National Gay Rights Campaign Kicks Off in Ames

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National gay-rights campaign kicks off in Ames

By Shirley Ragsdale, The Des Moines Register, May 6, 2007

A North Carolina group dedicated to gaining equal rights for gays and lesbians has chosen Ames to launch a nationwide grass-roots campaign it hopes will counter efforts of religious conservatives during the 2008 presidential election.

Faith in America's "Call to Courage" campaign is intended to educate the public about misuse of religious teachings against homosexuality and raise awareness of historical precedents of religion-based bigotry.

"For the last six years, fundamentalist Christians have attacked the gay community through the Republican Party, and the Democrats have not done such a great job defending my rights" said Mitchell Gold, a furniture manufacturer and gay man who is bankrolling the campaign. "Today, the loudest voices against full and equal rights for gay Americans use their biblical interpretations to justify legalized discrimination. Enough is enough."

The national campaign will include local organizing, direct mail, paid advertisements and a town hall meeting in Ames on May 31. Provocative billboards suggesting that gays were affirmed by Jesus and welcomed into the early Christian church were unveiled Thursday on major Ames-area thoroughfares.

"We learned the power of the message of the history of religion-based discrimination," said Jimmy Creech, Faith in America's executive director. Iowans may remember Creech as the pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Omaha who in 1999 was removed by ministry church court for performing same-gender "covenant ceremonies."

"We learned that when people understand that throughout history, religion has been misused to justify slavery, to justify racial injustice and segregation, to justify the denial of women's right to vote, to justify laws that made interracial marriage illegal ... they begin to understand what is happening today against lesbian, gay and transgender people in a new way. (It is) religion-based bigotry."

The Rev. Keith Ratliff, pastor of Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines, agrees that historically, some people have used the Bible to justify discrimination. But, as a black, conservative Christian, he is offended when people equate the black struggle for civil rights with the gay rights movement.

"Even though there have been hate crimes against homosexuals, which is wrong, and discrimination against homosexuals, which is wrong, in my opinion the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement are not parallel," Ratliff said. "Gays aren't denied the right to vote. Gays were not considered to be three-fifths of a person. Gays did not suffer through Jim Crow, separate restrooms and water fountains, sitting in the back of the bus and segregated schools. Gays were not enslaved for more than 200 years in America, lynched and bombed by the thousands, like the black people were."

The First Baptist Church in Ames is one of a half-dozen local churches supporting the Call to Courage campaign. The church's pastor, the Rev. David Russell, believes the effort will stimulate conversation in his church and his American Baptist congregation, as all members are not of the "same mind" on the issues of homosexuality.

"Those who use the Bible to oppress others may see what they're doing as a matter of purity, while I may see it as a matter of injustice," Russell said. "Many want to make Leviticus the high point on Bible teaching about how to view homosexuality. If they're going to it literally, they need to adhere to the passage that says unruly youth should be stoned at the city gates.

"The broader sweep of the Bible is about inclusion and justice for all people."

Steve Scheffler, head of the Iowa Christian Alliance, told the Associated Press his group would continue to lobby candidates, expressing opposition to any expansion of gay rights.

"It is a defining issue," Scheffler said. "Those are going to be some of the issues we are going to cover."

Faith in America leaders said they are not deterred by the opposition.

"Many have said we are dreamers, that we can't change people's minds about their deeply-held religious beliefs," Gold said. "I would remind them that Jerry Falwell was once one of America's leading segregationists and he changed when he realized the harm he was causing."

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