In the Life: Ep. 1208, "The Fundamental Fight"

on this month's in the life religion has been hijacked the fundamental fight they are now in my possession and librarian you're not getting them back and you wonder what's wrong with america i point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen homosexuality is responsible for the greatest epidemic in human history it is abnormal wrong and unnatural god has brought us here all this and more on in the life america's gay and lesbian news magazine in the life is funded in part by the h van ameringen foundation additional support provided by the ford foundation the guild foundation the otto haas charitable trust the overbrook foundation the pride foundation the ted snowden foundation daniel h renberg and eugene kapaloski and the annual support of in the life members like you welcome to in the life i'm cherry jones and i'm david marshall grant as the gay and lesbian civil rights movement has progressed slowly accumulating rights and visibility it has also begun to splinter into camps with divergent values and missions throwing into doubt even the possibility of a homosexual agenda but no matter what goals and beliefs gay men and lesbians may hold there still remains one great unifying condition the religious right sees every one of us as an assault on their way of life many gay and lesbian americans see the rights attempt to silence us as an assault on our very existence and so it seems the gay and lesbian population and the religious right will forever be locked in some kind of political battle this is a battle that in the life was drawn into before it had even begun to air it seems that the broadcasting apologists are hiding behind big bird mr rogers and masterpiece theater laying down their quality smoke screen while they shovel out funding for gay and lesbian variety shows and the attacks on in the life from the senate floor were far from the last time public television would become the arena for the fundamental fight but let this filth come into our classrooms that's fine and you wonder what's wrong with america you wonder what's wrong with america who like really cares if you're gay it's like barely nobody knows in the world it's like what's what's the big whoop in 1992 my son was about to start public elementary school and i started to be concerned about what kinds of messages he was going to be getting at school about the kind of family that he came from the more i thought about it the more i realized that what he was going to be exposed to in the official curriculum was going to be nothing it was going to be silence complete invisibility that gay and lesbian people existed looking for a way to build understanding and tolerance among teachers and students deborah chasnov decided to make its elementary together with co-producer helen cohen she embarked on a four-year project we set out across the country and we found six schools four public schools two independent schools where teachers were doing some kind of lesson that included an awareness of lesbian and gay people or anti-gay discrimination and we took our cameras in to the classrooms and observed we thought the contribution that we could make would be to demystify for people for educators and parents what it would actually look like if a third grade teacher walked into the room and said today we're going to talk about lesbians and gay men when i think of yeah i think of someone like working a boy working funny like a girl once the film was completed chasnoff and cohen traveled to 30 cities to screen and promote it people who are in the audiences of these big premieres got really excited and inspired and they would say to us i'm going to take this film to my son's school and i'm going to sit down with the principal and make her watch this film and they did there's a feeling of inspiration and i think you can't watch the film without feeling motivated to do something the response when teachers and parents see it is usually what can we do here we need more documentaries like this you know this has changed my attitude towards what gay and lesbian people are feeling as word of the film spread so did the press coverage well we were amazed we kept getting you know feature story written about us reviews written about us and they were all incredibly positive and i kept waiting and then finally one day somebody forwarded me something from some right-wing organization ranting and raving about this film and then i would say in the fall of 97 it started coming and it was a deluge the video is basically an infomercial for the homosexual agenda and it's an infomercial for homosexual marriage before we knew it it seemed like it's elementary had become the poster child for the religious right we were what was wrong with america and you should send your money now to stop its elementary as far as activists are concerned the younger a child can be introduced to homosexuality the better schools are also promoting gay and lesbian pride month as shown in this video another resource for homosexual supporters to recruit sympathy from the children amidst protests from conservative groups the documentary aired on numerous pbs stations across the country with its elementary reaching a greater audience through public television reaction to the film intensified the center for reclaiming america has encouraged people all over america to contact their stations and request that they not show it for those of us who are christian conservatives we have many issues that we fight the two hot buttons that i particularly work on are abortion and the homosexual agenda one of the ways the right is responding to the broadcast of its elementary is by demanding that public television stations air a response program they produced called suffer the children the battle in this country between those holding to