A Statement Endorsing the Petition to Nancy Pelosi (and endorsing the fact that the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 should be amended to include all LGBT Americans.

Here at Stonewall, we stand in the shadow of giants who refused to accept their second class citizenship.  They would be outcasts no more!  Now with their voices echoing in our hearts, we have come to take our stand as well.  In a 1965 interview, Dr. King made it clear that it is far past time to liberate African Americans from their second class citizenship.  These are his words.  I’ve edited them simply to call for the liberation of LGBT Americans as well.

“Why do straight people find it so difficult to understand that LGBT Americans are sick and tired of having reluctantly parceled out to them those rights and privileges which all others receive upon birth or entry in America? We never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of straight society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with LGBT Americans for their freedom.  This continued arrogant ladling out of pieces of the rights of citizenship has begun to generate a growing discontent in the LGBT community. What LGBT Americans want is absolute and unqualified freedom and equality here in this land of our birth.  LGBT Americans no longer will be tolerant of anything less than our due right and heritage.  We are pursuing only that which we know is honorably ours.

“Most straight Americans support the struggle to eradicate injustice; nevertheless they feel that LGBT Americans should be more patient, that only the passage of time – perhaps generations – will bring about the sweeping changes we demand…

“We say, with Dr. King, that the time is always right to do what is right…Increasingly we realize that time has been used destructively by people of ill will much more than it has been used constructively by those of good will…We wonder at straight Americans who dare to feel that they have some paternalistic right to set the timetable for the liberation of LGBT Americans. We are often inclined to think that our moderate “friends” are more of a stumbling block to the progress of LGBT Americans than Pat Robertson, James Dobson and other leaders of the Christian right.”

We have a growing concern that our new President is listening to those same “moderates” who counsel that it is too early to take on ENDA or DOMA or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  These are difficult times, they whisper.  LGBT Americans have waited this long.  They are amazingly patient.  They will understand if we ask them to wait a little longer.

We are here to say to our President and to members of the House and Senate, that we do not understand.  We cannot “wait a little longer.”  Our sisters and brothers have suffered injustice, intolerance and discrimination far too long: harassed, hunted down and hounded out of the military; denied employment and housing, refused the rights of marriage and ordination; left out of hate crime legislation all the while being primary victims of hate in all its vicious forms. We are second class citizens at best.  Worse, we are outcasts in the nation we love and serve. (Page 353, Testament of Hope).

Today we launch this petition to Congressman Nadler,  on behalf of millions LGBT Americans our families and friends because it is time to do what is right.   Including  LGBT Americans in the Civil Rights Legislation of 1964, and all of our civil rights laws, is the right thing to do.  We hope and pray that this time truth will prevail and justice will flow down like a mighty stream.

Help spread the word to our fellow Americans, LGBT and straight a like, to go to www.ThePowerOnline.org and sign the petition that could end our struggle for the basic rights of all United States citizens.  Then when we are free from that oppression we can move on to help feed the hungry, house the homeless and lend our lives and service to the other outcasts as did Gandhi, King and Christ.

Thank you and Peace to you all!
Mel

MEDIA ALERT: Press Conference at Historic Stonewall Inn to Announce New LGBT Civil Rights Agenda and Present U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler With Signed Petition from all 50 States.

As President Obama prepares to host a cocktail reception at the White House for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender leaders, prominent activists and fundraisers return to the Stonewall Inn on the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots to announce a new comprehensive LGBT civil rights agenda. At that time they will also present U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler with signed petitions from all 50 states and 36 countries supporting expansion of the Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people, marking the official launch of The Power’s nationwide petition drive and campaign demanding full equality now.

The Power (www.thepoweronline.org) is an online organizing network that empowers grassroots and netroots activists from every state in the country and from all over the world to fight for equal rights for LGBT people, not on some arbitrary and convenient schedule created by politicians and lobbyists, but right now.

Speakers will include Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, civil rights attorney Liz Abzug (daughter of feminist, anti-war, and LGBT activist and Congresswoman Bella Abzug), former Jerry Falwell ghostwriter and Soulforce founder Rev. Mel White, and others.

WHAT: A press conference convened by The Power (www.ThePowerOnline.org) launching a national movement to pass comprehensive LGBT civil rights legislation.

WHO: Jeffrey H. Campagna, founder of The Power, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a representative of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and civil rights attorney and daughter of Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Liz Abzug.

WHEN: 10 a.m., Monday, June 29, 2009, 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots

WHERE: Outside The Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher St. @ Sheridan Square, New York, NY

WHY: With a self-proclaimed “fierce advocate” of LGBT rights in the White House, and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, the federal agenda for gay rights does not include full equality. It is time for LGBT people and their allies to seize this historic moment to pass comprehensive civil rights legislation now.

