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The Newsletter of the Interfaith Working Group
March 1999
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Television Labeling 1
A magazine published by Jerry Falwell
urged parents to be careful about their children's
television viewing and noted that several
publications had identified the purple Teletubby
as a symbol of sexual minorities. A subsequent AP
story about Falwell outing Tinky Winky generated almost
as much press as the marriage cases, the anti-gay ads
or Matthew Shepard. Most of it focused not on a moral
or ethical debate about diversity, role models, TV
or parenting, but on who first outed the character or
whether a fictional, non-human character can
have a sexual orientation. Syndicated columnist
Sara Eckel noted that while the Teletubby furor was
raging, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that a
15-year-old boy is better off with his mother and
abusive stepfather (also called an unemployed,
drug-using convicted felon in Eckel's column) rather
than with his gainfully employed home-owning gay
father and his father's partner. Rev. Mel White
issued a statement titled
Bashing Jerry Falwell Hurts Our Cause
(A Soulforce
Response to the Tinky Winky Wars, urging the
gay and lesbian members of Thomas Road Baptist Church
and students and graduates of Liberty University to
come out to Falwell.
Equal Partners in Faith Proclamation
Contact
Equal Partners in Faith
to add your name (send name, address, phone, email) to
their Proclamation by People of Faith for the Full
Equality of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
People:
As committed people of faith representing diverse
religions, creeds, nationalities, genders and sexual
orientations, we join together to celebrate March
21-27, as "The Week of Equality for Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender people." We join in solidarity
with the the hundreds of thousands who will celebrate
Equality Begins at Home across the United States, a
national campaign to strengthen and unite the lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender and ally communities.
Tragically, many LGBT people have repeatedly endured
fear, suffering and even rejection by those in positions
of power and leadership. As people of faith, we know
too well the discrimination, homophobia and hatred that
exist in our communities of faith, leaving in their
wake broken and hurting souls longing for a healthy
balm. We confess that our faith communities have
betrayed the dignity and respect of LGBT persons and
humbly ask for forgiveness.
We further pledge that in our daily living beyond today,
we will work relentlessly to foster an environment of
growth, acceptance and full equality for LGBT persons
wherever we may have cause and reason to speak. We
solemnly recognize that we are to be held accountable
for championing the rights and welfare of those who
have been dismissed or marginalized by society.
We pray that our united voices may begin the process of
healing, offer hope to the disheartened and restore the
broken trust in our communities. Because we hold to the
belief that the Divine is the Sustaining Source of
genuine love, we in return offer the richness of that
love to all LGBT people in our homes, our communities
and in our houses of worship.
Many LGBT people find love and acceptance in their
faith communities. We applaud those people who have
served as pioneers in our communities and lift
up their efforts as a paradigm for the full equality
of LGBT people. In joining with our fellow sisters
and brothers celebrating Equality Begins at Home, we
affirm that LGBT people are indeed created in the image
of God, deserving of mutual love and respect. Our
continued prayer is that one day intolerance, ignorance,
bigotry and violence against all of God's children
will be eradicated from the very places where compassion
and peace should reign. Until that day we stand in
one voice, one spirit and one hope for the full equality
of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
Freedom of Speech?
Jesse Helms has introduced Senate Bill S45, the
"Freedom of Speech Act," to "prevent the Federal
government from trampling the First Amendment rights
of Federal employees to express their moral and
spiritual values in the workplace," according to
Helms. The bill prevents any funds from being
spent on the Presidential Executive Order which
bars discrimination on the basis of orientation,
forbids Federal departments/agencies from
acting on such an order and prevents such an
order from being executed or enforced in the
future. Tell your Senators about your
moral and spiritual values.
Philadelphia Speaks Out
Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church
were expected to demonstrate in Philadelphia on
January 30 in response to the death of police
officer Thomas Gilbert Kalt, Jr., and to protest
the recruiting and hiring of sexual minority police
officers. They never showed, but Philadelphia
responded with statements from religious leaders and
members of City Council, and a rally and "victory
party" at the
William Way Community Center that
included gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and
straight people, city officials and their
representatives, political candidates. clergy,
and civil rights activists.
The Jewish Community Relations Council
released a statement signed by the Rt. Rev. Charles Bennison
(Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of PA);
Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua;
Rev. Dr. Helen Baily Cohrane
(Interim Exec. Presbyter,
Phila. Presbytery,
Presbyterian Church USA);
Rev. Ed Geiger (Exec. Dir.
Metropolitan Christian Council);
Rabbi Sanford Hahn
(Exec. Dir. Board of Rabbis of Greater Phila.)
and Thomas Jacoby
(Pres., Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phila.).
