From BoiseBear@aol.com Tue Feb 14 00:39:30 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mail02.mail.aol.com by casti.com (8.6.9/NX3.0M) id AAA20798; Tue, 14 Feb 1995 00:39:29 -0500 From: Received: by mail02.mail.aol.com (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA29476; Tue, 14 Feb 1995 00:43:29 -0500 Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 00:43:29 -0500 Message-Id: <950214001251_21121229@aol.com> To: freedom@idbsu.idbsu.edu, soc-motss@cs.utexas.edu, NGLTF@aol.com, ftr-strategy@qiclab.scn.rain.com, gaynet@queernet.org, glb-news@brownvm.brown.edu, DigiQueers@aol.com, qrd@vector.casti.com, DRREDWING@aol.com Cc: DiversityN@aol.com, MCCBoise@aol.com Subject: Rev. White Faces Pat Robertson Gay Minister Faces Radical Right Leader Inflammatory rhetoric of Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, under attack by former aide. At 12:30 noon, on Tuesday, February 14, 1995, Dr. Mel White (once Pat Robertson's ghostwriter) and a group of religious leaders will seek a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Robertson at his CBN Center in Virginia. "Pat's false claims against gay and lesbian Americans lead to discrimination, suffering, and death," White explains. "We come on Valentine's Day in the spirit of love, but Jesus taught us that real love cannot be silent in the face of injustice. Real love insists that truth be told: Gays & lesbians can be just as Christian and just as American as Pat." White, now the national Minister of Justice for the Metropolitan Community Churches, (300 lesbian and gay congregations in 17 countries) promises to stay in Virginia Beach and fast until Robertson agrees to meet with a small delegation of clergy, scholars, parents, and gays who have come to tell their side of this controversial story. "We just want to talk to him," White explains. "Is that asking too much?" In 1993, Mel White, a gay Christian filmmaker, pastor, and author of Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian In America, came out to Robertson in a letter requesting a meeting to discuss his "anti-gay views." "I wanted to show Pat the new Biblical, psychological, scientific, and historic data about sexual orientation," White remembers, "but he refused to see me. Pat doesn't mean to do harm. He just doesn't realize that his endless recital of tired, old prejudices and badly translated biblical texts leads to tragic misunderstandings, broken families and wasted lives." After 20 more months of monitoring Pat's anti-gay rhetoric on the700 Club, in CBN fund-raising appeals and Christian Coalition publications, White asked Pat again for a meeting. Twice, Robertson refused to see him. "I have followed Jesus's own guidelines in Matthew 18:15 for solving disputes with my brother," White declares. "Now as Jesus commanded, I'm going directly to Pat with a delegation of religious leaders. We are not hoping to change his mind about the nature of homosexuality; but we are hoping to persuade him that his false rhetoric against gays and lesbians leads directly to suffering and violence." Interviews or information contact: 804-625-0700, 804-855-6796 or 804-855-8450 The delegation will begin to assemble at 11:00 am, Feb. 14, 1995 behind Shoney's Restaurant, 5668 Indian River Road across from CBN. ============================ Submitted by BoiseBear@aol.com ============================