SPEAKER BIOS:

• Jeffrey H. Campagna is the founder The Power. Campagna is also an attorney who has worked in the civil rights bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office, and a fundraiser for Democratic causes who was on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s LGBT steering committees. He is also a co-author of The Dallas Principles (www.thedallasprinciples.o

Sorry that I’ve let this blog go stale.  Spending time with Bentley
Learning to breathe again.  But stay tuned….

Earlier this year, my son, Mike, and I were featured in a Newsweek interview (Feb. 16, 2009) that created a firestorm torched by fundamentalist Christians over my comment: “It’s embarrassing to be a Christian.”

The Newsweek article entitled “Delicious White Whine” – Mike did ‘School of Rock.’ Mel worked for Pat Robertson. Now they’re an amazing ‘Race’ team. www. Newsweek.com

The World Magazine response:
http://online.worldmag.com/2009/02/09/its-embarassing-to-be-a-christian/

Mike

The interviewer asks if Mike considers himself a Christian.

MIKE: “I don’t really consider myself a Christian. It’s complicated, like everything else but I think what my Dad is doing as far as reaching out to the conservative Christian community for inclusion is a really courageous thing.”

MEL: “It’s ironic because given the state of what it means to be a Christian these days, I’m not a Christian either. I’m a mediocre follower of a first-century Jewish teacher. And being Christian brings up all those stereotypes that are so destructive to the gay spirit. So when Michael says he’s not a Christian, I completely understand and feel the same way. I hope that one day we can reclaim that word, but as it stands now, it’s embarrassing to be a Christian.”

You should read the hysterical responses storming across the blogosphere calling me the devil’s helper or worse. You will find more than 100 responses at the World Magazine link posted above. I dare you to check it out. It’s a veritable treasure chest of short, pithy, sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic summaries of the fundamentalist Christian worldview (with a few very intelligent response thrown in.)

I could spend time defending my own Christian faith but I’m no longer willing to argue with my friends on the religious right. We have the Soulforce Equality Riders to that. These are young justice volunteers who travel across the US visiting Christian universities and military academies entering into dialogue, discussing and debating policies that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Fundamentalist Christians continue to misuse the Bible and ignore scientific evidence “to prove” that homosexuality is a sickness to be cured and a sin that needs to be forgiven. Soulforce has two pamphlets that can be downloaded that respond in detail to these false charges: “What the Bible Says – and Doesn’t Say – about Homosexuality” << http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible >>
and “What the Science Says – and Doesn’t Say – about homosexuality -
<< http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-science >>.

Let the young people of Soulforce Q continue to dialogue and debate the issue. I’ve decided, however, that it’s better to use my time trying to make it clear (especially to my LGBTQ sisters and brothers) that God created us lesbian or gay, bisexual or transgender and God loves us exactly as we were created.

Whether fundamentalist Christians believe it or not, I can say without fear or ambivalence: “I am gay. I am proud. And God loves me without reservation!”

I don’t know where you are on your own journey of faith but I do know this: You are welcome to join me and my friends at Soulforce whether you are a member of a faith community or not.

I’m hoping that you have read my autobiography, Stranger at the Gate: to be Gay and Christian in America.” It will give you a better perspective on who I am and where I’m coming from as you read my blogs in the days ahead.

I grew up in a loving Christian home with parents who meant well but almost destroyed my spirit with their antigay beliefs. I spent 35 years on treatments hoping “to overcome my homosexual orientation” with ex-gay programs including everything from prayer, fasting, cold showers, to exorcism and electric shock. Finally I was able to overcome the decades of half-truth, hyperbole and lies about homosexuality and homosexuals that I had heard from my childhood. Now I am can accept my sexual orientation as a gift from God to be accepted, celebrated and lived with integrity.

Finally after being a victim of fundamentalist Christian biblical misuse, I began a ten-year investigation into the war that fundamentalist Christians are waging against LGBT people. My latest book Religion Gone Bad: Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right (to be reissued April 2010 by Alyson as Holy Terror) is a kind of expose on fundamentalist Christians and the way they are using the homosexual issue to raise money and mobilize millions.

In coming months I will use this blog to continue my journey where Stranger at the Gate left off. That book tells the story of my struggle to accept myself as a homosexual. The occasional blogs you’ll find here will explore my struggle to discover what it means to be a gay man, to look at the questions, decisions, issues we face AFTER we’ve accepted our sexual orientation.

My answers may be totally wrong. They may make you as angry with me as those who fundamentalist Christians who responded to the Newsweek story. Oh well, I’m just 9 months from being 70. I only have so many years left. Why not risk them on seeking the truth about issues we would – I would – rather ignore?