traditional morality and those espousing hedonism has reached a fever pitch to encourage debate many public stations that aired its elementary also presented their own on-air discussion of the film what we did was to invite seven parents into the studio who had never seen the program before who came from different walks of life they had different attitudes about what children should be taught in school different religious attitudes what they call different family values even although what we found is that they shared a great deal in common including the love that they had for their children sitting next to somebody in class who is gay and finding out about it is not going to make you gay just who decided that it's the business of the public school in this case on teaching homosexuality as it was presented in that film what i heard was a promotion of tolerance and i think that tolerance is a human value it's a family value it's a moral value my mothers mean so so so so so much to me i have two mothers two moms is pretty nice well it's more than pretty nice it's really nice i saw its elementary at a concerned woman for america meeting there were mothers in that room that were crying after that video because they were disturbed about what's happening to our children that our children are being propagandized what we receive in public broadcasting is on the same day per program somebody saying i think this program is very conservative i will no longer support you when somebody's saying this program is so flamingly liberal i will no longer support you and it's the identical program so it does specific the diversity of the american people while its elementary aired on over 90 stations it was not shown in over 20 states there's a great deal of sovereignty and independence per station where every station makes its decision for the community we'll get one of those emails or one of those letters in the mail and it's very upsetting and then i just have to look over at the the relative size of our hate mail and our fan mail and be reassured that the vast majority of people who have seen this film have been elated to see it and to say what can we do about this so that our kids don't have to grow up the way we did all of the stuff that's written in the torah all the stuff that's written in the ancient writings all the stuff that's in the talmud it's in hebrew and it is required that it be interpreted we started something called the queer jewish think tank you look and you see where our place is there's a little teeny phrase in leviticus that is uh the high bahem and it means live by them meaning live by the laws you're not supposed to die by them you're not supposed to have a suffer a little death every day because you've been ostracized from either your religion or you have to separate yourself from the person you love if it's the same sex it's fluid it's and it's meant to be interpreted every generation so we are we're the new generation fundamental fights crop up in neighborhoods across the country a young girl and her mother came to the library they discovered the books on the shelf in the children's picture book section the mother felt that they were totally inappropriate in a children's setting she took the books to the children's librarian and complained she did take the book she checked them out and took them to her minister as i look at these books i was outraged as a parent and as a citizen even more so than a pastor to think that my tax dollars were being used to purchase this kind of literature on mother's day dr jeffress delivered a televised sermon linking the two books to the biblical story of sodom and gomorrah god's word is clear homosexuality is an abomination in the sight of god i want you to listen to this book available in our library now page one my mommy and daddy got a divorce last year now there's somebody new at daddy's house being gay is just one more kind of love and here are daddy and frank hugging one another daddy and his roommate are very happy together and i'm happy to these are the two copies that were out on the shelves they are now in my possession and librarian you're not getting them back the sermon sparked a major controversy in the usually sleepy town of wichita falls confronted by dr jeffress librarian linda hughes decided to stick up for the books the mission of the public library is to serve everyone in the public it's not to serve the majority it's not to serve just a particular faction to support her position linda hughes contacted the american library association office of intellectual freedom and discovered that the books had already ignited firestorms similar to the one in wichita falls the problem is if you put gay men and children in the same viewfinder somebody is going to get terribly upset people who react very strongly to heather has two mommies in a negative way i think feel that if their child reads this book or reads daddy's roommate just once they're going to grow up to be gay what i always tell people is when i was a child i was an avid reader i read thousands of books about heterosexual people and one of those books changed my sexuality the books have been recommended by psychologists by doctors by teachers and by librarians and they've won awards as best children's books i definitely feel they have a place in the collection of wichita falls with the support of the city council the librarian decided that for a 90-day trial period the book should stay in the children's section but be moved to a juvenile area with other books on sensitive topics that decision made dr jeffress even more determined to fight back if that librarian and that city council thinks we are going to bow down in gratitude and say oh thank you thank you thank you for taking these two books and moving them out from our younger children and moving them over to