An Open Letter from Soulforce to Jan and Paul Crouch, founders of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the Evangelical Christian broadcasters who are featured on Lighthouse Television, TBN’s affiliate in Uganda, including: Matthew Crouch, Joyce Meyer, Andrew Wommack, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, and Franklin Graham:

By now you are well aware of the anti-homosexual bill pending before the Parliament of Uganda. We urge you to denounce this bill. Use your personal friendships with President and Mrs. Museveni, with MP David Bahati (your Christian colleague who proposed this bill), and with Stephen Langa, (the Ugandan Christian organizer behind the bill) to take a public and passionate stand against it.

The media are blaming the visit to Uganda by three of your colleagues for this despicable and truly un-Christian law. In fact, for years you have used your Lighthouse Television programs, your radio broadcasts, and your massive public meetings to warn Ugandans of the so called “threat homosexuals pose to Bible-based values and the traditional African Family.”

In no small part you are already responsible for the current call by Ugandan leaders to enforce the old law condemning lesbian and gay Ugandans to up to 14 years in prison. This new law increases that sentence to life imprisonment and even death by hanging. Denounce this new bill or the blood of lesbian and gay Ugandans will be on your hands.

It isn’t just the “liberal media” who are condemning the bill. In mid-November, Exodus International, the ministry that promises to assist homosexuals in overcoming homosexuality, warned, “If homosexual behavior and knowledge of such behavior is criminalized and prosecuted, as proposed in this bill, church and ministry leaders will be unable to assist hurting men, women and youth who might otherwise seek help in addressing this personal issue.” While Soulforce does not agree with Exodus that lesbian and gay people need to be “cured,” we wholeheartedly agree with their position on this hateful bill.

Warren Throckmorton, a member of the Clinical Advisory Board of the American Association of Christian Counselors warned that this legislation would make their mission “to extend the love and compassion of Christ to all” a difficult if not impossible task.

Your colleague, mega-church pastor Rick Warren, in a very public video appeal to his fellow clergy in Uganda, gives five reasons why Ugandan Christians should not support the bill: (1) it is “unjust, extreme and un-Christian; (2) it would “force pastors to report their pastoral conversations with homosexuals to authorities; (3) “…it would have a chilling effect on your ministry to the hurting… homosexuals who are HIV positive will be reluctant to seek or receive care, comfort and compassion from our churches out of fear of being reported; (4) “All life, no matter how humble or broken, whether unborn or dying, is precious to God… It would be inconsistent to save some lives and wish death on others…” And (5) “the freedom to make moral choices, and our right to free expression, are gifts endowed by God.” Warren reminds the clergy that Uganda is a democratic country “…and in a democracy everyone has a right to speak up.” Warren concludes by urging them “to speak out against the proposed law.”

The People of Soulforce urge you to take these warnings seriously.  It is very possible that your silence on this matter will convince the people of Uganda that it is God’s will to condemn homosexuals to life imprisonment or even death by hanging. Your powerful media voices have made you superstars to Ugandans. We implore you to use your power to denounce this bill. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this time you and the Christian community behaved in the manner of love and justice rather than fulfilling the stereotype of the “liberal media” as ‘hate-filled bigots?

You often ask others, “What would Jesus do?” We believe this is the perfect time to ask yourselves that question. 

The People of Soulforce
Mel White, Founder - Bill Carpenter, Interim Executive – Director Chuck Phelan, Board Chair

ADDENDUM: EXAMPLES OF OTHERS WHO CONDEMN THE BILL

This bill has been condemned by leaders of Western nations including the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia, and Great Britain and the President of the United States. The European Parliament passed a resolution against the bill and threatened to cut financial aid to Uganda if it is enacted. They described the bill as “state-legislated genocide.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urge Uganda to shelve the bill and decriminalize homosexuality.

The 16,000 members of the HIV Clinicians Society of South Africa and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS warned that excluding marginalised groups would compromise efforts to stop the spread of AIDS in Uganda where 5.4% of the adult population is infected with HIV.

