The Unity Rally is a response by pro-tolerance religious and secular organizations to the antigay “Love Won Out” roadshow being hosted by Focus on the Family in Palm Springs, Calif., this weekend.
There is an error on the rally’s home page:
Love Won Out is inaccurately identified as the “same group” that published NARTH’s recent article that blamed Africa for slavery and asserted that white slavery civilized Africa and offered benefits to society. Here’s the clip from the rally web site:
Love Won Out, a Focus on the Family-sponsored group, will hold a conference on Saturday, September 23, in Indian Wells to encourage parents of gay children, or those who believe their children might be gay, to send their children to “gay conversion therapy” camps and programs. This is the same group that published an article suggesting that slavery has been historically misunderstood and that it was actually a good thing… for the slaves!
It might have been more accurate to say that NARTH executive director Joseph Nicolosi is a regular keynote speaker at Love Won Out, and therefore, by hosting and spotlighting NARTH, the Love Won Out event is complicit in the NARTH organization’s unapologetic racism.
We pointed this out to the Rally web staff, but they seem to have had some difficulty in publishing a clarification.
XGW is not a sponsoring organization for the rally, though some authors are in attendance.
Yes, some authors were in attendance, as was yours truly.
I’ll speak for myself on this, but I wasn’t at all impressed with the rally staff. Daniel, Timothy, Regan, and I arrived quite promptly at 6:45, ready to greet the LWA participants as they began arriving for checkin between 7:00 and 9:15. The bus of Rallyites didn’t arive until an hour later. And they re-boarded their buses to leave nearly 45 minutes early.
I don’t know much about the Rally organizers, but given that this was an ex-gay function we were there to greet, they didn’t appear the least bit interested in taking advantage of our backrounds and knowledge. They did however try to cajole us into getting in line, walking around in circles to the sound of a bullhorn. We declined, and continued to stand at the curb next to the entrance, offering our cheerful “Good Mornings!”, waves and thumbs-up to every car that entered.
We felt that was the best message to send: a warm greeting, a smile, and a welcome.
Sorry, for being so long-winded, but after today, I dismay at the state of LGBT activism in this country. From a lack of concern for accuracy and truth, to a lack of interest in some very powerful resources which were continually made available to them, to an arrogance of “we’ve done this before, we know how to protest, just get in line and do it our way” (No, nobody said this, but it is the message I got)… none of it bodes well for touching hearts, minds and souls, which is the REAL task at hand.
And yet, we did a great job and enjoyed doing it. Many attendees smiled and waved back at us. One nice young lady came out to welcome us personally. Everyone was very courteous. There were only three cases of someone yelling something ugly, and only one of those was an attendee (the other two were mere passersby).
All in all, I would say we were successful in showing that there was a big difference between who we are and who they would later say we are. I would do this again in a heartbeat!!!
I’m glad you guys went and were a positive example, but the more I hear from what happened the more I am saddened as well by this kind of action. I thought we had progressed to a point where the main focus is to educate and expose lies, not simply stomp around and yell. I am sure Daniel and Timothy will report in the next day or two. I hope it gets better.
365gay.com just posted this:
https://365gay.com/Newscon06/09/092306palmSprings.htm
“Nicolosi has been accused of racism by two LGBT rights groups – Truth Wins Out and the National Black Justice Coalition – following the discovery of a 2005 article he wrote that was posted on the NARTH Web site appearing to justify slavery.”
Then adds one of the same quotes as you guys had in the original aricle:
https://exgaywatch.com/blog/archives/2006/09/narths_justific.html#more
I’m wondering if they got that mis-info from the rally group too.
(I e-mailed them about it and sent a copy to you guys too (EGW).)
They fixed it.