The statement denounced Westboro Baptist's practice
of picketing funerals, as well as anti-Semitic quotes
on Westboro Baptist's web site, and concluded
"We pray that the family of Officer Kalt finds
comfort in God and in their community. We call
upon the Westboro Baptist Church not to picket in
Philadelphia. Such picketing is an inappropriate
expression of our faith traditions.
On February 6 the Philadelphia Inquirer ran
an opinion piece headlined "Philadelphia Must Stand
Up to Bigoted Attacks," signed by seven Philadelphia
City Councilpersons: Angel L. Ortiz, Anna Verna,
David Cohen, Frank DiCicco, Donna Reed Miller, Marian
Tasco, and Frank Rizzo, Jr. The piece said that
Philadelphia has made "great strides facilitating
and nurturing a city of diversity," and discussed the
necessity of publicly affirming "acceptance of
specific communities when those communities are under
attack." They noted Westboro Baptist's habit of
picketing funerals, cemeteries and churches, and their
written and verbal attacks against the
"Roman Catholic Church,
Southern Baptist Church,
Jewish Conservative Movement
and Episcopal Church USA,"
as well as the
Rev. Billy Graham,
Elizabeth Taylor, the
Rev. Jesse Jackson
and President Clinton. They
praised the efforts of the police department to
recruit from the gay and lesbian community. The piece
concluded: "With the progress we have made, we do
not need this level of toxicity in our civil discourse.
To move forward, we must have an honest discussion,
where everyone can air their feelings and thoughts.
One thing we can all agree upon is that we
will stand together against abundant displays of
bigotry and shameless hatred.
IWG President David Drum, Coordinator Barbara Purdom
and some clergy were present. Religious participation
was highlighted on the 10 pm Channel 17 news and in
Au Courant.
The IWG statement is on the web.
Presbyterian Church (USA)
First Presbyterian Church
of Stamford, CT was tried
by a court of the
Presbytery of Southern New England
on February 26 for electing an elder in
violation of Amendment B. On the Presbytery web page,
a solo by that elder is listed in the highlights of
the March 7, 1998 Presbytery meeting. According to
PCUSA News, the PCUSA Advisory Committee on Social
Witness Policy voted unanimously to remove a brief
"divisive" section on sexual orientation from their
70-page draft policy statement "Building Community
Among Strangers" to be presented at General Assembly.
The section had concluded: "To build community
we will need to do a lot of listening inside and
outside the church: to gay and lesbian persons and
to those among us who are pained at challenges
to their understanding and interpretation that
scripture condemns homosexuality."
United Methodist Church
Rev. David M. Holms of Council Bluffs, IA, is the
first to be charged for participating in the
January 16, 1999, holy union service of Ellie
Charlton and Jeanne Barnett in Sacramento, CA.
Rev. Greg Dell's trial (Dell co-officiated in
Sacramento, but was already charged for performing
other services), is to begin March 25. In the
last month, Rev. Don Fado was profiled in the
San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco
Chronicle, and Dell in the Chicago Tribune.
Southern Methodist University students voted
961 to 670 for sexual orientation to be added to
the university non-discrimination statement.
Church/State Booklets
The American Jewish Congress
has announced the
publication of two new church/state booklets by
Marc D. Stern, Co-Director, AJC Commission on Law
and Social Action: Public School Chaplains,
Listening Posts and The Constitution and
the Ten Commandments: Innocent Display or Weapon
in Religious War? ($3/ea., quantity prices
available). Publications Dept., AJ Congress,
15 E. 84th St., NY, NY, 10028. Or call
212-360-1545.
Marriage News
California has withdrawn from a coalition of states
filing a friend of the court brief favoring
marriage discrimination, and has ceased involvement
in the Hawaii case. A Vermont public radio poll found
43% of respondents favoring same-gender marriage, 48%
opposed and 7% with no opinion. A same-sex marriage
case is pending before Vermont's Supreme Court.
Other News
IWG Cocoordinator Chris Purdom joined leaders from
thirty other groups supporting GLBT equality at the
National Religious Leadership Roundtable...An anti-gay
and pro-ex-gay Southern Baptist Sunday School
curriculum was covered by ABC News Jan.
31...Christian
Coalition president Don Hodel resigned; Pat Robertson
has resumed the role...and a jury returned a $107
million verdict against anti-abortion activists who
producted Wanted posters and the "Nurenberg Files"
website.
Television Labeling 2
The Christian Action Network (CAN)
asked the FCC
for a television rating of HC (homosexual content)
that would apparently apply not just to sexual
content, but the inclusion of non-heterosexual
characters. Some commentators asked whether it would
be applied to Teletubbies. Editorials denouncing
the idea appeared in the San Francisco newspapers,
and it was debated on CNN. The CAN website features
the results of a "Disney Survey" which includes the
question "Do you believe Disney should assault religious
faith?" (1 Yes; 11,172 No).
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