Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:36:29 -0500 From: Jim Bailey Subject: News rel: Protesters jailed for stand against Baptist's view on gays NEWS RELEASE Contact: Diana G. Westbrook, media coordinator (804)837-1568 or (804)307-1099 or the Rev. Dr. Mel White (949)233-3592 June 14, 2000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Group protests Baptist statement on homosexuality Twenty-two are to spend night in Orange County jail ORLANDO (June 14, 2000) - Twenty-eight individuals were arrested today as as result of their civil disobedience at the annual conference of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), held June 13-14 at the Orange County Convention Center. Police charged the group with "unlawful assembly." Until their arrest, the group had been kneeling or standing in silent prayer. Six of the group were released on bond, and the remaining 22 will spend the night in jail until their initial appearance before the judge on Thursday. The civil disobedience was sponsored by Soulforce, a coalition of people of faith working for justice for the non-heterosexual community. In its "Faith and Message," Southern Baptists oppose homosexuality. Many other mainstream Protestant denominations have language in place that prohibits non-heterosexuals from full participation in the church. "Baptists have made it clear that sexual and gender minorities are not welcome in their church," said the Rev. Dr. Mel White, Soulforce co-founder, at the group's nonviolence training the evening before the arrests. "We are committed to the nonviolent teachings of Jesus, Gandhi and King, and we are going to bring the truth relentlessly to churches that condemn or misrepresent us." Among those arrested were the Rev. Dr. James Lawson, a Methodist minister who trained Martin Luther King in Gandhi’s principles of nonviolent resistance, Jimmy Creech, a Methodist minister whose credentials were revoked last year by the UMC for performing a same-sex commitment ceremony, and Ed Harris, a gay retired Baptist minister and founder of Honesty Virginia, a group for non-heterosexual Baptists. In addition to Methodists and Southern Baptists, those arrested included Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Unitarians as well as those of other faiths. They came to Orlando from across the country. Soulforce is planning other civil disobediences this summer: at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly, June 24-25 in Long Beach, Calif., at the Episcopal Church General Conference, July 8-14, in Denver, and at the Reclaiming America for Christ conference, September 28 to October 1, in Fort Lauderdale, FL. In May, White and 190 others were arrested and jailed as a result of Soulforce's civil disobedience at the United Methodist Church's (UMC's) General Conference in Cleveland. At the UMC conference, the group peacefully blocked an exit from the convention center, symbolically proclaiming that there should be "no exit without justice" for God's non-heterosexual children. ### Soulforce (www.soulforce.org) is a coalition of non-heterosexual (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) people of faith working for justice for sexual minorities. Founded in 1998 by the Rev. Dr. Mel White and his partner, Gary Nixon, Soulforce teaches and applies the nonviolent principles of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The historic meeting of Soulforce with Baptist preacher and televangelist Jerry Falwell in October 1999 was widely covered by the nation’s media. Before "coming out" as a homosexual, White ghost-wrote Jerry Falwell’s autobiography.