Sylvia Rhue
Sylvia Rhue is the Director of Religious Affairs with the National Black Justice Coalition. Previously, she was employed as the California Freedom to Marry Coalition Manager, the Director of Equal Partners in Faith, and she worked with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights. She also worked at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center as the Assistant Director of Counseling, and then as the Policy and Public Affairs Advocate. A native Californian, she graduated from UCLA with a Masters Degree in Social Work and received a Doctorate in Human Sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. She is the first African American to receive this degree. Dr. Rhue is the co-producer of the award-winning film “All God’s Children” and she is an expert on the “ex-gay” movement, which she calls “the cult of the annihilation of the authentic self”. Dr. Rhue is a noted public speaker, a documentarian, a religious scholar and a writer.
Daniel Karslake
Daniel Karslake is an American Broadway, television and film producer/director. He is the founding president of DK Works, a New York-based production company dedicated to creating high quality, thought provoking theater, television and movies that change the world. Karslake wrote, directed and produced his first feature-length documentary film called FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO (www.forthebibletellsmeso.org ) which had its world premiere in competition at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Described by National Public Radio as “an incredibly powerful film that everybody should see,” the movie examines the controversial intersection of religion and homosexuality in America through the lens of five Christian families. It has won multiple Best Documentary Audience Awards at film festivals across the country. FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO was also voted the Best Spiritual Documentary of 2007 by Beliefnet.com, it won the GLAAD Media Award for Best Documentary of 2007, and was on the short list for a 2008 Academy Award.
Dr. Rodney Powell
Rodney Powell is a retired physician and gay, African American, who has lived in Hawaii since 1976 with his partner of more than 30 years. While a medical student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee during the years 1957-61, as a student protest leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement, Rodney had the privilege and honor to learn and apply the philosophy and strategies of love and nonviolence under the guidance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other dedicated ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Rev. Gil Caldwell
Rev. Caldwell received his education at Boston University School of Theology, Harvard Divinity School, and North Carolina A. & T. State University. He is a retired United Methodist Minister who participated in the “Mississippi Freedom Summer” of 1964, the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, and the March on Washington. Rev. Caldwell is a founding member of the United Methodists of Color for a Fully Inclusive Church and the Black Methodists for Church Renewal. He is also a member of the Board of Preachers and Scholars at the Martin Luther King International Chapel, Morehouse College, and the author of two books and numerous book chapters, newspaper, and magazine articles. Rev. Caldwell and has wife, Grace, have been married for 47 years and have two sons and one granddaughter.
Dr. Judith Stacey
Judith Stacey, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology and Professor of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. She has taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Davis. Dr. Stacey’s research examines changes in family, sexuality and society, with a current focus on gay family issues. Her publications include In the Name of The Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age (Beacon Press 1996); Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America (Basic Books 1990, U C Press, 1998), and Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China (University of California Press 1983), which won the 1985 Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Assn. Her co-authored article, “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” (American Sociological Review 2001) received the Distinguished Article Award in Sex and Gender from the American Sociological Association. Professor Stacey’s research has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. She served as an expert witness in the Canadian same-sex marriage case and in gay adoption and family rights cases in the U.S. A frequent public commentator on family change and politics, Dr. Stacey is one of the founders of the Council on Contemporary Families, a group committed to public education on family research.
Rev. Phil Lawson
Rev. Phil Lawson is a United Methodist Minister and veteran of the 1960′s civil rights movement. Over 40 years ago, it was the Rev. Phil Lawson’s brother, Rev. Jim Lawson, who trained the Freedom Riders in nonviolence prior to their journey to justice for civil rights. Rev. Lawson is courageously outspoken in his support of LGBT equality and has participated in several Soulforce actions over the years. He is currently the Interfaith Program Director for East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO) where he leads the Interfaith Action in Housing Program. He remains active with Richmond Vision 2000, Northern California Inter-Religious Conference, Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP), Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights and California Council of Churches. (Photo courtesy of East Bay Housing Organizations, EBHO.)
Judy Osborne
Judy Osborne is a transgender woman who has been active in the transgender community for more than thirty years. She is past president of The Emerald City in Seattle, a social/support organization for newly-out transgender people, serving on its board for a total of 12 years while promoting the organization’s political outreach. She also served on the board of Seattle’s Ingersoll Gender Center, which provides facilitated support groups for transgender people and works to connect transgender people and issues with the wider world beyond. Judy wrote a monthly letter acquainting 220 psychologists and educators with transgender issues and people, and for five years during the late 90′s she wrote a monthly column on political issues for Transgender Forum, a national web magazine. Currently, she speaks to various groups and students interested in transgender issues and volunteers with a northwest HMO hospice helping people to die well. In her career, Judy was a television broadcasting executive and later owned and operated a popular Seattle sports-themed restaurant. She has been deeply involved with Soulforce since its beginning.
Rev. Jimmy Creech
Jimmy Creech was an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church from 1970 to 1999. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Divinity from The Divinity School of Duke University. In July of 1996, Jimmy was appointed Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska. In March of 1998, he was acquitted in a church trial of a charge of violating the Order and Discipline of the United Methodist Church when he celebrated a covenant ceremony for two women in September of 1997. In April of 1999, Jimmy celebrated the holy union of two men in Chapel Hill, NC. New charges were brought against him and a second church trial was held in Grand Island, Nebraska, on November 17, 1999. The jury declared Jimmy guilty of “disobedience to the Order and Discipline of The United Methodist Church” and withdrew his credentials of ordination. From 2000 to 2005, Jimmy was Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Soulforce. Jimmy was also the Executive Director of Faith In America from December 2005 through November 2007.
Jay Bakker
Jay Bakker is a 32 year old pastor who grew up witnessing both the good and bad of the church. His parents are Jim and Tammy Faye, ministers-turned-TV-hosts, who helped start both the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the 700 Club in the 1970’s, and later founded the PTL (Praise The Lord) Club. At the height of their popularity, they pastored the largest church in the country – until their lives were changed by one of the biggest scandals in American history. For the first time, Jay was exposed to the dark underbelly of religion; an experience that would stay with him to this day. In 1994, Jay, along with Kelli Miller and Mike Walls, started Revolution Church in Phoenix, AZ, to minister to those being ignored and rejected by the Christian church. He started a Revolution Church in Los Angeles, CA, and Atlanta, GA, before moving to New York and starting a church there in 2005.
