Subject: Op-Ed: A Soulforce Response To The Tinky Winky War
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 13:57:03 EST

From The News Service
of the Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community Churches

BASHING JERRY FALWELL IS HARMFUL TO OUR CAUSE  
A Soulforce Response to the Tinky Winky War
An Op-Ed Piece By Dr. Mel White, February 18, 1999

For the past few days, we've been buried under an avalanche of articles and
press releases bashing Jerry Falwell for "outing Tinky Winky."  

After rushing to condemn him in colorful and indignant sound bites, we learn
that Mr. Falwell didn't "out" Tinky at all.  J. M. Smith, Senior Editor of
Jerry's National Liberty Journal, wrote the column that launched a million
quips.  Before our surprise attack, Jerry had never seen an episode of the
Teletubbies, let alone denounced them.

If anyone outed this cute little character (who is purple, wears a triangular
antenna on his head, and carries a purse) it was our own Washington Blade. Mr.
Smith quoted an April 17, 1998, Blade article as the source of his column in
Falwell's newsletter. The Blade article suggests that Tinky provides  "…a
great message to kids - not only that it's OK to be gay, but the importance of
being well-accessorized." Mr. Smith was simply alerting parents to that claim.

Like the Blade author, I cheer every lesbian or gay character that "comes out"
on television, even the fuzzy, uncertain kind.  I'm hoping that any day now,
lovable, all-purple Barney will turn to the camera and whisper to his vast
children's audience, "I'm gay."  Our granddaughter Katie will call her two gay
granddads with the good news.   Like you, I find it absurd, hilarious, and
even tragic that anyone would see Tinky Winky, Barney or Big Bird as a threat
to the development of a young child's sexual orientation.

But what do we achieve by bashing those, like Jerry, who disagree?  

We are called by Jewish and Christian prophets, "to love our enemy."  Out-
loving our enemy is the only way we can prove to Jerry that he is wrong about
us, that we have chosen the high moral ground, that we are God's children,
too.  Bashing Jerry only hurts us.  I know from experience.  I spent three
years bashing Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and the others.  I got lots of
attention, but I did very little to help our cause and nothing to change the
minds and hearts of those who fear us.

Then I discovered the "soul force" principles of relentless nonviolence as
taught by Gandhi and King.  Both men make it clear.  Our ultimate goal is NOT
to triumph over Mr. Falwell, let alone to embarrass or silence him.  Our long-
range goal is to reconcile with Jerry, to create, in Dr. King's words, "the
beloved community" where we can live as neighbors with Jerry and his family. 

Dr. King would also remind us that Jerry Falwell is our brother, a child of
the same Creator. Jerry is not evil, stupid nor insane. He is a member of our
human family who is a victim of the same misinformation that once kept us in
our closets. Our job is not to humiliate him but to bring him truth, in love,
relentlessly until he, too, is set free.

Instead, we bashed him just like he bashes us. And in the process, we lost the
battle.  The man whose image and ideals we try regularly to laugh away, ended
up the winner again, interviewed by practically every newspaper and television
program in the country. Our bashing helped Jerry regain his old role as the
most visible spokesman for the fundamentalist Christian right.   

"Who would have ever predicted," Jerry said today, "that the little parental
warning in the February issue of the Journal would open such a world of
opportunity…I'll gladly allow my name to be soiled by the secular press in
order to have the occasion to share my relationship with Christ - any time!"

I know Jerry Falwell.  Of course he is "slick, a "media maven," a "genius at
using the anti-homosexual rhetoric to raise money and mobilize volunteers,"
but he is not a phony.  Right or wrong the man is sincerely committed to
defeating "the gay agenda" and to "saving homosexuals from their sickness and
their sin."

Our ridicule, our clever sound bites, our anti-Jerry campaigns do NOT phase
him, let alone persuade him of the justice in our cause. He enjoys every
minute of the conflict.  We will not stop his flood of anti-homosexual
misinformation by bashing him.  Our one day marches, rallies, and
demonstrations won't do it either. In fact, what Frederick Clarkson calls "the
politics of gesture" play directly into our adversary's hands giving them
photos on the evening news and in the morning papers that (falsely) support
Jerry's claims and his listener's fears.

