Soulforce Email Update - September 26, 2006

CNN's Paula Zahn Now Interviews Right to Serve Campaign

Be sure to tune in to CNN on Tuesday, September 26th at 8:00PM EST during the Paula Zahn Now program as Paula Zahn interviews Right to Serve campaign workers.

Update on the Right to Serve Campaign

The Right to Serve Campaign continued to expand last week as more openly gay young Americans attempted to enlist in the armed forces.

With our story being told in The New York Times and on BBC World Service, the young adults of our country are showing that we no longer accept this gross exercise of government sanctioned discrimination.

In the longest incarceration for Soulforce Young Adults thus far, Rebecca Solomon and Jesus Sanchez spent the night in an Austin, Texas jail and were released on bond after being charged with criminal trespassing.

In Phoenix, Arizona and New York City, enlistees and Soulforce supporters were greeted with empty offices and locked doors. As we filled the recruitment center island in Times Square, NYC police were notified of the peaceful gathering. After a showing of officers in formation with handcuffs, ready to load our supporters into the paddy wagon, the decision was made to not arrest and the sit-in continued throughout the day. Both cities will return to the recruitment centers and attempt enlistment again in October.

Remembering the sit-ins of 1960 at the Woolworth's counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, students once again sat-in for their rights. Four young adults from Greensboro began the enlistment process at an Army recruiting office and as in other cities in this campaign, found that the interview stops when their sexual identity is revealed. Six others joined them in support and began a sit-in. In all, nine were arrested, taken away in handcuffs and were released within the hour.

Young adults in five cities are on schedule to go in for their enlistments this week. On Tuesday, Washington, DC will see the return of a young woman who was honored with a Purple Heart during her service only to be discharged after being discovered as a lesbian. Two other enlistees and many community supporters will join her. Organizers in Madison, Wisconsin will return in a follow-up action with an estimated 50 supporters, arrests are expected. Spokane, Washington and Conway, Arkansas will both go in for their first enlistment and are prepared to sit-in if denied. In Charlottesville, Virginia, organizer Wyatt Fore will once again bring the message to the recruitment center that gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals have a place in the military. This time he will have about 20 other Americans who support him and they will conduct a sit-in.

Please follow these stories online at: www.soulforce.org/righttoserve as our LGBT and allied brothers and sisters attempt these heroic acts of patriotism.

Katie Higgins
Right to Serve Campaign Worker
katie@soulforce.org

Double Rainbow: Matching Grant Offered to Soulforce

Generous Soulforce supporter Bruce Bastian (philanthropist and founder of WordPerfect) has offered to double new monthly donations over the course of a year, up to $25,000!

Gaining the full $25,000 matching grant works out to be 100 people committing to support Soulforce as monthly donors for $21/month (effective donation being doubled to $42/month x 100 people x 12 months = $50,000).

Or just 50 people becoming monthly donors at the level of $42/month (effective donation being doubled to $84/month x 50 people x 12 months = $50,000).

If successful, Bruce's challenge will give Soulforce needed funds to support our upcoming actions! Will you consider joining our growing group of monthly donors during this time when your gift will be doubled?

To become a monthly donor, please go to www.soulforce.org/monthlydonor.

Theocracy Watch: Fundamentalists gather in DC for 2006 Values Voter Summit

This past weekend in Washington, DC, a frightening and powerful coalition of religious and political extremists gathered for a massive "Values Voter Summit" to ensure that "righteous men" are elected into office this November. The list of summit speakers included Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, James Dobson, Ann Coulter, Richard Land (Southern Baptist Convention), William Bennett, Gary Bauer, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Senator Bill Frist, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (who authored the Federal Marriage Amendment), and many others. When "righteous men" as defined by Falwell and Dobson get into office, we are indeed living in a theocracy that threatens to destroy the separation of church and state that all fair-minded Americans hold so dear.

Soulforce Executive Director, Jeff Lutes, attended the 2006 Values Voter Summit. To read his initial report from inside the summit, click here.

In mid-October, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council (FRC) are coming to the only state that has marriage equality to film "Liberty Sunday." This broadcast, which describes same-gender marriage as a grave threat to religious liberty in the Bay State and beyond, will be televised and simulcast across the nation. In a letter to their prayer team, they state their goals are to share testimony from those "whose religious liberties are already being trampled due to same-sex marriage and the homosexual agenda" and get "Bible-believing Americans" to "act now to defeat legitimization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and elsewhere."

These are scary times, but with your support, Soulforce will continue to take justice to the streets with our unique form of nonviolent direct activism.

Soulforce's goals for 2007 are expansive. In the works are:

• A second Equality Ride that will visit twice as many universities as the original
• A national challenge to the fraudulent "ex-gay" movement
• Sit-ins for marriage equality at county clerks
• A coast-to-coast action that focuses the spotlight on our heterosexual allies

In addition, we are currently working to develop new resources and to translate some of our existing resources into Spanish.

These are important times for the GLBT movement. If you believe Soulforce is worthy of your financial support, consider becoming a monthly donor during this period when donations are effectively doubled.

Simple Living Corner

"Live simply so others might simply live." -- M.K. Gandhi

When hearing about simple living, many people find themselves initially operating out of guilt. They don't understand that the vast majority of people who choose to live more simply do so, not out of a feeling of sacrifice; but rather, they are seeking deeper sources of satisfaction than a high stress, consumption-obsessed society can ever provide.

In the search for satisfaction, people committed to simple living are not only "downshifting" or pulling back from the rat race, they are also "upshifting" or moving ahead into a life that is, though materially more modest, rich with family, friends, community, creative work in the world, and a soulful connection with the universe. So ultimately simple living grants a sense of freedom that our consumptive culture can not provide.