Soulforce demonstrators blame church for violence against gays By John H. Adams The Layman Online Sunday, June 25, 2000 LONG BEACH, Calif. - In a demonstration against gay-bashing Sunday, Soulforce protestors did some Presbyterian-bashing - blaming the Presbyterian Church (USA) for beatings and deaths of homosexuals. "Our denomination has blood on its hands," shouted Grayson Tucker, soon to become an ex-Presbyterian minister and member of the faculty at Louisville Theological Seminary. Jane Spahr, who bills herself as a lesbian "evangelist," said violence against gays was learned from the church. She said the church was responsible for a high death rate among gay teen-agers. Billed as worship service The Soulforce gathering - held outside the arena where the General Assembly's two-hour worship service was being conducted - was also billed as a worship service. But it had few elements of conventional worship. It was mostly political liturgy, with speakers criticizing the PCUSA's constitutional standard that prohibits the ordination of persons who openly engage in sexual relations outside of marriage, and accusing Presbyterians of homophobia, gay-bashing and inciting violence against homosexuals. The demonstration was orchestrated, including scripted civil disobedience in which protestors walked hand-in-hand to an access road, from which they were escorted to a bus and then to the Long Beach Police Station to be cited for disturbing the peace. Eighty-four were arrested, including former General Assembly Moderator William Thompson and Spahr, a lesbian Presbyterian minister who has been in the forefront of the gay activist movement in the PCUSA. Standing, and occasionally shouting, about 100 feet from the Soulforce demonstrators were protestors being orchestrated by Fred Phelps, a ubiquitous gay-basher. Tactics termed 'repugnant' The Presbyterian Renewal Network and the Presbyterian Coalition denounced the tactics employed by Phelps' forces. "While we affirm the right of free speech in public places, we find the message of Fred Phelps to be morally repugnant. We stand with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Church through the ages in upholding the sanctity of marriage and offering the Gospel of grace to those caught in bondage to sexual sin," the two organizations said in a joint news release. The statement was signed by J.W. Giles, executive coordinator of the Coalition, and Ilona Buzick, moderator of the Presbyterian Renewal Network. Another counter demonstration was staged by the pastor and 23 sign-holders from the Faith Center in West Long Beach, an independent congregation of about 175 people. Allen Charbonnet, the pastor, said the group left its own worship service to protest against Soulforce. They carried hand-painted signs with Scripture verses. Tucker indicated that the protest Sunday morning would be one of his last as a Presbyterian against the denomination. "I am making a date with my presbytery to dismiss me to the Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church," he told a gathering of about 100 Soulforce demonstrators. En route to Unitarians Tucker has been in the Presbyterian news recently for bringing charges against himself in an effort to show that G-6.0106, the constitutional "chastity/fidelity" clause, is irrelevant. He accused himself of having "adulterous thoughts," he said, and planned to pursue his protest through the Presbyterian courts. But he decided, he said, to drop out and become a Unitarian. Belief in God is not a requirement in the Unitarian movement. Spahr made a pep-rally-like speech that prompted shouts and handclapping. "Isn't this fabulous?" she shouted. "By God, this is fabulous. "We're here to invite our church to become hospitable … to think of us as people rather than as sexual acts … to claim our baptismal rights as well as our civil rights." Gay unions 'are marriages' Spahr called on the church to fully recognize homosexual unions. "These are marriages. These are weddings. And let's call them what they are," she said. Thompson, the former moderator, said the PCUSA has conflicting policies with G-6.106b and a definitive interpretation by the General Assembly that says no group will be "categorically" excluded from the denomination or its leadership. "The church no longer assigns people to categories," he said. "We treat them as individuals." Thompson said sexual orientation is not an issue for the church. "I am convinced that sexual orientation is received by people - not chosen" in the same way people are male and female and of different races. "It is past time that we equalized the rights and privileges of our people." Speaking for science, medicine The Rev. Harold Porter, a Presbyterian minister in Cincinnati, emphasized a similar theme - that people's sexual orientation is genetically determined. "What the Presbyterian Church calls sin, the scientific and medical professions call natural affection," Potter said, despite the fact that the scientific and medical professions have reached no such agreement. Potter said the PCUSA restricts ordination because "we have become a fundamentalist church taken over by reactionaries. We have replaced Jesus with Biblical texts. We have become a stumbling block." None of the "preaching" at the Soulforce "worship" service was Biblically focused. Jesus was mentioned, but mainly as a friend who did not judge and not as Savior and Lord over the way people live. The singing was from the '60s and its offspring. "We shall not give up the fight. We have only started. Never, ever put to flight. We are bound to win" were the words of one snappy tune. When the service concluded, Mel White, Soulforce founder and pastor of a predominantly gay congregation, organized the protestors into small groups of 10 to 14 people. They held hands and ceremoniously walked a few feet to symbolically block an access road (which had been in fact blocked by police barricades). At that point, police officers politely asked the protestors if they knew what they were doing and explained that they would be arrested if they chose to remain standing in the access road. The eighty-four who were handcuffed (plastic strips) and bused to the police station were issued citations that would bring fines of $200, if the city decides to prosecute.

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