Subject: Soulforce Alert: Gandhi/Civil Rights Heroes Taking Stand for GLBT
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 09:57:59 EDT

Soulforce Alert, April 20, 2000
GANDHI'S GRANDSON, CIVIL RIGHTS HEROES
TO LEAD MAY 10 MARCH FOR GLBT-RIGHTS

Civil Disobedience at Ecumenical Event in Cleveland 
Soulforce Seeking Volunteers Willing to Face Arrest

(Laguna Beach, CA, April 20, 2000) Soulforce, an interfaith organization 
seeking justice for sexual minorities, announced today that well-known 
leaders from the U.S. civil rights movement, and Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, 
Arun Gandhi, will join hundreds of Soulforce volunteers in non-violent civil 
disobedience at the United Methodist General Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, 
May 10.

"We are using this civil disobedience and mass arrest to deliver a clear 
message to leaders of all the Christian churches," says Soulforce Co-Founder, 
Dr. Mel White.  "This tragic debate about God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and 
transgendered children must end.  The suffering has gone on far too long.  We 
are recruiting and training our allies to help us end that suffering."

The Soulforce Nonviolence Training (May 9) and Direct Action (May 10) are 
timed to coincide with an appearance at the United Methodist General 
Conference in Cleveland by the Archbishop of Canterbury and ecumenical 
leaders from various Christian churches. "We are not attacking Archbishop 
Carey, the other religious dignitaries or even the United Methodist Church," 
explains Karen Weldin, a Co-Chair of the Soulforce event.  "We are attacking 
their anti-homosexual policies that lead to wasted lives, broken families, 
and divided churches."  Greg Marlan, also a Co-Chair adds, "We waited 
patiently for more than thirty years for church leaders to take a stand for 
truth. Our patience has run out."

Soulforce organizers are recruiting and training hundreds of volunteers to 
participate in the civil disobedience and arrest.  Arun Gandhi, author and 
founder of the M.K.Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, and heroes of the 
African-American civil rights movement will be the first arrested to 
demonstrate their solidarity with the struggle for justice by sexual 
minorities.   

"Gays and lesbians have a more difficult time than we did," says James 
Lawson, one of Dr. King's close associates and current Chair of the 
Fellowship of Reconciliation. "We had our families and our churches on our 
side.  All too often, they have neither."  

The Rev. Dr. James Lawson and the Rev. Dr. Robert Graetz are just two of the 
civil rights heroes who will train marchers in nonviolence (May 9) and lead 
the Soulforce Direct Action (May 10).  Dr. Lawson is the distinguished United 
Methodist pastor who worked side-by-side with Dr. King training the young 
people who staged the lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides.  Rev. Dr. 
Robert Graetz is the white Lutheran pastor whose home was bombed because he 
stood with Dr. King during the Montgomery bus boycott, 1955-1956.

"We remember when the Bible was misused to exclude racial minorities from the 
churches," says Dr. Rodney Powell, a leader in the nonviolent student 
movement in the 1950s and 60s.  "Today that same Bible once misused to 
support slavery, apartheid, and segregation is being misused to support 
intolerance and discrimination against sexual minorities.  We 
African-Americans had to take our truth to the streets before anyone would 
listen.  It's time homosexual-Americans took their truth to the streets as 
well. This Soulforce event gives us that chance."

FOR MORE INFORMATION about the 7:00 p.m., May 9, training in nonviolent civil 
disobedience and the 7:00 a.m., May 10, mass arrest see the Soulforce Web 
Page: www.soulforce.org. 

ABOUT SOULFORCE:  Soulforce, Inc. is a non-profit organization which trains 
and mobilizes an interfaith, ecumenical network of volunteers committed to 
implementing the Gandhian and Kingian principles of nonviolence to seek 
justice and equal rights for sexual minorities. 

MEDIA CONTACT
Rev. Mel White, 
[email-masked]. 
Ph: (949-455-0999, 
Fax: (949) 455-0959

Co-Chair, Greg Marlan [email-masked]}
Co-Chair, Karen Weldin [email-masked]}
Dr. Rodney Powell [email-masked]}
Dr. James Lawson [email-masked]}
Dr. Robert Graetz [email-masked]}

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