The Sunday Times in South Africa warned Uganda that it is in danger of being “dragged back to the dark and evil days of Idi Amin.”
The New York Times stated unequivocally “that such barbarism (in the bill) is intolerable and will make Uganda an international pariah.”
The Washington Post labeled the bill “ugly and ignorant”, “barbaric”, and “that it is even being considered puts Uganda beyond the pale of civilized nations.”
The Los Angeles Times warned that the bill would cause gay Ugandans to face an “impossible, insulting, historical, cruel and utterly false choice of having to choose between being gay and being African.”

The Anglican Reverend Canon Gideon Byamugisha said that the Bill “would become state-legislated genocide.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has said in a public interview that he did not see how any Anglican could support it: “Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades. Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.”
The Vatican legal attaché to the United Nations stated that “Pope Benedict is opposed to ‘unjust discrimination’ against gay men and lesbians.”

ADDENDUM:
AS IN THE US, PAUL CAMERON IS THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF THE HALF-TRUTH, HYPERBOLE AND LIES ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY AND HOMOSEXUALS UPON WHICH THE BILL IS BASED

Stephen Langa, the March 2009 workshop organiser, specifically cited an unlicensed converstion therapist named Richard A. Cohen who states in a book that was given to Langa and other prominent Ugandans,
“Homosexuals are at least 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals; homosexual teachers are at least 7 times more likely to molest a pupil; homosexual teachers are estimated to have committed at least 25 percent of pupil molestation; 40 percent of molestation assaults were made by those who engage in homosexuality.”
These statements were based on faulty studies performed by Paul Cameron who has been expelled from the American Psychological Association, the Canadian Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. Cohen, himself, confirmed the weaknesses of these studies, stating that when the book will be reprinted, these statistics will be removed.

ADDENDUM: OUR SOURCES

Jeffrey Gettleman, writing for the New York Times, January 4, 2010, reported on “Americans’ Role in Uganda Anti-Gay Push.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html

Erin Roach, posted on Baptist News, November 18, 2009, the news that “Exodus Opposes Uganda’s Proposed Anti-Gay Law.”

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=31715

Baptist Press, December 13, 2009, announced that “Mega-Church Pastor Rick Warren Condemns Uganda Anti-Gay Bill.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/mega-church-pastor-rick-warren-condemns-uganda-anti-gay-bill

The editors of Wikipedia have assembled the best history of this bill and the world’s response:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill

YouTube carries the complete video of Rick Warren’s Open Letter to the Clergy of Uganda*

*We wish to express our thanks to the Rev. Rick Warren for taking this rather courageous step on behalf of the lesbian and gay people of Uganda. Pastor Warren did everything in his power to avoid meeting with our gay and lesbian parents and their families in 2009 during the Soulforce American Family Outing. We have tried on many occasions to help him understand the tragic consequences of his own teachings about homosexuality and homosexuals. And though we continue hoping that he will meet with a Soulforce delegation to hear the scientific, historic, psychological and personal evidence that homosexuality is one of God’s gifts, we pause in our pursuit just long enough to give him thanks for reaching out to save the lives of our lesbian sisters and gay brothers in Uganda. Thank you, Pastor Warren. We are grateful!

Q: WHY ARE YOU AND GARY SO INTERESTED IN HELPING CHILDREN IN CAMBODIA?

A: In the 1970s during the war in Vietnam, Nixon launched a “secret war” against Cambodia dropping 2,000,000 tons of bombs on an estimated 200,000 Cambodian targets with devastating results for family life in Cambodia for generations to come.

In 1975, Pol Pot and his bloody Khmer Rouge emptied the cities, imprisoned, tortured and murdered an estimated 2,000,000 of Cambodia’s best and brightest. Entire families died together in “the killing fields” effectively destroying what little remained of Cambodian family life. The US supplied Pol Pot and his carnage because he supported our side in the Vietnam war.
Currently a large percentage of the financial aid for orphans and other vulnerable children is going to Africa. The forgotten children of Cambodia – victims of their own holocaust – need our help.

