Subject: SOULFORCE Civil Disobedience Endorsed by EPF
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 09:57:45 EDT

Press Release from  May 9, 2000 

FAITH LEADERS STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH UNITED METHODIST LESBIAN, GAY, 
BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDERED INDIVIDUALS

EQUAL PARTNERS IN FAITH ENDORSES SOULFORCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

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Equal Partners in Faith
Press Release: For Immediate Release    May 9, 2000     
Contact: Rev. Steven Baines (202) 296-4672 ext. 14
(202) 296-4673 fax      [email-masked]
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Washington, DC - On the eve of a historic civil disobedience act organized by 
Soulforce, Inc. during a heated United Methodist General Conference, leaders 
of the national faith organization EQUAL PARTNERS IN FAITH prayed in 
solidarity this evening with more than 200 Soulforce volunteers, Methodist 
bishops and civil rights leaders. 

Rev. Steven Baines, Executive Coordinator of EPF and a Southern Baptist 
minister, stated: "We pray tonight that our voices and our actions will be 
heard by not only the delegates to the United Methodist General Conference, 
but by Christians and other people of faith around the globe. If we are 
silent, we as faith leaders have failed again in our greatest mission to love 
our neighbors as God has first loved us. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and 
transgendered people are our neighbors."

As 992 delegates from around the world meet tomorrow morning in the Cleveland 
Convention Center, Soulforce volunteers and civil rights leaders, including 
Arun Ghandi, Mahatma Ghandi's grandson, and Yolanda King, Martin Luther 
King's daughter, will lead their prayer vigil directly to the floor of the 
conference center. Cleveland police will be on hand to arrest those who 
participate in the action which is designed to show the destructive force of 
excluding LGBT individuals from full participation in the life of the church.

"We are using this civil disobedience and mass arrest to deliver a clear 
message to leaders of all the Christian churches," said Rev. Dr. Mel White, 
co-founder of Soulforce (www.soulforce.org) and an EPF Advisory Board member. 
"This tragic debate about God's lesbian, gay bisexual and transgendered 
children must end. The suffering has gone on far too long. We are hoping and 
praying the United Methodist Church will reverse its anti-homosexual position 
and lead the entire Christian community to justice, mercy and truth for 
sexual minorities."
                        
Since 1972, the UMC General Conference has issued increasingly stricter 
positions against homosexuality stating: "the practice is incompatible with 
Christian teaching (1972);" "self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be 
accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers or appointed to serve in the 
UMC (1980);" and "ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be 
conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches 
(1984)." Most recently in 1999, Rev. Jimmy Creech, a Methodist minister and 
EPF Advisory Board member, was stripped of his ordination credentials after 
performing a same-gender holy union.

Rev. James Lawson, Jr., a retired United Methodist clergy and leader in the 
1960's civil rights movement as advisor to Martin Luther King, issued the 
following statement to the delegates in Cleveland: "In going to General 
Conference as a delegate in these last two decades, I have been persistently 
dismayed that a relatively small group are willing to divide the Church over 
the issue of gay and lesbian persons. Let us end this issue by accepting our 
homosexual sisters and brothers as full members of the community of faith and 
get on with God's work."

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Founded in 1997, EQUAL PARTNERS IN FAITH is a multi-faith, multi-racial 
network of religious leaders and people of faith committed to equality and 
diversity. Our diverse faith traditions and shared religious values lead us 
to affirm and defend the equality of all people, regardless of religion, 
race, ability, gender or sexual orientation. As people of faith, we actively 
oppose the manipulation of religion to promote exclusion and inequality. 

EQUAL PARTNERS IN FAITH is helping mainstream and progressive people of faith 
promote a more inclusive vision of religion and society. 

Equal Partners in Faith
2026 P Street NW
Washington, DC  20036
(202) 296-4672 ext. 14
(202) 296-4673 fax
email:  [email-masked]
http://www.us.net/epf

Circulated by Laura Montgomery Rutt, EPF National Board of Directors
[email-masked]