Mitchell Gold's
religious organization, Faith in America, started the
second leg of a five-city campaign Monday to educate the
public about discrimination against gays in the
spiritual realm.
The "Call to
Courage" campaign kicked off in Greenville, S.C.,
where local resident Sean Kennedy was killed outside of a
local bar after being called a gay slur. Faith in
America is also planning to put up 22 billboards
around the city with the message, "Don't confuse against
gays and lesbians with religious truth," said Jimmy Creech,
executive director of the organization. Outreach also
includes newspaper ads, radio and television
commercials, and door-to-door campaigners.
One newspaper ad
shows several public figures -- Laura Bush, Hillary
Clinton, the Obama family, and Jeb and Colomba Bush -- and
says "religion-based bigotry has been used by those
who wanted us to believe...women are inferior. Races
are unequal. Interracial marriage should be banned."
The Reverend
Donna Stroud, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of
the Upstate, told the Greenville News that the
struggle for LGBT people to be accepted into the church is
not only physical but also spiritual.
"As pastors, we
hear every single day the pain inside of folks who
listen in their churches to people tell them that God hates
them, that God does not want them, that their churches
do not want them, and that they are an abomination,"
she said in the article. "This kind of pain leads to
harmful emotional damage often culminating in suicide."
The campaign's
first stop was Ames, Iowa, and will proceed to cities in
other early primary states: New Hampshire, Nevada, and
Florida. The Greenville campaign is scheduled to end
November 13. (The Advocate)