pollute the minds of our older children they've got another thought coming as the controversy increased city leaders denounced the attacks it divides the community divides our people whatever persuasion individuals are they're still citizens of this city and they still have rights it's just like jumping on a group of in our society that's not able to defend itself and there are very few people who are going to come to the rescue of gays and lesbians without being splashed with the same paint this is the worst i have seen as far as this community is concerned and it seems to be the issue of gays we're going to ignore the gays we're not going to give them any information whatsoever we're not going to allow their children to have information about their lifestyle so that they can understand it and that isn't fair the uproar has increased the visibility of some gays and lesbians in wichita falls such as the outspoken pastor of the local metropolitan community church being lesbian mothers we've had the book heather has two mommies in our home since before our son was born we had him through artificial insemination and we knew we were going to need an explanation of how he came about and where he came from so the book has been a wonderful resource for us for kids the books are simple they show what it's like to grow up with gay or lesbian parents but for adults the books are symbols and pawns in a larger cultural war many people seem to use the books heather has to mommies and daddy's roommates for their own political agendas i think many theologians and clergymen in the 20th century they feel like they need a new crusade and so uh gay men and lesbians are a very convenient target a sodomy is against the law in the state of texas b homosexuality is responsible for the greatest epidemic in human history and c homosexuality is an act that god has absolutely condemned if i could talk to dr jeffreys i would invite him to my community and have him spend an afternoon with some lesbian families i would say to him i want you to look this child in the eye and i dare you to say to this child there's something wrong with your family when the story of the missing books hit the press citizens began donating additional copies to the library we were suddenly flooded every day in the book drop there were more and more and more one gentleman ordered five copies of each from amazon.com and had them delivered to us through the mail we had started out with two copies and then we had about 25 copies of each book before it was over with well the irony of it all is that when there's a big controversy about heather has to mommies in any community book sales go up there are probably lesbian moms in small towns all over the country that maybe would never have heard of the book and now they can go and get it and read it to their children some of us have children and we have a right to have resources for those children and we have the right to have them in our public library these are the purloined books i would prefer that the books be removed completely but i also am a reasonable person who would accept a compromise and that is restricting these books to adult checkout only and some city council members seem inclined to agree the parents want their children to read those books fine i have no problems with that if parents don't want their children to read those books that's fine too that ought to be a solution since there is no adult only section daddy's roommate and heather has two mommies would be the only restricted books in the entire wichita falls library anytime you're restricting access to information you are censoring it needs to be accessible without the intimidating factor of i must ask for it at the desk that is limiting the freedom of information 90 days later the books were returned to the children's section where they have remained ever since well i say there's a tremendous burden of moral responsibility and guilt on anybody who would presume to exclude sexual minorities from the kingdom of heaven and any christian who presumes to speak that invites divine wrath and retribution the greater burden to be accounted for it seems to me in the life to come will be exactly on those christians who practice ministries of exclusion and and discrimination and shunning now the consequence of that for a lot of gay people is that they have been made spiritual orphans they have been made to believe themselves unworthy of god's love which i think is essential to gay health a sense of gay worth a sense of gay being as a creature of god in the name of religion many communities attempt to enforce homophobic ideologies with laws and sometimes with violence in certain islamic countries the punishment for gay men can be death in oregon in 1992 the strategy took the form of ballot measure 9. the oregon citizens alliance a conservative christian group proposed a constitutional amendment which declared homosexuality abnormal and perverse banning its mention in government agencies and schools the measure supporters were fervent in some cases to the point of violence you take sodomy for example if somebody's going to do that it is dangerous it is going to rip and tear it's going to cause infections i don't care what you say and when you don't do things like that are not designed for your body it is abnormal wrong and unnatural heterosexual sex can be just as dirty just as unclean and you need to catch the same diseases what's your point i simply want to know who's next is the blacks is it the native americans is it catholics is it mormons is it jews is it people who are too tall is i want to know that are you gonna whittle away everyone piece by piece until they're all just like you who is next the catholic church uh was very uh very with the no on nine side uh in fact catholics voted two to one against the measure which i