Q: WHY ARE YOU SPENDING SO MUCH TIME, MONEY AND ENERGY ON THE ORPHANAGE?

A: On December 24, 2003 14-children escaped from an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, (just before the director was arrested and imprisoned for child molestation). The orphans fled to the home of a trusted Cambodian teacher and a Dutch volunteer. The two men rented a building large enough to house all 59 orphans and applied to the government for a license.

The “accidental orphanage” begun by those two big hearted educators has one goal: help launch a new generation of self-supporting Cambodians who will bring hope to a nation that has suffered generations of hopelessness.

Named New Future for Children, this home for orphans and other vulnerable children has become a supportive, caring family for 59 children each with his or her own unique plan for becoming a self-sustaining contributing member to Cambodian society. Most of the children have been at NFC for four or more years and their lives have been transformed by the loving care and well-rounded education they have received.

QUESTION: WHAT MAKES THIS PROGRAM UNIQUE?
These orphans and other vulnerable children rescued from lives of hopelessness and despair, entered NFC far behind students of their own age and grade level. NFC offers remedial classes in English, logic, computer technology, personal hygiene, cooking and Khmer traditional dance and music.

Given the chance to “catch up” NFC children are winning scholarships to well known private and public schools. Others receive vocational training and work as apprentices in various trades. Two already attend university. One is preparing to attend the Royal Academy of Art this year.

Q: WHO PROVIDES THE FUNDS TO HOUSE, CLOTHE, AND EDUCATE THE CHILDREN
Here’s the problem. New Future for Children was launched with no organizational support. For years the bills have been paid by staff members and volunteers from Europe and the US who visited NFC and were amazed and impressed by what they saw.

Several years ago, our friend and Soulforce colleague, Chris Merritt, volunteered to teach English for a few weeks at NFC. He learned that the dedicated staff had been so busy creating this special place that they had not developed a donor base. Using his savings to support NFC, Chris has moved to Phnom Penh where he serves as a guarantor that every dollar we donate goes directly to NFC

A year ago, Chris invited me to visit NFC. I too was deeply moved and impressed. For the past year, Gary and I have been the primary source of support; but now Gary and I need help in supporting these kids. We’re working to find a charitable organization, a corporation and/or a family or individual who will share our vision for this place. In the meantime, Gary and I are reaching out to family and friends hoping they/you might consider helping us bring hope and healing to 59 children who will in their way bring hope and healing to their wounded nation.

Q: HOW DO WE HELP?
To feed, house, clothe, and educate each child at NFC requires just $140 a month, less than $1700 per year.
Donations are tax deductible and I guarantee that 100% of any check made out to the KNL Foundation designated to NFC and sent to us in Lynchburg will go directly to support the children.

Q: SHOULDN’T YOU BE SUPPORTING SOULFORCE INSTEAD OF REACHING OUT TO KIDS HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD?
Good question. Soulforce, Soulforce Q and our sister organization, FAITH IN AMERICA, have urgent needs for funding and these are our first priority. Gary and I donate a large percentage of our incomes to help us continue our campaign of relentless nonviolent resistance to religion based oppression. We are totally committed to continue the fight for justice for LGBTQ people around the world. But Gandhi made it clear, helping those who suffer injustice in practical ways is the other side of doing justice. The biblical writers talked of doing justice and loving mercy in the same breath. There may be hundreds of millions of needy children in the world but I know personally 59 of them whom I can help in practical ways. So, Gary and I are reaching out and it has already proven to be an adventure that is changing our lives.

Mel White and Gary Nixon
1125 Running Cedar Way
Lynchburg, VA. 24503
GaryNixon@aol.com

PS: Remember, donations are tax deductible and I guarantee that 100% of any check made out to the KNL Foundation designated to NFC and sent to us in Lynchburg will go directly to support the children.

