🚀 go-pugleaf

From: CENDO RICHARD <cendo@spot.Colorado.EDU>

Sat. & Sun, July 16th & 17th, 1994


Colorado Springs, CO -- At sunrise, Saturday morning, city employees 
began to erect a bright, orange, net fence to protect Mel White's Fast 
For Understanding site in front of James Dobson's Focus on the Family 
world headquarters.  For three hours the previous afternoon, on a local 
Limbaugh-like talk show, representatives from Focus and from Colorado For 
Family Values, the group that authored Colorado's unconsitutional 
Amendment 2, had been protesting Dr. White's fast, questioning Dr. 
White's motives, and denying the charges that both organizations were 
misleading the public with their false and inflammatory rhetoric against 
gay and lesbian Americans.  More threats and various calls to march on 
the site "to take care of those creeps" were made by the angry listeners. 
Early Saturday morning, all roads leading to Mr. Dobson's 
multi-million-dollar facility were blocked.  Just one lane of traffic 
was left open for Coloradans in solidarity with Dr. White's fast who 
would be arriving for the 12:00 noon Pro-Family Rally. Police officers 
wearing bullet-proof vests were parked in place or patrolling the grounds by 
foot, on horseback, and in at least a dozen squad cars.  

"I didn't think anybody would come," Dr. White confessed as he sat in the 
Ground Zero RV watching dozens of Coloradans make their way through the 
police barricades and up the hill to the fast site just yards from the 
Focus "Welcome Center."  He went on to explain that just the night 
before, only 150 people showed up for the Pride Film Festival's screening 
of "Living Proof," a prize-winning documentary on courageous and loving 
people with AIDS.  "More than 600 people had purchased advance tickets," 
White continued, "but because of the wild charges and angry threats 
cluttering the airwaves, people called Ground Zero's office cofessing 
they were afraid to attend.  And that was in a public auditorium in 
downtown Colorado Springs," White added. "I was expecting only a handful 
of folk to attend the Pro-Family rally here at Focus."

But by noon, this reporter counted almost 200 Coloradans, straight and 
gay together, walking up the grassy hillside towards the fast site. They 
came alone and in family units, adults and children, hand-in-hand, 
carrying flowers or balloons as a sign of their peaceful approach to 
building understanding.  They wore brightly colored t-shirts or waved 
hand-made signs with their messages of reconcilliation:  "We are family, 
too,"  "Straight but not narrow," "I love my gay son. . .lesbian 
daughter," "Better gay than grumpy," "Jesus loves us, this we know!" 

The local sponsors of Mel's fast, including Ground Zero, P-FLAG (Parents, 
Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), La Quida (the Latino Caucus) 
and Pike's Peak Metropolitan Community Church were surprised and pleased 
when several TV camera crews arrived to video tape their pro-family 
rally. Lyn Boundreaux, Betty Lynn Mahaffey and friends sang and played 
guitars.  Romanovsky and Phillips, gay life-partners whose best-selling 
duet albums have led to sold-out performances across the nation, called 
to dedicate their song, "Love Is All It Takes," to Mel White and his Fast 
For Understanding.  The song was played before White spoke.  Hosted by 
Bobby Mone, the rally's other speakers included  Franklin Whitworth, 
Altresa Williams of the Colorado Springs Minority Council, Cahuilla 
Margaret Red Elk of the American Indian Movement, Gerda Fletcher, a 
P-Flag mon, Joe Zuniga, America's 1992 "Soldier of the Year," who was 
discharged for being gay, and Micheal Busse, a founder of Exodus, the 
movement that would "cure gays," which he now rejects as "a well meaning 
but terrible deceit."

End of Part 1 of 3

[The additional parts may not be ready for posting until July 21.  If you 
haven't found or received the remaining parts after the 21st, send a 
request for them to cendo@spot.colorado.edu]