From: Watch97@aol.com
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 11:47:29 -0400
Subject: LESBIAN AND GAY CHRISTIANS TO PRAY ON CAPITOL STEPS TOMORROW

A public-service announcement from "c.c.watch"--

A UFMCC* JusticeNET Bulletin
Monday, September 9, 1996, Washington, D.C--

LESBIAN AND GAY CHRISTIANS PLAN 'PRAY IN' ON CAPITOL STEPS

     Tuesday, Sept. 10, gay Christians wearing black arm bands with pink
triangles will climb the east Capitol steps, form into a human triangle,
kneel and pray for the defeat of the 'Defense of Marriage Act.'

      For the past ten days, lesbian and gay Christians and their allies have
gathered near the east Capitol steps in their "Fast for Justice."  They
represent thousands of clergy and laity across America who are praying and
fasting with them that the anti-homosexual "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA)
will be defeated and that the "Employment Non-Discrimination Act" (ENDA) will
be passed.  DOMA denies lesbians and gays more than 175 legal rights
associated with heterosexual marriage and ENDA forbids discrimination in the
workplace on the basis of sexual orientation.  On Tuesday, September 10, the
fate of both bills is scheduled to be decided in the U.S. Senate.

        "When a great injustice is about to be done," says the Rev. Dr. Mel
White, spokesman for the fast, "our Jewish and our Christian prophets call us
to fast and pray.  The 'Defense of Marriage Act' would result in a great
injustice.  For the first time, Federal law is being used to make
second-class-citizens out of every lesbian and gay in America. We are fasting
and praying that God will change the minds and hearts of the Senators who
have been taken in by the false and inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric of
religious extremists like Pat Robertson and James Dobson."

       During Tuesday's 12 noon vigil, lesbian and gay Christians wearing
black arm bands with pink triangles will climb the east Capitol steps, form
into a human triangle, kneel and pray for justice.  During Hitler's Third
Reich, European lesbians and gays were forced to wear a pink triangle as
"enemies of the state."  White, Justice Minister for the Universal Fellowship
of Metropolitan Community Churches*, compares the "Defense of Marriage Act"
to Paragraph 175 of the Prussian Penal Code, the law used by Hitler in his
attempts to eliminate German homosexuals.

       "It's all happening again," claims White.  "DOMA is just one more
attempt by religious and political extremists to dehumanize and degrade
homosexuals.  One of the Christian Coalition's primary goals is 'to eliminate
homosexuality.'  DOMA helps pave their way with its inference that our love
for one another is inferior, unworthy, perverse.  And worse, it uses Federal
law to deny lesbians and gays in loving, committed relationships all the
legal rights and protections granted automatically to heterosexual couples.
 If passed, DOMA will probably be declared unconstitutional by the courts,"
White says,  "but in the meantime, DOMA would be the first time anti-gay
rhetoric has been enshrined by law.  We are praying that will not happen."

     Already passed by the House, if the Senate approves DOMA and sends it on
to the President, White promises to continue the "Fast for Justice" in
Lafayette Park across from the White House from 12 noon until 1 PM every day
until DOMA's fate is decided by the President.  "The President has promised
to sign this tragic bill," White admits, "but if God can't change the mind of
the Senate, maybe the President..."
FOR FAST INFORMATION OR TO CONTACT MEL WHITE:  (202) 496-6140 or (714)
494-0960.

*(With 300 congregations in 17 nations serving more than 250,000 congregants,
the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches is the largest
Christian community serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
Christians, their families and friends.)