by Sunsara Taylor, World Can’t Wait Advisory Board member
A Salute to Those Who Protested Battle Cry:
The stand you and others took against the Battle Cry gathering was courageous and extremely needed!
The San Francisco Chronicle has gotten it all wrong when it accuses you of intolerance.
They
are wrong when they suggest that the mobilization of thousands of youth
around blind and religious submission to very human authorities is
harmless. They are wrong when they suggest that the measure of San
Francisco’s tolerance is whether it will lie down as its values are
besieged in the public square. And they are wrong to suggest that the
impact of such a gathering can be measured in whether there is an
immediate ‘discernable shift’ in San Francisco’s ideological alignment
just two days later.
For too long too many have taken the approach of the San
Francisco Chronicle: turning the other cheek as our rights are
stripped, ceding the moral high ground to forces who openly uphold the
subordination of women and the condemnation of gays, and allowing those
who would fight against these things to be put on the defensive. And
that is exactly how we have gotten into such a dangerous place.
Anyone who is paying attention can see that
this country is in danger of drowning under the rising tide of a very
narrow and hateful brand of Christianity that is forcing its way into
public life, into law, and into the most intimate arenas of people’s
lives.
Not
satisfied with banning gay marriage, there are moves for ballot
initiatives against gay adoption this fall. Not satisfied with banning
abortion, there is a highly funded and orchestrated push now to end
birth control. And despite the ‘non-political’ luster of Battle Cry’s
website, they are partnered with some of the most powerful theocrats in
the country: Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Colson, Ted Haggard,
and more.
Finally, the San Francisco Chronicle insults its
readers and lazily side-steps a profound matter of historic proportion
when it discounts the words ‘fascist’ and ‘hateful’ as mere insults
that were hurled by protesters. These words have real meaning and they
were chosen thoughtfully and accurately. They describe the logic of an
ideology, where it will lead if it is unchecked.
Perhaps if more
people had dared to confront the logic of the Nazi’s ideology in their
early days, as they were holding youth rallies, conducting clothing
drives for the veterans of WWI, baking for poor (Aryan) Germans, and
building their own version of ‘moral’ communities, humanity could have
avoided one of its darkest chapters.
Again, a salute to all who
dared to take the streets, speak the truth, and sound the alarm! And a
call to others to join in this effort before it is too late!
In struggle,
Sunsara Taylor
Advisory Board
World Can’t Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime
(This letter is a response to the March 28th editorial in the SF Chronicle below.)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/28/EDGGAHUR4T1.DTL
Intolerant City
–
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
THE
IRONY was obviously lost on the clueless San Francisco supervisors when
they passed a resolution warning that a Christian youth gathering could
“negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and
progressive city.”
Spare us the doomsday hyperbole, supervisors.
We
can safely report that the politics of San Francisco suffered no
discernible shift in ideological alignment from the convergence of
25,000 Christian teenagers listening to rock ‘n’ roll music and words
of inspiration. There was no evidence of any surge in support for the
Iraq war, affection for President Bush or oil drilling off the
California coast. The medical-marijuana clubs were still doing business
as usual, public dancing was still legal, the petition gatherers were
still working Market Street for the latest save-the-planet cause.
The supervisors’ reaction to the evangelical Christians was so boorishly over the top that only one word could describe it:
Intolerant.
Assemblyman
Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, was quoted telling counterprotesters Friday
that the gathering Christians were “loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re
disgusting and they should get out of San Francisco.” On Monday,
however, Leno struck a more reasoned tone, acknowledging that his rally
cry was “not one of my prouder moments.” He said the youth group was
“welcome in San Francisco,” even though he does worry that its
religious rhetoric could “under a cloak of love” feed a “fearful
world’s appetite for hate.”
In
fact, concern about heterosexual sex by unmarried youth gets equal
treatment from the Battle Cry campaign. Its goal is to spread
Christianity and to help young people recognize and resist the cultural
influences of a “stealthy enemy” that includes “corporations, media
conglomerates and purveyors of popular culture.” Its Web site
(www.battlecry.com) speaks of “casualties of war” that include
drinking, drug use, teen sex, pornography, abortion, suicide and
violence.
We may
disagree with certain aspects of the Battle Cry agenda — on issues
such as abortion rights, religion in schools or acceptance of an
individual’s sexual orientation — but the attempt by counterprotesters
and some of the city’s elected officials to call them “fascist” and
“hateful” was totally at odds with the tone of the ballpark event and
the approach of the Web site.
The
gathering was not an “act of provocation,” as the supervisors claimed.
It was a get-together of young evangelicals whose lifestyles and
religious views just happen to be in the minority here — apparently
making them open season for politicians to chastise.
The
young people who came to San Francisco to affirm their faith and enjoy
a day of rock music deserved better. They deserved to be welcomed by a
city that was as tolerant and progressive as its sanctimonious
supervisors like to profess.
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