think as a as a lesbian you know we we think that certain people are our enemies and they don't accept us but in this instance i you know this proved not to be true the archbishop of the catholic church of oregon came out with a public statement on why catholics should oppose a ballot measure 9 and saturday night i heard a noise and then i came downstairs and the rectory was on fire and they had broken into the church and spray painted all around the church there was a lot of shock tears sadness and anger people in this community really understand because in the 20s the ku klux klan was very strong and it managed to push law through to close the catholic schools and even went through schools and churches looking for for catholics with guns because they thought the catholics had an agenda to take over the state and so i think for the people here especially the older people they remember the cross burnings and some of the same kinds of things and i know when they saw the graffiti on the directory it reminded of them of the 20s the northwest has a lot of neo-nazi white supremacist skinhead kind of element in it and they found ballot measure 9 and the language and the dialogue that was happening across the state an excuse to perpetrate violence i don't like trying to sleep with one eye open and one ear alert i'm exhausted i'm afraid though ballot measure 9 garnered 43 of the vote in 1992 it did not pass it was defeated again in both 1994 and 2000 but by narrower margins the first thing that people always tell me when they hear about being gay muslim is it's an oxymoron the two can't ever go together in one in one way and that's really sort of the struggle of gay muslims um all over the world is that you have to pick one of these two identities when i went off to school in boston massachusetts i was brother faisal alam you know during the daytime that night going out and clubbing and hanging out with my friends and those sorts of two lives really came crashing down in november of 1997 when i really just had a nervous breakdown it was when i was in the hospital for about two and a half weeks when i said that i can't live these two dual lives anymore and that i need to figure out how to bring the two together and that's when sort of the process of trying to find out who else was out there began so i sent out a message to muslim student associations to find out if anyone else was also struggling with the issues of being gay and muslim within minutes you know people had started subscribing to this internet list serve and it was the first time that to our knowledge that people really had a safe forum to come together and talk about different issues author michelangelo signorelli was one of the first writers to take note it's a testament to the power of the internet that perhaps one of the most underground subcultures imaginable gay and lesbian muslims could come to the surface and that people could organize and communicate globally organized a three-day long retreat in boston massachusetts the retreat became the genesis of the organization the retreat theme was which comes from the first chapter of the holy quran which is the the holy book of muslims and means the opening or the beginning so it became an appropriate you know title for the organization we asked four members of al-fatia into our studio to talk about growing up gay and muslim you know if somebody just meets me then they just assume that you're heterosexual you're conservative get alive i'm a homosexual going to meet my boyfriend in a bar for a drink does that help you i believed in islam i believed in that i believed in being right and believed like i cannot deny myself something that i felt was very natural when i had some friends who quit when i came out to them they like you know what about religion i'm like well if god is saying if it's such a bad thing then he would tell me why is it why it's bad and he would show me a way to stop it when i did finally come out and my parents you know knew that i was gay my relationship with my father was damaged beyond repair a year later i got a call from my mom asking if she could come live with me i was in grad school because my father had decided since i was not going to i'm an only son and since i was not going to carry on the family name that it was now his responsibility and at 70 years of age decided that he was going to have an arranged marriage with another woman and produce more offspring i needed to come out i absolutely needed it for myself but in that cultural context i don't think it's necessary and i think and i know others who are moroccan from both sides of the family and from devout families they haven't had any problems their family knows islam says that all people who believe in one god are good people of the book and my mom was christian so i was like oh at least she's okay but whenever i listen to christians talking about people who weren't christian it's like they're all going to hell so i was like well you know these two religions like at least this you know islam is a little bit broader and more open-minded i feel more comfortable being in that religion and thinking both my both my parents are going to be okay then listening to what my mother's religion says and thinking my father's going to hell and so am i there has been as in christianity one or two passages that are constantly used by various groups and blown up and deemed the word and of course you see in islam just as in christianity other things that are in the koran that tend to uh be ignored or decided upon as things that are no longer important islam's interpretation has really been influenced by the culture in each country that it spreads to so and that really has a lot to do with um sort of the treatment of gay people as well in muslim countries reported on how islamic law is used to intimidate