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

Our Hero

John Shelby Spong

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate “reparative therapy,” as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality “deviant.” I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that “we love the sinner but hate the sin.” That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is “high-sounding, pious rhetoric.” The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn’t. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to “Roll on over or we’ll roll on over you!” Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a “new church,” claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by “fair-minded” channels that seek to give “both sides” of this issue “equal time.” I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world’s population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a “mobocracy,” which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture’s various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the “Flat Earth Society” either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church’s participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: “New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth.” I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

– John Shelby Spong, Retired Episcopal Bishop

The Way We Were

A White Party? You actually went to a White Party? At your age? And a clergyman?

One of our friends found it difficult to believe that Gary and I had joined at least 2,000 other gay men in a White Party (at least the Atlantis cruise version) on the high seas. Believe it. We were there. Here’s why.

I had recently returned from at least four weeks in S.E. Asia researching and writing with an old friend at a university in Singapore, working with Indonesian gays to help develop an HIV/AIDS prevention program for the rent boys of Bali and visiting an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, being run by a Soulforce volunteer struggling to find support for 62 orphaned &/or vulnerable children. (More about these post retirement projects later).

With little time at home I left Gary again to spend 35 days on The Amazing Race with my son, Mike. (More about that when CBS approves.)

During this recent spate of media interviews, Gary was asked how we have stayed together for 27 years. He replied without a moment’s hesitation: “Because Mel is always gone.” He wasn’t joking. Gary has worked 7 days a week for ten years as Business Director of Soulforce much of that time alone. It was obvious that we needed some quality time together a long way from our office phones and fax machines.

The next thing I knew we were standing on the deck of an Atlantis cruise ship absolutely awed by the site of so many gay men dancing in elaborate white costumes (sailors, firemen, French maids, cowboys and Indians) or bare-chested and even bare-legged wearing nothing more than their tiddy or is it tighty whities.

I had never been to a White Party and knew almost nothing about what happens during those long nights or even weekend celebrations. According to Wikipedia, a white party is “a mega dance event, extending through a night and into the following day…they are typically lavish affairs with elaborate lighting, music, and décor.”

Somebody should add to the article that you may feel underdressed if you join that mainly shirtless crowd without a hard ripped muscular physique displaying pecs, abs, and biceps sculpted by Michelangelo (or by 10,000 hours in the gym.)
On that unforgettable Friday night as we sailed back towards Miami on the Freedom of the Seas, giant woofers pounded out the beat as spotlights pierced the dark skies, klieg lights lit up the deck, a wall of colored lights danced with the music, strobe lights flickered and black lights made those tiddy whities glow.

Gary and I are both “early to bed, early to rise” types, but that night we didn’t return to our cabin until approximately 3:00 am. We stood for hours on a slightly raised deck crowded with dancers right in the middle of 2,000 buff gay men who had abandoned all inhibitions in a kind of tribal celebration of the male body.

At first I felt like an outsider. In fact, I have always felt like an outsider at a dance even at those junior high sock hops or senior high proms. I was raised by parents who saw dancing as “the devil’s play ground.” (Or was it the game of pool that professor Harold Hill condemned before the “good people of River City?”)

Everyone has heard the old joke told about Southern Baptists who “don’t condone premarital sex because it might lead to dancing.” To my Mom and Dad, and to the good people of our home church, sex was bad and never discussed except in warnings about its dire consequences. How many times have I heard sermons about the war of flesh against spirit? If masturbation were a sickness and a sin what eternal penalty would I suffer if I ever yielded to my powerful same-sex desires? How many times during my childhood and youth did I pray for God to “take away these awful, unnatural urges,” to “heal my sickness” and “forgive my sins?”

As a result of all these sex-negative influences, from about the seventh grade I felt a growing shame about my body and its ever increasing desire to make love to my tent mate at the Boy Scout Jamboree or to touch the body of the boy lying beside me on a sleep-over visit. Shame was the result of all those years trying to avoid an erection in the shower room or to pretend I wasn’t turned on by my fellow “thin-clads” on the track team or to keep people from noticing how I stared at the basketball players with their stuff clearly outlined in those silky nylon shorts.