And the flood of hate mail that Jerry has received in the last few days from
our side only convinces him of the "danger we pose to the nation's values."
Inundated with hateful, profane, and threatening e-mail, phone calls, and
faxes, one of Jerry's staff said "…gays can cuss out an individual in far more
creative ways than I have ever seen."

When I was writing Jerry's autobiography (we all have pasts to be forgiven) he
remembered those days when he was misusing Scripture to support segregation.
"It wasn't Congress, the Courts, or the Attorney General that changed my
mind," he recalled. "It was a black man who shined my shoes every Saturday.
One day, he looked into my eyes and said quietly, 'When do you think I can
join your church, Reverend?'" Jerry still remembers that day. 

Without the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that black man might
never have spoken those words (and Jerry might never have opened his church
doors).  We must continue to support our organizations that work for justice
on our behalf with the President, the Congress, and the Courts. We must
continue to support our state and local activists who fight the grass roots
battles against the anti-gay initiatives. But they have their hands full
putting out the fires. Someone must take on the arsonists.

Without meaning anyone harm, Pastor Jerry has become one of the six or seven
primary sources of misinformation about God's gay and lesbian children. He
doesn't understand let alone believe that his false and inflammatory rhetoric
leads (directly and indirectly) to discrimination, suffering, and death.  I'm
sure that Jerry would condemn those who killed Matthew Shepard or carved "fag"
into Adam Colton's chest. We must help him understand that unintentionally his
toxic, anti-homosexual rhetoric pollutes the national discourse and helps give
license to those crimes. 

I appeal to the 22,000 members of Jerry's Thomas Road Baptist Church in
Lynchburg.  At least 1,000 of you are gay or lesbian, or have gay or lesbian
children. Come out.  Share your story with your pastor. It may cost you, but
it will also set you free. 

I appeal to the gay and lesbian students among the 14,000 young people
enrolled at Jerry's Liberty University. Can you imagine the difference you
could make if your story moved Jerry even a little closer to the truth?     

I appeal to the 26,000 Liberty graduates who have received your diploma from
Jerry's hand. How long will you wait before telling him the truth as you know
it?  ACT-UP reminds us that "Silence equals death."

And I appeal to you. You may not know Jerry, but you could still write him in
the nonviolent spirit of "soul force."  He's on the net at [email-masked].
Or you can send him a card or letter at Thomas Road Baptist Church, 701 Thomas
Road, Lynchburg, VA 24502.  Apologize for the hate he's experienced from our
community.  Share your own story with him.   Answer one of his specific
UNTRUTHS about homosexuality and homosexuals with TRUTH.  Pray for Jerry.  And
if you've stopped praying, try to imagine Jerry as God sees him, a sincere man
who is doing great wrong. Ask your Creator to help you love Jerry and see
where that love leads.  

In the 28 years of activism since Stonewall much good has been done, many
victories won, but we haven't yet changed the minds or hearts of Falwell,
Robertson, Dobson, Kennedy or the others. No wonder. We haven't really tried.
We've ridiculed and reviled them never realizing that hating them is violence
of the heart and bashing them is violence of the tongue and pen.  Let's try
the ways of nonviolence. 

Our civil rights movement will not succeed unless our adversaries see us as
men and women of integrity.  Let's take the high moral ground.  Let's stop
bashing our enemies.  Let's show them by our relentless, loving commitment to
TRUTH that we are God's children, too.  Let's start responding to them with
"soul force."  

And if they continue refusing to hear us, if they continue to ignore the
evidence, then we'll have to go the next step.  That next step requires, in
Gandhi's words, "voluntary, redemptive suffering."  Remember in India the
245-mile march to the sea to make salt and the marchers clubbed senseless at
the salt works? Remember in Birmingham the black children facing fire hoses,
clubs, and police dogs?  What will it take from us of "voluntary, redemptive
suffering" to change the minds and hearts of the nation?   We are making plans
to that end.  Will you join us?

Permission granted to Distribute, Forward, Print, or Publish

To Contact Mel White or Gary Nixon: 
Soulforce, Inc., P.O. Box 4467, Laguna Beach, CA. 92652
F: (949) 455-0959    E-Mail: [email-masked]  
www.melwhite.org  www.soulforce.org

To Write Dr. Falwell: 
Thomas Road Baptist Church · 701 Thomas Road Lynchburg, VA 24502
E-Mail: [email-masked]

(END)

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