and oppress it is according to the taliban's reading of islamic law that homosexuals are to be put to death with a wall uh falling on them in one of the cases that i was looking at three men survived and were in the hospital with most of the bones of their bodies broken and were free to go after that because according to taliban law somehow they were exonerated if their lives were spared by god the official taliban radio will announce it uh on the air uh and really make a big thing out of it and let people know that these people were put to death because of their homosexuality often will say that these people confessed in egypt while the death penalty isn't on the books gay muslims have been publicly humiliated arrested even tortured on may 11th i began receiving emails from an anonymous man in egypt and he told a story about a police raid on a discotheque which was rumored to be a gathering place for gay men of of dozens of men who had been arrested at least 52 men have been held for months without charges being pressed without the opportunity for bail the egyptian government decided that it needed to turn around and as it were throw a bone to fundamentalist forces and the bone they threw took the form of the lives of 52 gay men they counted me because they needed a body 23 of the cairo 52 were convicted of contempt of religion and obscene behavior and sentenced to between one and five years hard labor these people are really being used as an example uh by the egyptian government to again send a fear throughout the population islam is not universally a religion in which any country that where people are predominantly muslim will oppress homosexuals it is about governments and what they do with religious law i think it's about compromising one aspect of your life versus the other but creating new paths and creating new ways of of practicing your islam while still being gay i mean islam is a very community oriented religion al-fatiha is really helping to create a new family and a new community not one individual not one ideology has a monopoly over god and i think a lot of gay religious groups if you will both gay catholics buddhist gay muslims have really understood that concept that religion has been hijacked and that in fact the root of all religious tradition all religious faith is the notions of peace love and justice i'm harvey fierstein and you're watching the emmy-nominated gay and lesbian news magazine in the life still to come on in the life the gay movement is the spear point in the culture war against the judea christian value hope system change we are men it is a man thing men must find and conquer we ask you to forgive us i'd never want to go back to not being a submitted woman damn this is just so serious i totally concur the fundamental fight plays out on our televisions and ballots in our libraries and classrooms in our neighborhoods and governments groups like exodus international and the promise keepers believe the true battle lies in an individual's soul but because both groups maintain ideological and financial ties to the christian right some critics contend that this religious crusade is being fought for political purpose in june of 1997 conservative groups organized a conference in georgetown entitled homosexuality and american public life i believe myself that the gay movement is the spear point in the culture war against the judeo-christian value system the presenters of this conference whether intentionally or not are contributing to the climate of hostility and discrimination i believe in christ and i believe christ has the power to change people changing people from gay to straight through jesus christ is the mission of exodus international whose members were among those attending the conference john polk a former drag queen is exodus vice president we have 85 agencies in the united states and in several foreign countries and in our 22 year history over 200 000 people have contacted exodus agencies for help and information while the exodus numbers seem formidable the percentage of people who change from gay to straight is highly questionable we don't keep statistical data like that we believe change is a process and a person will start at point a and they will move towards point b as soon as a person has made one step away from point a they've changed psychotherapist richard cohen specializes in sexual reorientation once gay and now married with children cohen wrote a children's book to tell people his story i wrote alfie's home to let children teens adults educators and therapists know that the possibility of changing from homosexual dead or sexual exists the book tells the story of alfie who grows up thinking he might be gay my uncle pete comes over sometimes he lives with us every now and then he's really kind to me holding me listening to me and making me feel loved one night when he was holding me he started touching my private parts when i became a teenager i started feeling really different from the other guys after a while i went to a counselor for help and advice i told him my story and that i thought i was gay he said i wasn't gay i just missed my dad's love and was taught wrong things by my uncle my belief is that homosexuality originates in unresolved childhood trauma and therefore homosexual feelings and desires are merely symptoms of these wounds cohen is a member of the national association for research and therapy of homosexuality it's an organization of professionals who believe that there is an etiology to homosexuality and therefore it can be changed that organization as we understand it is founded in the position that homosexuality is a mental disorder in 1973 the american psychiatric association removed homosexuality from its diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders two years later the american psychological