Even long after knowing without a doubt that my homosexual orientation is not a sickness to be healed or a sin to be forgiven; even after realizing at last that being gay (or lesbian, bisexual, or transgender) is a gift from God to be accepted, celebrated and lived with integrity; even after two short term boy friends and a long -term loving relationship with Gary I remained a victim of the shame I felt about my body and its secret desires. After a national media tour promoting Stranger at the Gate, after coming out proudly on Sixty-Minutes and Larry King Live, after speaking frankly about my homosexuality at universities across the country I still felt shame when my body acted up.

It’s hard to explain that shame. Here’s an example. I didn’t have the courage to admit even to myself (let alone to Gary) what I really wanted in bed. I couldn’t even acknowledge the fact that I liked those boys in leather and wanted a pair of leather pants myself; that I preferred white silk pajama bottoms (and no tops) to those matching flannel sets my father used to wear; that I liked tight t-shirts, fitted jeans, and Calvin Kline more than Fruit of the Loom underwear (especially silk Calvin Kline low rise briefs); that I liked playful bondage and love making that went on for hours instead of rushing to a climax and turning on Law and Order reruns.

Don’t misunderstand me. During our 27 years together Gary and I did experience our share of great sexual moments; but during all that time I was living in another kind of closet, where I hid my sexual fantasies and didn’t trust my trustworthy partner to accept my desires let alone to understand them. My psychiatrist answered that fear with a very non-directive “bull shit” and a rather pointed promise that Gary could accept and understand my desires if I would just give him the chance.

It was a great coincidence that I came out to Gary during our Atlantis cruise on a ship named Freedom of the Seas. I may be two months into my 70th year; I may be old enough to be the grand father to many of our competitors on this season’s Amazing Race and father to the rest; I may have two great children in their late thirties, a three year old grandson who can beat me at Wii bowling and a beautiful 16 year old grand daughter who knows more about computers than I will ever know; nevertheless for the cruise I packed my favorite tight t-shirt and fitted jeans, my Calvin Kline silk bikini low rise briefs, and even some playful cloth tie-downs and a blindfold. Don’t laugh. We older men dress up fine.

Gary may not have understood where all this retarded adolescence was coming from but he had no trouble accepting my fantasies (and even enjoying them). Apparently I am still on that journey to see my sexuality as another of God’s gifts to be accepted, celebrated and lived out with integrity. Apparently coming out about the sexual fantasies we have locked away in another kind of closet lasts a lifetime. Happily on that gay cruise I took another long step in overcoming the shame I once felt towards my body and its desires.

Right now you might be thinking, “Is this all he’s going to say about White Parties when so many in our community share a growing concern about the proliferation of drugs like ecstasy and the high risk sexual practices often associated with these drugs?”

I admit that I am naïve about the White Party circuit. I’ve only experienced the Atlantis Cruise version. I do worry about the dangerous and ever more exotic drugs that plague our community. I am concerned that this new generation of young gay men, especially gay men of color, seem to be the population where new cases of HIV/AIDS are most rampant. These are important topics that may be the subject of other blogs that I write somewhere down the line. But right now I have no interest in preaching the sermon everyone expects me to preach. I’m only interested in celebrating what happened to me during that cruise and especially during that fateful White Party on the Atlantic.

For awhile we just stood there fascinated by the unfamiliar scene, emotionally moved by the sound and light show that had engulfed us, entranced by the dancers who were moving, touching, massaging and embracing all around us. Then spontaneously I began to dance in place as they were dancing. I put my arm around Gary and moved up and down to the music’s loud beat.

For the first time in my life I didn’t feel like an outsider at a dance. In fact, I was surprised to feel entirely at home with that mass of buff gay men dancing the night away. I would never look like those beautiful young dancers. I could not recover or relive those testosterone years when I too could (but didn’t) dance ‘til dawn. I might never overcome entirely the shame that I had inherited over decades of biblical misuse and psychological abuse. But I knew for certain that though we were from different generations, these were my brothers and in my way I could join them in celebrating my gay sexuality without shame or guilt or fear as they were celebrating theirs.

