The New York Times
Friday, March 9th, 2007
pg A10
The Story
The Summary: A Christian youth group based out of Texas that has a repuation for being anti-gay is holding a large youth conference in San Francisco, "the Gayest city in the country."
A two-day event called BattleCry starts Friday at AT&T Park, the downtown baseball stadium. Organizers say the gathering, which includes performances by Christian rock bands and inspirational speakers, is a way for young Christians to speak out against what they view as destructive cultural elements, including sex on television, obscene music and violent video games.
The youth group scene is that one last effort for churches to get their hooks into teens before they go off in to "the real world." I have no problems with Christianity. I call myself a Christian, I hold many Christian beliefs. I do have a problem with the church scene. I grew up Catholic (the church of all churches) but have been exposed to several other Christian religions. Their major flaw is the lack of free thinking. They tell you how to think about certain subjects by handing out literature or more directly by sermons.
But several prominent San Francisco political leaders say Mr. Luce’s group is the one doing the damage, using its young members as a conduit for a message of intolerance.
“They are being fed, spoon-fed, hate,” said Tom Ammiano, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors, who is gay. “And it is incumbent on any group receiving that hate, particularly gay people, to speak out.”
The message is normally: "This is wrong, here's why it's wrong..." but never stating the good about it. Example: Premarital sex. There isn't one church that will tell you that most people who do end up waiting to have sex get married very young. A 1995 study showed that 40% of people that married under the age of 20 eventually get divorced. Statistics show that most people can either wait for sex, or wait for marriage, but not both. Churches don't like to tell the awful truth.
Ben Rosen, a San Francisco organizer with World Can’t Wait, which is leading the protests, said his group was trying to repudiate what it sees as the deeper goals of BattleCry, including “imposing their biblical fundamentalist worldview on the country.”
That said, Mr. Rosen said protesters recognized that they were dealing with a delicate balance of expressing their opinions without appearing to be intolerant themselves.
“We’re not out to yell at kids that believe in Jesus; that’s awful,” he said. “It would be great,” he said of BattleCry, “if it didn’t have this very serious, very pernicious backbone to it.”
Fight fire with fire, fight closed mindedness with open thinking. As long as all protest remain peaceful (Christians claim to be peaceful, the gays tend to be peaceful) I love the idea.
Mr. Luce echoed that sentiment, saying his group loves gay people, but does firmly believe their sexuality is sinful.
“We see homosexuality like a lot of other things that do harm to us, like lying, or cheating, or stealing,” he said, adding that he said he had seen studies suggesting that many gay people are depressed or unhappy. “And it’s not very loving to leave them in that state and not show them another way.”
A perfect example of Christians giving one side of a story. Wouldn't you be depressed if there were entire groups telling you that a your sexual preferance was a sin? If thousands of people told me being blonde was a sin (and yes, I was born with this hair color, it wasn't a choice, and I don't want to change it!) I think I would be pretty depressed, too.
Joe D’Alessandro, the president of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, a private nonprofit group, said the two-day event was too small to have a significant impact on the local economy, but he said its organizers should be allowed to hold BattleCry nonetheless.
“I think we have to practice tolerance, whether or not they practice tolerance,” Mr. D’Alessandro said. “I’m gay myself, and I find their beliefs very offensive. But they have a right to come to our city.”
I'm impressed by the San Francisco city officials. They are definately doing the righ thing, but you know an uber-Chirstian southern city would probably turn down a gay rally.
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