association passed a resolution supporting this decision i think the apas both have done a tremendous disservice to science and to the homosexual community by taking out the diagnosis based on political pressure not scientific research to say that there was no scientific basis is absurd there has been a substantial body of research beginning in the late 50s with evelyn hooker's ground breaking research that has consistently shown over and over again if you compare a group of lesbian gay and bisexual people to an appropriate control group on any number of measures of psychological well-being mental health social adjustment etc you find no differences exodus international held its annual conference in wilmore kentucky attracting 800 participants from all over the country almost 30 years after stonewall and 24 years after the apa decision what makes thousands of people so unable to face their lives as gay men and lesbians i sought help to change or to get fixed because i grew up believing that it was a sin and that it needed to be changed as i started reading the bible from beginning to end cover to cover it became overwhelmingly clear to me that that in god's creative intent that he did not mean for me to be homosexual and so that made a lot of sense to me and that's when i discovered exodus in 1987. and i had never heard that a homosexual could change i thought the only way that you could escape homosexuality was through death there's in late 1996 outpost ministries in minneapolis produced this commercial which aired during the historic ellen coming out episodes if you're gay or lesbian and don't want to be there's hope for change many have left the lifestyle you can too i think that telling someone that there's an option to change is giving them false hope i mean there's certainly always the option to live contrary to how you feel and to who you are and i think there's plenty of people doing that for five years jeff ford was one of these people i tried everything i mean i read every book i went to every conference i went through with my wife you know numerous different kinds of therapy and believe i really gave it a fair shot over a five year period of time after falling in love with his reparative therapy partner who now remains his life partner after nine years ford decided he no longer believed in the process i went to the board of directors at outpost and exodus and told him that that i wasn't healed that i was struggling with same-sex fantasies that i had indeed been sexually active a couple of times while i'd been director of the ministry and i didn't believe in this anymore while many become spiritually disillusioned after exodus there are those who maintain their faith i still believe that i'm a christian my views have certainly changed i don't know that i can i can say that one way is particularly the the right way or the only way as lesbian gay rights continues to make headway in america the religious right has found a new ally the ex-gay movement it comes as no surprise to us that the religious right has become far more invested in this process the christian right seems to be more willing to put a little bit of money into these ministries and i fear exploit them to then say hey thousands of people are able to be healed and changed therefore we don't need laws to protect gays and therefore you know it's uh not fair to say that this is a orientation we're here we're ex-queer get used to it i support you being happy and i support all the ex-gays being happy because everyone's not gay and i believe that you are happy now but if it ever comes today that you're 32 35 years old and you haven't found this right just know that we exist and that we're here to help you we're not here to hurt you if you provide a promise for change and you're changing as many people as possible what you're ultimately trying to do is to get rid of a minority culture all you have to do is look at history to know that there have been a number of movements and leaders who have attempted to annihilate a race or culture on september 19 2000 author wayne besson photographed john park the ex-gay vice president of exodus international in the washington dc gay bar mr pease though he claimed he'd only stopped in to use the restroom he was fired from his position at focus on the family park has since been rehired promise keepers is a christian outreach to men primarily through stadium conferences and ongoing small groups promise keepers encourages men to live godly lives and keep to seven promises it was a show of strength as nearly half a million men flocked to the mall in washington dc for the stand in the gap rally in the life was also there to find out who the promise keepers are and why political progressives seem so concerned about this increasingly popular group i think it's very fitting that we go to our nation's capital and make a statement of humility there right in the power source where we have no agenda listen to god's word obey your leaders and submit to their authority promise keepers is a major project of the leadership of right-wing religious organizations to create a men-only movement to further their political and social agenda let us change history in our nation today let us change history in our world today the promise keepers are just the hottest religious right marketing tools since televangelism this charge that the promise keepers are not just religious but the newest face of the religious rights we see that the leadership of the promise keepers is closely linked with many right-wing groups the men who are coming may or may not be aware of those linkages and we want to make them aware for instance focus on the family is the parent group of family research council a group they spun off to do overtly political lobbying and election of right-wing people now family research council is