At least 30 years ago, I was directing a documentary film on the life and times of Ken Medema, a singer, pianist and composer who could sit at the piano and improvise music and lyrics that always moved me deeply. Ken is blind and when I heard him sing his “Dancing with a Stranger” for the first time I had to blink back the tears. I didn’t know why then. I do now. All those years that I was afraid to dance, my Creator was holding out Her hand to me. She created me to dance, to celebrate my sexuality, to enjoy my body and its pleasures. On that cruise I finally took Her hand. Ken sang it this way:

She asked me to dance.
I’d never tried dancing before.
I had visions of everyone laughing me right off the floor.
“No,” I protested, “It just wouldn’t be any good.”
She gently insisted. Finally, I told her I would.
Unforgettable. She was a fresh breath of spring
on a cold winter’s day.
Unforgettable. She taught this singer to sing a whole new way.

He asked me to dance.
I’d never tried dancing before.
I had visions of saints and angels laughing me right off the floor.
“No,” I protested, “it just wouldn’t be any good.”
He gently insisted. Finally, I told him I would.
And it was unforgettable. He was the coming of spring on a cold winter’s day.
Unforgettable. He taught this singer to sing in a whole new way.
The coming of spring, on a cold winter’s day.
Taught me to sing, in a brand-new way.

These kids need our help.

I’m stuck in the Radisson Hotel at Narita Airport after 14 hours flying from LA including 3 hours on the runway cleaning up spilled gas (complete with fire engines, police cars, flashing lights, etc.)  So, Ken Martin, and I missed our flight to Bangkok and will probably miss our flight later today to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Sometimes I’m asked why go thru it all after  50 years filming and speaking abroad (not including the 35 day Amazing Race around the world.) It’s easy to explain this trip.

In Phnom Penh there are 62 amazing orphans and vulnerable children waiting to put on a party for Ken Martin and me complete with native food,  beautifully costumed dances, and a chance to get better acquainted with these very special kids (including orphans whose parents died from AIDS and especially vulnerable children rescued from homes where they are abused and even sold for sex.)

Our friend, Chris Merritt, a long time Soulforce activist  joined us first in 1999 at the nonviolent action in Lynchburg against the false and inflammatory rhetoric of Jerry Falwell.  Chris, on a trip around the world, discovered the New Future for Children Home for Orphans and Vulnerable Children and volunteered to help the local staff recover from the sudden horror that their director was a pedophile, arrested, tried and imprisoned.

Chris has administrative gifts and the local board and staff asked him to stay on “for awhile.”  Almost two years later, Chris not only teaches English and media skills, he is the primary advisor to the young Cambodians in charge.

Discovering early on that the New Future for Children had no national or international organizations paying the bills, Chris went to work raising the $6,000 plus required to feed, clothe, house, educate and transport the 62 children.  Imagine it.  All that for just over $3 a day per child.

Unfortunately, Chris’s pension ran dry and he’s now living primarily on the $500 a month Gary and I send.  We’re also paying from our pension funds to help make up the $6,000 plus needed every month.

Ken Martin, the MCC Elder for S.E. Asia, and I are here to strategize with Chris on ways he might raise the necessary funds to keep the New Future for Children up and running.  I’m going to create a power point and show it to anyone who might like to volunteer time or money or in kind necessities upon our return to the US.  If you’ld like to see it, I’ll send it by email.

Know this, Gary and I both believe in Soulforce and are regular donors to keep SF up and running.  We give to our local church and to various local and national organizations we find worthy.  Taking on the NFC has to be over and above all that.  But these amazing children and youth in Phnom Penh have nothing but their hopes and dreams.  There’s nothing more exciting for Gary and me to think that we are helping them see their hopes and dreams realized.  Besides we’ve spent most of our time and money on LGBTQ related causes.  It feels good to reach out as a gay couple to help someone else in need.  There are a billion people starving thanks to this world wide financial meltdown.  We can’t feed them all but there are 62 kids in Phnom Penh that we have grown to love whom we can help in our small way.

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?

Join our AMAZING RACE “fans” just for the fun of it.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=50331804930