcements in the ongoing culture wars over what should define family, acceptable sexual relationships and marriage.

"Russian Christians bring a fresh faith and uncorrupted family values to this country. They are a shining model for the rest of us in terms of faith, family, work ethic, patriotism and community," said Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families.

Gay civil rights activists, meanwhile, accuse the demonstrators of hateful and aggressive tactics that they say sometimes lean dangerously toward violence.

There are plenty of preachers and other discrimination activists out there who hope to tie their own agendas to the energy of the young emigres. Hutcherson and Lively helped endear themselves by making sure that discrimination is a two-way street through their visits to Latvia.

* [A Latvian court recently ruled that it was illegal for the Riga city council to deny a parade permit in 2006 to the organizers of a gay pride event.]

Labels: I-963, ken hutcherson, latvia, oregon, politics, religion, Washington

Busloads of mostly gay and largely Christian activists have been visiting Christian colleges throughout the country for a month to talk to students and faculty about LGBT issues on campus. They call themselves "Equality Riders" and are sponsored by the gay Christian organization Soulforce. The group's website summarizes the group's purpose:

In 2006, during the inaugural Equality Ride, participants traveled to nineteen schools and engaged students, faculty, and administrators in conversation about the damaging effects of homophobic doctrine, the false notion that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identities are sick and sinful. This year, the journey continues with fifty young adults going to thirty-two Christian colleges and universities.

Most of the publicity that's been generated by this year's ride -- which is operating with one bus visiting colleges in the east and another visiting western colleges -- has come from colleges that have barred the Riders from their campuses and sometimes had them arrested.

But another, less publicized response has come from students at many of the same colleges and even from administrators at other Christian schools.

A press release from the west coast Soulforce bus tells of the group's reception last week at two California colleges:

At Fresno Pacific University, administrators collaborated with the Equality Riders on the westbound bus to create a setting for meaningful dialogue. On April 3rd, Equality Riders participated in classroom discussions and gave presentations on topics such as "Progressive Theology" and "In God's Image: Identity and Scripture." Over meals, Equality Riders talked with concerned faculty who wanted to learn what they could do to make Fresno Pacific a safer learning environment for LGBT students.

The Fresno Pacific student handbook states that "the university is opposed to homosexual, premarital and extramarital sexual relations." But while FPU Director of Communications Diana Bates Mock affirmed that the institution's views had not changed, she acknowledged that "there is a better appreciation for listening to each other."

Previously, at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, where an LGBT student group has already been working towards official recognition, Equality Riders found similar opportunities for genuine dialogue. Although the Pepperdine student handbook identifies "homosexual conduct" as grounds for discipline, Equality Riders were invited to lead the prayer at a prayer service in which Riders, students, and faculty joined hands.

A similarly tolerant reception is expected when the Equality Riders visit Seattle Pacific University on Wednesday, April 11. Jonathan Hilbrands is coordinating the visit from the western bus. He reports on the Ride website

Soulforce is working closely with the school administration to develop a schedule of events that would provide a unique forum for the conversation about homosexuality, faith and society.

SPU has posted a itinerary for the visit on its website. The activists from the bus will be officially welcomed to the school at 8 am by the dean of students, assigned "student hosts" and given name tags. They'll be given several chances to interact with students and faculty throughout the day, including scheduled breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings; a worship service; a lengthy dialog session in the afternoon at the Student Union Building; and a "Open Campus Forum and Q&A" in the late morning.

The forum features a speaker from Soulforce -- Haven Herrin, co-director of Equality Ride -- who will present a talk called "Genesis: Beyond the Binary." SPU Professor Frank Spina will present "An Old Testament Scholar's Reflections on Human Sexuality." The (probably) contrasting 30-minute lectures will be followed by an open question and answer period for faculty and staff.

In other words, both SPU and Soulforce are approaching this visit as an educational opportunity for the campus, much as Fresno Pacific and Pepperdine did the week before.

SPU student body president Bethany Krumm, quoted in today's PI story, symbolizes that attitude. She told PI reporter Christine Frey that she plans to meet with members of the Equality Ride, but isn't yet sure of her position on homosexuality. She noted that college is a time to explore such issues.

"I'm still working that out," she said. "I'm really interested in hearing what's going to happen with the forum ... what this looks like and deciding where I stand on the whole issue."

Those interested in joining the dialog at SPU can register through the Soulforce website.

Even at Baylor University, where the administration barred Soulforce activists from talking with students on campus, the visit has had a significant effect, according to a report in the student paper there.

Almost two weeks after Soulforce Equality Ride's stop in Waco, the Baylor campus is still feeling its effects.