welcoming the promise keepers to town at the airport they have placards on all the washington times newspaper stands they had a four-page spread in yesterday's washington times we think that the leadership here has clear links with the right another group studying the links between the promise keepers and the religious right is new york's center for democracy studies the center for democracy studies was set up about a year ago to undertake in-depth research into threats to our democratic values here and abroad god has brought us here to prepare us let's proceed it's wartime promise keepers is bending over backwards to pretend that they're not political but of course coach mccartney who founded and still leads the movement has a long track record of extreme right-wing politics he was on the advisory board of colorado for family values which backed the homophobic colorado initiative bill bright's 300 million dollar a year campus crusade for christ and pat robertson's christian coalition are major supporters of promise keepers and the coach it's great to have you back on the 700 club not only all its founders and leaders activists and extreme right-wing politics but when they came to choosing their national spokesman who did they pick mark damas who's had a long career supporting jerry falwell and most recently he was on the letterhead of the pat buchanan for president campaign as a member of his advisory committee in the life recently spoke to mark damas over the phone what is the promise keeper's current position on homosexuality we would take the position that homosexuality according to biblical reference would be wrong this sentiment was echoed back on the mall two gay men would be welcomed their sin would not be welcome but keep in mind as human beings we are all sinners okay so we can help the lesbian community we can help the homosexual community through christ helping the homosexual through christ means changing from gay to straight we have 20 people from ex-gay ministry exodus international we're the local dc chapter transformation x-game ministries we're here to let our gay brothers and sisters know at national organization women that this is a lie that you can recover from homosexuality number one number two promise keepers has been very friendly to us they have given us scholarships to come to their conference why were ex-gay people given scholarships to to stand in the gap there was no fee to attend stand the gap so in that sense there were there were not scholarships uh there may have been some some travel stipends um made available promise keepers has embraced us they disagree with the gay lifestyle but they love homosexuals and they have loved us into healing while gay men are being encouraged to sacrifice while being gay women are being asked to make another sacrifice sit down with your wife and say something like this honey i've made a terrible mistake i've given you my role and now i must reclaim that role i'm not suggesting you ask for your roll back i'm urging you to take it back i'd never want to go back to not being a submitted woman some question it's going to probably change a lot of things at my household this submission thing's a big thing some apologize we need you we ask you to forgive us for not showing you respect and the honor you deserve and many as in this gathering of thirty thousand promise reapers surrender but what the promise keepers assert is that what they're really about is asking men to change openly lesbian journalist donna minkowitz agrees i mean one thing that i don't think a lot of feminists have looked at is um is they're actually encouraging men to give up a lot of the ways this culture teaches them to be men in some really wonderful ways i mean they're telling men you know what it's important to work on your relationships you know what it's okay to have feelings you don't need to dominate every situation and dominate the people in your lives and that's a big deal it's actually very far from traditional masculinity while some of the changes the promise keepers seek may be valuable progressives remain concerned i felt the leadership of the promise keepers and the backers and initiators of this anti-lesbian gay anti-woman group for exploiting some legitimate needs that men on this mall have coach mccartney recently gave an interview in which he said our constitution must not be in violation of god's law how does he interpret god's law on january are fully involved and everything's in order promise keepers is going to turn and go globally but until then now would like men to adopt a different set of promises i promise to respect women's equality and reject calls for women to submit to male authority i promise to uphold women's rights including the rights to abortion and to be free of male violence and to support civil rights for all including people of color lesbians and gays and religious freedom for all promise keepers claims to have recruited over five million men to its conferences since 1990 there was a black gay man a writer director of aids films and his name was donald woods and and he actually had died of aids and his family actually at the funeral didn't want to say that uh that that was what he had died of it was a time of like great tension because a lot of black gay men were dying there was a poet um assato saint he stood up at the funeral and he saw and he marched down to the pulpit and he was uninvited and um and he slammed his hand um on the podium and he said uh donald woods was a black gay man and um and he died of aids i think that will always go down in history that that asado told the truth um and it was a beautiful moment i'm pamela snead and you're watching in the live the promise keeper's mission relies on a definition of masculinity that forges their interpretation of christianity with gender codes far too rigid