Gay-rights protesters disrupt president's address at SBC

June 17, 2002

Gay-rights protesters disrupt president's address at SBC
___By David Winfrey
___Kentucky Western Recorder
___ST. LOUIS--Gay-rights activists picketed the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting for the third year in a row, this time trying to disrupt President James Merritt's address and promising to continue escalating their level of protest.

An unidentified female member of the gay-rights group Soulforce is escorted out of St. Louis' America's Center by private security in the midst of James Merritt's presidential address. The woman was telling Merritt to call her. Morris Abernathy/BP

___The past two years, demonstrators with Soulforce organized civil disobedience outside the meeting hall, resulting in dozens of arrests. This year, in addition to protests and 37 arrests outside, police arrested 12 activists inside the convention hall when they attempted to interrupt Merritt's address.
___Individually, the protesters stood and walked down the aisles toward the podium, shouting slogans. St. Louis police responded quickly, arresting the demonstrators and walking them outside the convention hall. Activists did not resist arrest but continued shouting their slogans as they were led away.
___"My sisters and brothers, hear us please," shouted one woman. Another woman yelled, "My gay son's not sick."
___"Don't let this happen to your children," a man shouted as police led him from the arena. "People are being done violence by Southern Baptist teachings. Listen to me," screamed another.
___Based in Laguna Beach, Calif., Soulforce exists, leaders say, to combat the anti-homosexual teachings of religious organizations, which Soulforce leaders say leads to the suffering of homosexuals.
___For more than 30 years, Soulforce founder Mel White was a pastor, seminary professor, communication consultant and ghostwriter for such clients as Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Oliver North and Pat Robertson.
___In 1993, White publicly acknowledged that he was homosexual and that he could reconcile his Christian theology and his sexual orientation. Formerly married and with children, today he lives with a homosexual partner.
___During this year's demonstration outside the SBC meeting hall, Soulforce protesters stood across the street from the America's Center as groups of four to six demonstrators walked toward the main entrance. There, they were met by police who said the meeting was open only to registered messengers. When the protesters refused to leave, officers arrested them.
___The 37 protesters arrested outside were charged with demonstrating and with failure to obey the reasonable direction of a police officer. Bond was set at $200.
___The 12 demonstrators arrested inside were charged with first-degree trespassing, motivated by discrimination, a class-D felony. Those charges later were reduced to misdemeanors, and the 12 demonstrators were released on recognizance bonds.
___Through their slogans, T-shirts, pamphlets and banners, Soulforce organizers repeatedly claimed Southern Baptist teachings result in violence against gay and lesbian people.
___"Children are kicked out of their homes if they come out as gay or lesbian. They're kicked out of their churches," said Jean Holton, an organizer from Davis, Calif. "They are told that they are an abomination. Some people have believed that the Leviticus code, literally interpreted, means that folks can be put to death because of their sexual orientation."
___In a letter to Merritt, White asked the SBC president to repudiate a statement attributed to Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore that White said underscores the attitudes of some Southern Baptist leaders.
___"The state must use ... confinement and even execution to prevent the subversion of children toward this criminal (homosexual) lifestyle," White quoted Moore as stating in a legal opinion.
___ "All we said to Dr. Merritt was just please say you don't want to use the power of the sword against gay people," he said in an interview, standing among the other demonstrators. "It gets really spooky to us who are a little paranoid to start with, you know."
___Merritt said he was out of the country two weeks and was not familiar with the statement he was asked to repudiate. "I don't have a response to a statement that I haven't seen," he said.
___Regardless, he said he could not foresee any reason to talk with Soulforce representatives. "Unless, with one exception: If they wanted to talk about repentance and coming to faith in Christ, repudiating their lifestyle, then I'd meet with them."
___Merritt said Southern Baptist and Soulforce leaders have little to discuss.
___"First of all, I don't accept their premise that the fact that we preach the truth about homosexuality perpetrates violence against homosexuals. We've made it very plain we don't believe in violence against anyone, homosexual (or) heterosexual," he said. "At the same time, we believe the Scripture is very plain, and there's no need to debate what Scripture's already settled."
___White said the demonstrators, feeling ignored by SBC leadership, are being more confrontational "and we will escalate again next time."
___In addition to the protests at the annual meeting, White said the group also is planning to hold protests at strategic churches.
___"We hope, by the end of this year, we'll have a vigil at every (SBC) Executive Committee member's church, month after month after month."
___

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