This time, it's in the form of an online student petition protesting Baylor's statement on human sexuality.

Addressed to President John Lilley, the petition reads, "We, as students, recognize Baylor as a Christian University, and place an utmost importance on love and acceptance. We find Baylor's attitudes, actions and policy on homosexuality to be offensive, bigoted, and antiquated and wrong.

"Our goal is to have a University that is tolerant of sexual minorities. We feel that spiritual superiority and judgment does not further our Christian message, but degrades it. Fueling attitudes of fear and hatred towards those of homosexual orientation is wrong, regardless of how one feels about how the Bible interprets homosexual practice."

Also see: This week's SGN has an great story by "contributing writer" Liz Meyer on the Riders:

almost all of the bus riders represent that still seemingly incongruous convergence, the place where "Queer" meets "Christian." Evangelical Christian, even.

Kourt Osborn, a young Transgender man riding on the West Coast bus, acknowledges that many view "Queer" and "Christian" as mutually exclusive.

"A lot of fundamentalist Christians, and some certain members of my family, would say there's a paradox there," says Osborn.

He also concedes that, for him at least, identifying as Queer takes precedence in some ways.

"If someone was like, 'Pick one,' I would definitely pick being Queer, because that's just who my friends are. I don't really say I'm Christian and Queer, I say I'm Queer and Christian."

See also: Last week's post here summarizing a Michigan gay paper's story on a gay and a lesbian student as Spring Arbor University (SAU) in is suprisingly relevant to the SPU visit. SPU might share the "bubble" that the students at SAU describe because it's a closely related institution. Along with five other schools, both SAU and SPU are members of the Association of Free Methodist Educational Institutions.

A complicated story about a doctinal/tenure dispute at another of the seven Free Methodist schools offers this simple (and overly simplified) summary of the denomination:

A denomination with 77,000 members in the United States, the Free Methodist Church of North America traces its origins to 1860, when its leaders separated from the main Methodist body because they believed it had strayed from the basic teachings of John Wesley, its founder. In breaking away from their parent church, the Free Methodists, in common with members of the other groups that constituted the nineteenth-century Holiness movement, emphasized Wesley's doctrine of sanctification-the "second work of grace," a postconversion process of moral and spiritual development. Like other contemporary Holiness groups, such as the Wesleyan Church, the Church of God, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Salvation Army, and the Church of the Nazarene, the Free Methodist Church belongs to the National Association of Evangelicals, a defining organization for American evangelicalism.

One of the other schools in the association offers this bit of history about the universities and colleges:

Free Methodist founders were mostly educated leaders and they wanted strong educational opportunities for youth from the beginning, believing that God does not place a premium on ignorance. (Hogue, History, 305) Therefore, nine Free Methodist educational institutions dotted America from east to west before Greenville College became the tenth Free Methodist school in 1892.

Labels: activism, gay news, Gay Seattle, religion, Seattle

Northwest Progressive Institute has the segment that included Hutcherson. CNN has the full transcript of the April 7 edition of Anderson Cooper's evening news show.

Hutcherson appeared in a brief segment of a larger report entitled "What Is a Christian?: Sex and Salvation." Hutcherson's segment appears to have been an edited tape of a discussion they taped on March 29, among 360 host Anderson Cooper, Redmond's anti-gay pastor Ken Hutcherson and Dallas pro-gay pastor Joe Hudson of Cathedral of Hope.

After the segment was taped, Hutcherson sent a missive to his "Prayer Warrior" email group asking to "Please pray for Rev. Hudson, that the Holy Spirit will enlighten her to believe what the Bible says regarding homosexuality being a sin."

COOPER: Reverend Hudson, do you believe the Bible says homosexuality is sin?
HUDSON: I believe there are passages in scripture that point to that. But I understand scripture and the bible in a very different way than I think that Reverend Hutcherson does. I look at scripture as a sacred text. The Bible as a sacred and sacramental text. But I also look at it as a text that points to a history and a culture and a very different kind of people that lived then, as do we now.

and

COOPER: Reverend Hudson, the gays and lesbians in your congregation, I imagine some of them have been in other congregations and felt that they were no longer welcome and found a place at your house of worship. What have they been through? For many, this is an academic discussion. It's an academic debate. For people in your congregation this, is very real. And this has real pain and real costs. What are the stories that your congregation tells you?
HUDSON: Well, we hear from people every day, and every week, from people not only in the Dallas-Ft.Worth Metroplex, but people all over the world, who have been rejected by their churches. Who have left the church of Jesus Christ, who want to be in a relationship with God. Who want to have a healthy, strong relationship with a God who loves them. And yet, have been turned away from church after church. And have come to our congregation and been affirmed. Have come close to God. Have through the reading and the study of scripture, come close to god. Have transformed their lives into lives of service and servant hood. Making a difference in the lives of others. And living very Christian, disciplined lives.

