Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 11:40:39 -0500 From: Gabo3@aol.com New York Newsday - Thursday, March 16, 1995 Should Fasts Replace Clenched Fists? by Gabriel Rotello New York - Can the lesbian and gay movement find a model in Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non violence? Can gay people's right to love openly be won by Gandhi's tactics of combating hate with love? Those questions were raised recently in a Virginia Beach jail by Dr. Mel White, the former dean of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Tex., the nation's largest lesbian and gay congregation. In February White and a delegation of interfaith clergy went to the headquarters of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and requested a meeting with Robertson. White was the ghostwriter of Robertson's 1986 book "America's Dates with Destiny," but the two haven't exactly been close since White came out of the closet a couple of years ago. Now White had come to explain how Robertson's homophobic rhetoric incites violence against lesbians and gays. Robertson, in a telling display of his brand of Christian charity, had White and company evicted from the premises. When White returned the next day, Robertson had him arrested for trespassing. White told me that he "never dreamed Robertson would have me arrested," and he reacted spontaneously. He announced that he would fast in jail until Robertson heard him out. As days turned to weeks and the only response from Robertson was silence, White found himself pondering what would happen if Robertson ultimately refused to meet. Should he risk death? "For anybody as excited about living as I am, that seemed a dramatic question," White told me. But after three weeks of starvation it was a question that had to be faced. On day twenty-two he resolved to go all the way if need be. "And lo and behold," White says, nine hours later Robertson changed his mind, hastened to the jail, listened to White's plea and dropped all charges. White was released from jail, having won a small moral victory over one of gaydom's most powerful foes. No one believes Robertson has changed his mind about gay people. But he did give in and meet with White, and that rare victory over a committed homophobe raises the question of what might happen if gays and lesbians widely adopted the tactics and philosophy of non violent resistance that White's fast epitomized. Not that gays are violent. Far from it. Despite Robertson's rhetoric about "gay extremists," there has never been a single queer terrorist, or bomber, or AIDS assassin. But neither have there been civil disobeyers languishing years in jail. Or fasters unto the brink of death. Given the gravity of the gay struggle and the tragedy of AIDS, it seems odd that people have not voluntarily sacrified their lives or their freedom for the cause. True, activists sometimes get briefly arrested. White himself was trained in civil disobedience by ACT UP. But the gay movement has had a far greater flair for indignation than self deprivation. When most people think of gay civil disobedience they probably think less of prayer vigils and fasts than of fiery slogans and clenched fists - and even the desecration of the mass. The fierce gesture and acid sound bite seem more central to the repertoire than the principles of ahisma and satyagraha and the greeting of hate with love. Activist anger is an appropriate response to oppression. But so is love, says White. And he has some of history's greatest religious and political thinkers behind him. They hold that forgiveness not only changes one's enemies, but the forgiver, too, is transformed. White feels he was transformed in his tiny cell. He certainly sounds it. Gandhi based his belief in nonviolence on the assumption that human nature "unfailingly responds to the advances of love." Love certainly worked miracles when the issue was India's independence. Mel White's quiet victory over Pat Robertson challenges us to imagine how well it might work when the issue is love itself.