Subject: Sheldon destroying communities
From: Orlando Cordero <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 14:37:59 -0800 (PST)

Hi all

Today's San Francisco Chronicle (12 January 1994) contained an article entitled
 "Christian Right Tries to Capitalize on Anti-Gay Views."  Due to my fear and
 paranoia about copyright violations, here are the highlights of the article:

"Christian Right Tries to Capitalize on Anti-Gay Views."

by Evelyn C. White
Chronicle Staff Writer

Emboldened by the anti-gay message that is routinely delivered fromthe pulpit of
 the conservative black chrch, a Christian fundamentalist gropu has produced a
 video designed to get blacks to join their movement.

(Gee, can you guess what's in the video?)

The video, "Gay Rights, Special Rights," was made by the Anaheiem-based
 traditional values coalition [I removed the caps because they don't deserve
 them! ;)] by minister Lou Sheldon...the 45 minute video contrasts the 1993 gay
 march on Washington with the
 1963 civil rights gathering during which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his
 legendary "I Have a Dream Speech."
***

According to Sheldon, nearly 45,000 copies of the video have been sold at $19.95
 apiece.  According to Sheldon, after a recent screening of the dieo to black
 ministers in Cincinati, the preachers rallied to help defeat a proposed gay
 rights ordinance for
the city...more than 56 percent of voters in the city's black precincts voted
 against the measure which would have prohibited on the basis of sexual
 orientation.

***
"We couldn't be happer about the response to the video," said Sheldon,..."the
 blacks who cannot change their skin color, are offended that the gays are
 seeking protection for behavior they can change."

***
San Francisco community organizer Al Cunningham said he is outraged that the
 religious right is making overtures to the black church..."The fact that black
 ministers can be bamboozled by someone like Lou Sheldon shows what a sorry
 state the black communit
y is in," said Cunningham, a member of lesbians and Gays of African Descent for
 Democratic Action.

Cunningham continues, "Sheldon's brand of demagoguery works so well because
 blacks as a people have not been able to come to grips with our issues around
 sexuality.  Sheldon has capitalized on that." another advocate urged blacks to
 remember that the cons
ervative groups today striving to pit them against gays are composed of the same
 people who opped civil rights effots 30 years ago."

[Additional quotes deleted.]

For those of you who don't get it, the Sheldon-heads are using one of the worst
 features of Gay culture in America against Lesbigays *everywhere*: racism

There is a need more than ever for the Lesbigay movement to start dealing
 seriously with the issue of racism, and a need for lesbigay people of color
 everywhere to start dealing with lesbigay and racism issues as well, in their
 own communities and at the
global level.  We as lesbian and gay men need to look further ahead to issues
 that we may not right away see as relevent.

Comments anyone?

Orlando

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        Orlando Cordero, Faculty, Studies in American Language
[email-masked]        Office: Studies in American Language, IS 227
[email-masked]               San Jose State University
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