That tolerant view was, of course, rejected by Hutcherson who insisted that believers cannot be both gay and Christian.

COOPER: Reverend Hutcherson, do you believe that someone who is gay, happy about it, living a life and has a partner, do you believe they're going to hell?
HUTCHERSON: I think if they have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, that's the key to get into heaven. Not whether or not you are a homosexual or not a homosexual. Whether you're white or whether you're black. The Bible says if haven't accepted Jesus Christ you are a condemned. He is the only way. That is where I stand, bro and I don't even think twice about it.

While Hutcherson's Antioch Bible Church which holds its Sunday services in a high school gym in Redmond, is often described as a "mega-church," Hudson's Dallas Cathedral of Hope certainly qualifies for that designation with its 3500-member congregation. Although it hasn't yet been built, the church is still raising funds to build a 2000-person mega-sanctuary that was one of the last designs completed by noted (and gay) architect Phillip Johnson before he died.

A dictionary entry on the proposed sancuary describes it as:

Monumental, unconventional, and ever-changing, the proposed building will be a symbol of strength, hope, and unity. As Herbert Muschamp observed in reaction to the design, "It ministers not only, or even primarily, to the needs of gay people for self-acceptance. It ministers to society's need for self-acceptance; for the wisdom to perceive that gay men and lesbians are integral to society, not alien from it."

Hudson's church joined United Churches of Christ this year, instantly becoming that denomination's largest member congregation.

A recent feature on the church by Reuters reporter Ed Stoddard recounted its history and mission:

Founded in 1970 by a dozen gays and lesbians who gathered in a home and decided they wanted a safe and tolerant place to worship, the Cathedral of Hope has grown into a large and affluent institution centered in a cavernous building that can seat up to 900. ...

Hudson estimates that over 90% of the church's 3,500 members are gay, lesbian, or transgender. On a recent Sunday during Lent?a period of prayer and penance in the weeks before Easter -- gay couples and singles streamed in for morning services. The big pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles gave the parking lot a Texan flavor, and most were on the expensive side -- highlighting the fact that being openly gay remains a mostly white-collar phenomenon in America.

The church offered liturgical worship with an Episcopal flavor complete with Communion. It also provides contemporary and Spanish-language services.

But that Sunday there was no discussion of homosexuality from the pulpit. One pastor spoke of South African archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and the importance of forgiveness. Hudson's sermon focused on humanity's propensity to wander.

Members of the congregation said that while the church was a place of spiritual comfort for gays, its focus was on ministering to the wider community, especially the poor.

"We don't talk much about gay stuff here," said Coy James, who has been attending the church for almost 30 years. "We give over $1 million each year in aid and services to the poorest of the poor, and we have adopted elementary schools in low-income areas and helped them with tutoring and other things," he said after the service.

It sounds to us like Hudson and her congregation are getting by just fine without the intercession of Hutcherson's "Prayer Warriors"

Labels: ken hutcherson, religion, TV

SAU is our own little enclave, it seems disconnected from the rest of the world, including Jackson. We are a little happy conservative place where nothing happens, or if anything bad or dirty happens, it is swept under the rug. Everything in SAU is good. It's this whole psychological mind screw."

That's how Drew Hinkle, a gay student at Spring Arbor University in Jackson, Michigan, describes the school to Michigan's gay newspaper Between the Lines.

Another student interviewed by the paper asked them not use her real name. They call her "Jamie" in the story. She agrees with Hinkle about the isolation of the school:

The more classes I take, the more I hear about, even the professors will mention the bubble, that it makes SAU a safer place. That it's not penetrated by the outside world. They don't allow anything they believe to be non-Christian to stay in the bubble. They pretty much exile them off the campus.

Not surprisingly, Jamie said she'll be leaving SAU after this school year.

Julie Marie Nemecek, a professor and administrator at the private school will also be leaving SAU in June. Unlike Jamie, Nemecek's departure isn't through choice, but also reveals something about the bubble.

The Washington Blade's excellent online edition carried this wire report about Nemecek's termination in early February:

Christian university fires transgender professor
Complaint filed with EEOC

JACKSON, Mich. (AP) Feb 5, 7:58 AM
A private, Christian university is firing a transgender professor who began appearing as a woman on campus in 2005.

