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October 04, 2007

Faith in America Kicks Off Tolerance Campaign in Key Primary States

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)

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