to tolerate homosexuality according to the late filmmaker marlon riggs sexuality and gender identity are further complicated in the african-american community by the historic and political burdens of race in his last film black is black inked leading critical thinkers explore the dimensions that race adds to homophobia in black america black manhood black masculinity historical sore spots for centuries american culture had regarded us as playful eunuchs laughing singing childlike in our disposition while black women were seen as strong and often because of this unwomanly our men were considered weak is there any wonder then that when black men finally achieve public voice the top priority was restoring what society had repeatedly stolen from us to be a black man required this code of silence you didn't express feelings you weren't hurt you couldn't acknowledge hurt pain and rage and anger and what that engendered was silence no one talked to each other is that would have been admitting vulnerability vulnerability was associated with being feminine black masculinity black manhood isn't that ultimately what it became all about the redemption of an emasculated male identity when we translate the history of black oppression sexually especially through the writings of george jackson elders cleaver it's all sexualized into emasculation and castration so the reclamation of the black race gets translated into it's a dick thing that's why i'm fond of saying if the black thing is really addicting in disguise we're in serious trouble because it is like a kind of worship of the phallus so you can buy into the popular stereotypes and run around holding your dick and thinking you gotta everything in sight to prove that you are a man to prove that you have that stamina and that virility and you're not to be with we are men all men do it we have to do it we are men it is a man's thing men must find and conquer as much easy as they can get do not think for two seconds that's why for example eddie murphy's raw fascinated me i mean when he when he says you know in that film that a woman doesn't want to hear that you love her she wants to know that you you will fight her to death and he's doing that you know and in the audience when i saw that black men were given black power salutes and i was thinking damn this is just so serious this idea that you know we need to reclaim the space of that erect brutalizing phallus as our identity as a people many people would say that i'm not a member of the black community in fact many of the people who are viewing this would say she says she's lesbian oh no that doesn't cut it but the thing is i know i'm a part of the black community in every single way that is important it's obvious because of our sexuality we've been treated as outcasts to be gay or to be lesbian is not to be black to be black is to be heterosexual this idea that um somehow my blackness is diminished because i love a man it's purely out of that sense that black men have been chatted black men have been lynched black men have been shot beaten brutalized by the police the government every which way etc so that some people view black homosexuality as the final break in masculinity how do we keep ourselves together as a people in the face of all our differences how do we maintain a sense of communal selfhood if you will who's in the community and who's not i mean there's been a history of excluding other black folk from community in this country to the detriment i think of our empowerment as an overall people next month on in the life the body politic the changing image of aids girls just want to have fun it won't be on tennis it wouldn't be on sports it really i think empowered women in a way that gloria steinem couldn't imagine and the old ball game i'd rather do it with a guy but when all this said and done kippy i'd rather just play ball and finally writer paul rudnick sits in for in the life regular harvey fierstein following the terrorist attacks in new york washington and pennsylvania jerry falwell made the following statement i really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle the aclu people for the american way all of them who tried to secularize america i point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen his host on cbn 700 club pat robertson replied i totally concur both men later apologized for their remarks without quite retracting them these guys are not only repulsive they're truly nuts they still love that phrase alternative lifestyle which always sounds like a retirement community in florida and those pagans and feminists what about the pink ladies or the olsen twins the immediate outcry against jerry and pat seemed to stun them at least for a moment jerry later said on his website that quote in retrospect i should have mentioned the national sins without mentioning the organizations and persons by name so being gay is now a national sin who chooses these sins is it like selecting a national anthem or a state bird jerry also said that he quote had no intention of being divisive what was he after a thank you note a big warm hug here's the only possible apology that could really make a difference i propose that jerry and pat get married to each other on a very special broadcast then all will be forgiven i'd even throw rice well i throw something amen i'm cherry jones and i'm david marshall grant from all of us at in the life here at the millennium broadway hotel in new york thank you for watching and we'll see you next month in the life is funded in part by the hvan american foundation additional support provided by the ford foundation the gill foundation the auto haas charitable trust the overbrook foundation the pride foundation the ted snowden foundation daniel h grenberg and eugene kapulaski and the annual support of in the life members like you you