John Nemecek, 55, who goes by Julie Marie Nemecek and often wears a wig and dress, is fighting the dismissal by Spring Arbor University, which takes effect June 1.
The ordained Baptist minister has filed a discrimination claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"I have worked hard for this university, have been praised for my performance, and I have done nothing immoral or sinful," Nemecek told the Jackson Citizen Patriot for a Sunday story.

Officials at Spring Arbor, which is affiliated with the Free Methodist Church, declined to comment to the newspaper. They said in a statement released by a public relations firm: "We expect our faculty to model Christian character as an example for our students."

Faculty who "persist with activities that are inconsistent with the Christian faith" may be fired, the statement said. In their response to Nemecek's EEOC complaint, college officials said the Christian mandate is critical to Spring Arbor and is protected by civil rights laws.

[See update below]

Both Drew Hinkle and "Jamie" told BTL that the "Christian mandate" at their school made the process of coming out doubly difficult. Hinkle told the paper that coming out to his friends and family had been emotionally wrenching. "I pretty much emotionally broke down," Hinkle said. "I can't keep hating myself like this, living two lives. There was no more choice I couldn't keep the secret anymore."

Jamie described a kind of oppressive heterosexuality at the school:

Jamie says the expectation of heterosexuality was suffocating. "It is the main goal of the students at Spring Arbor to come out of there with a wedding ring or an engagement ring. It was ridiculous. It pissed me off," she says. "Its put in your head that college is the main place you will find someone to be with for the rest of your live and you do not find them then your chances are more slim then they were before."

Jamie will leave SAU for a public college, but Hinkle says that he will stick it out at the school.

"I see it as a sign of -- for me, personally -- of defeat," Hinkle says of his plans not to leave the institution. "It would be like I gave up."

And accepting defeat, in Hinkle's mind, is tantamount to abandoning other LGBT students. Students he says have no voice. "I know that there are students in situations like where I was before I came out, was very effected by the homophobic community I was in and perpetuated by SAU. I had to find those kids and help them find their way out."

Both Jamie and Hinkle confirm that as many as four students may have attempted suicide in the past calendar year as a result of sexual identity crisis. That could not be confirmed by phone calls to Jackson's Foote Hospital, the closest hospital to the university or by SAU officials. In fact, SAU officials refused to return phone calls and emails seeking comment on the issue of LGBT students at Spring Arbor.

Supporting those students is key to both students. So important to them, in fact, they gave these interviews at great risk to their own academic careers at the university.

"I just hope that anyone who reads the piece that feels like they can't be themselves even around their friends, that they know it's not OK to feel that way. It's not OK to feel like you are wrong. You are not wrong. It's different but not wrong," Jamie said. "I think people shouldn't have to feel like the feelings they have or the relationships they have are wrong, even in God's eyes."

This great report in Between the Lines sheds useful new light on several different stories that have recently been moving over the various gay news wires. SoulForce, a group of Christian gay activists, have been traveling around the country on a bus, stopping at schools like SAU to pierce the bubble at each.

We've sometimes read about their exploits as a kind of spring-break protest tour. They often get themselves arrested while making their "statements" and and what they call "relentless nonviolent resistance." In the process, they generate local news stories accompanied by a flood of press releases and self-made videos.

That's being unkind, of course. Their protests are no doubt noble and admirable. But, it's been our experience that activists of just about any stripe are supremely capable of stating the nobility and all-consuming importance of their own cause and don't need much help from the likes of us. Soulforce is no exception.

But it hasn't been all that clear to us who or what the ultimate aim is of the bus-tour protests. Do they think they're going to change the minds of the future right-wing conservative leaders by disrupting things at the colleges where they're learning to become future right-wing conservative leaders and followers?" If that's their hope, it doesn't seem to be working.

But the stories of Jamie and Drew in the SAU bubble remind us that the activists on the Soulforce buses might manage to pop the bubble of other colleges for at least a moment to give those few Jamies or Drews at the other schools a chance to see that they're not alone.

According to anti-gay activist Gary Randall, Soulforce is scheduled to be in this area on April 11 to stage a protests within the bubbles of Seattle Pacific University and Northwest University in Kirkland.

On the other hand: The Advocate published its "College Guide for LGBT Students" in August before the current school year. It lists Tacoma's University of Puget Sound as one of the top twenty gay-friendly campuses in the country.

[Update:] After mediation, SAU and the transgender professor, Julie Nemecek, have agreed to a settlement of the discrimination suit she had filed against SAU. She will be "looking for other employment."

[See a digest of current gay news stories, feeds from prominent gay blogs, and a link list of local gay papers on our Squidoo Gay news page.]

Labels: activism, coming out, Gay, gay news,