Flip Benham preaches at N.C. Pride 2006 in Durham. His shirt reads, “Jesus is the Standard.”
The LGBT communities of the Carolinas have come to know far too well the presence of visible and vocal anti-gay opponents. In their attempts to keep gay and transgender people invisible in the two states, the queer communities of the Carolinas are learning how best to deal with them, how to respond and further organize.
Although his official service to the state ended in 2005, former S.C. State Rep. John Graham Altman’s vocal opposition to LGBT equality has certainly left a legacy. First elected in 1997 to represent Charleston County, the Republican had been a fixture in state politics since the 1950s, Altman was among the most outspoken anti-gay leaders in the state.
In 2004 he left his most lasting, harmful legacy when he fervently supported the anti-gay marriage amendment to the state’s constitution, which passed by an overwhelming majority.
“This amendment gives us one extra layer of protection against a federal judiciary gone wild,” said Altman.
In 2004, Altman also attacked his opponent, openly gay Democrat Charles Smith, sending out an email to supporters asserting Smith aligned himself with a “militant homosexual agenda” and that he was helping to contribute to the “decay of traditional values.”
Smith’s parents, James and Irene, were none too pleased with Altman’s words. They wrote to the South Carolina Statehouse Report saying, “The institution of marriage doesn’t need protection from loving, caring gay South Carolinians like our son and his partner; it needs protection from demagogues and hypocrites like John Graham Altman III.”
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has done plenty of damage, as well. Elected to his position in 2004, with the financial backing and powerful support of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, DeMint publicly stated, “If a person is a practicing homosexual, they should not be teaching in our schools.”
Dobson issued an endorsement for DeMint: “Jim DeMint can be counted on to uphold pro-life, pro-family principles as a leader in Congress. Congressman DeMint supports the Federal Marriage Amendment and boasts a near-perfect pro-life voting record.”
DeMint also supported the failed 2006 effort to pass an anti-gay marriage amendment on a federal level.
While South Carolina is busy dealing with vocal anti-gay politicians, North Carolinians must face the active and outspoken opposition of numerous organizations consistently take to the streets with their radical anti-gay messages.
Using Biblical verses calling for the taking of blood, the most well-known group is the militant, Concord-based Operation Save America (OSA). Led by the Rev. Flip Benham, the group has confronted LGBT community members for years.
It was OSA that showed up in Charlotte’s Marshall Park, confronting participants in the 2005 Charlotte Pride festival with extreme verbal violence and near-physical harassment.
At this year’s NC Pride Festival at the end of September, Benham brought along a camera crew and drew festival-goers into lengthy and emotional debates over Scripture and sexuality.
In response to Benham’s angry protests in Charlotte, Pride organizers there have continued arranging peaceful counter-measures in the form of a “Booth of Truth” staffed by gay and gay-affirming clergy. NC Pride Festival organizers have simply urged participants to ignore the protests.
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is supported by Focus on the Family.
OSA was founded in 1988 as Operation Rescue and once saw itself and its founder Randall Terry embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with the National Organization for Women (NOW) over their confrontational and violent protests at family planning agencies.
The lawsuit from NOW was eventually dropped, but the radical tactics used by the protest organizations named in it have been made publicly and nationally known, including one instance of an abortion agency invasion and throwing a doctor down a flight of stairs. Those affiliated with OSA deny these claims.
Led by Dr. Michael Brown, the Coalition of Conscience is another Concord-based group approaching queer issues using seemingly compassionate language, although the premise of their views is certainly based on exclusion and prejudice.
Brown has insinuated the “gay agenda” would lead to legitimization of incestuous marriage and held a February 2007 lecture in which he also implied, according to one observer, that gays “want to take over our society and rape our young children.”
In mid-September, the Coalition of Conscience held a public forum to which Brown invited gay and gay-friendly clergy from over a dozen churches in the Charlotte area, although none ever agreed to attend or present opposing theological views.
Brown told the media he was first prompted to call for the forum after reading a Q-Notes article mentioning Pride Charlotte’s “Booth of Truth.”
“If my viewpoint is wrong, that means I’ve been guilty of making God into a bigoted homophobe,” he said, “If their viewpoint is wrong, that means they’re sanctioning sin. If we’re convinced that our position is right, why not bring it into the light? Do we have anything to hide?”
Although Brown insisted the forum would be absent of any gay bashing, panelist and ex-gay ministry leader Stephen Bennett continuously equated his drug-addicted, bar scene life with that of a so-called “homosexual lifestyle,” asserted gay love is a “counterfeit” one and claimed that in gay male relationships “one takes on the role of male and one takes on the role of female.”
Bennett also said, “Homosexual relationships try to mimic the real and it doesn’t work.”
In the Triad, anti-gay opposition can be found from Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. Its pastor, Ron Baity (who also leads the group Return America), has led efforts to bring support for anti-gay causes to a public policy level.
In November 2006, he mustered enough political support to push the Davidson County Board of Commissioners to pass a resolution supporting a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality for same-sex couples. A month prior to the county-level victory, Baity was able to push through a similar resolution at the Thomasville City Council.
At the Thomasville meeting Baity said, “The truth of the matter is the Lord Jesus Christ said marriage was between one man and one woman…You can’t make anything else out of that. God had an urban renewal program for Sodom and Gomorrah because they were caught up in that.”
In March, Baity’s Repent America was instrumental in organizing a massive rally that drew 6,000 or more people to the N.C. General Assembly. In a WUNC radio report, participants can be heard screaming en masse, “Let us vote!”
“It is an abomination, what they’re trying to do,” rally participant Sherry McCurry told WUNC, “That’s not my opinion, that’s what God says.”
But as much damage as any of these groups or individuals have caused, it is nothing when compared to the countless stories of lives changed for the better when truth and affirmation are found from community organizations, inclusive churches and faith groups and straight allies across the two states.
The one principle each opponent of LGBT equality has in common is their shared value of prejudice and work toward a limitation of rights. The arguments they employ are becoming less powerful in our culture as people begin to realize the arguments of the LGBT community make more sense and truly are rooted in America’s tradition of equality and liberty for all.
Despite many anti-gay efforts and initiatives across the Carolinas, progress is clearly being made for equality both in law and culture. In North Carolina, the anti-gay marriage amendment has been consistently defeated in the legislature and other progressive pieces of legislation are moving forward.
Although the LGBT lobbying group Equality NC remains much smaller than many anti-gay organizations, it has achieved a significant level of respect in Raleigh and considerable influence in state and local politics as it continues to grow.
In South Carolina, the community is beginning to organize like they never have before, gaining influence and visibility while making changes at local levels. Groups like Charleston’s Alliance for Full Acceptance have mounted grand-scale ad campaigns and the Columbia LGBT community has become one of the most visible and active in the Carolinas.
The weekly Rainbow Radio program from the South Carolina Gay & Lesbian Pride Movement just celebrated its 100th episode. In the Upstate, a strong queer youth group is growing and working to support teens and adolescents.
Indeed, the work of anti-gay opposition may very well be the foundation upon which gay and transgender citizens find their inspiration for more action and organizing.
Knowing their ideological and political opponents are fighting as hard as they are, the LGBT community continues to take a stand and speak out for those cherished values anti-gay forces seek to take away. Countering hateful and exclusory stances with that of progress and sane arguments for equality, the threat of radical opposition is starting to diminish.
<
