The Easter Egg Thing
 

I don't know if anyone has picked up on this "story" or not, but here is some interesting stuff from the IDR

(Who is the IDR? Well thats a whole other thread! Can anyone say Anti-Christ?)

Check out this interview with Mel on MSNBC

I would encourage people to write a letter to Tucker Carlson and express disappointment in his treatment of the story and of Mel. Tucker@msnbc.com

Wow, that was shocking, but it doesn't matter what Tucker said. It matters what the truth is, and that we bring it with love...and we will. The whole principal of non-violent resistance is that we bring the truth in love. We know what the truth is and we will bring it. I feel bad I will use this quote again but I will because it fits....

"An opponent is entitled to the same regard for his principles as we would expect others to have for ours. Non-violence demands that we should seek every opportunity to win over opponents."
Gandhi

We must take every chance we see to bring the truth to light. This is a chance to bring the truth to America that we have familes, we have kids and we are like everyone else.

Don't worry about Tucker and his treatment.......Voluntary Suffering. It is okay. We don't need Tucker to understand(although we should never stop trying to bring him the the truth). We just need to never lose sight of the goal. Bring the Truth with love. There is nothing about this action that is wrong. We are simply showing up with our familes and showing the world who we are. We do it to bring peace as an outcome. That is done with love. Tucker's actions are misguided because he doesn't understand and does not want to understand.

remember:

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Mohandas Gandhi

I found it really disturbing that Carlson, when talking about gay families and their children wanting to purposely be visible this year, used such language as:

• non-traditional
• there's nothing wholesome
• nothing normal
• creepy
• I'm glad my kids aren't going this year

Carlson later threw in "it has nothing to do with your sexual orientation" to clear him, but I would suggest that most people who have dealt with prejudice in society weren't fooled.

Also the subtitle they placed under Mel was "Wants Gays to Crash White House Easter Egg Roll."

Such criticism about an oppressed people using action in the struggle for equality greatly frustrated Dr. King. It led him to eventually suggest that the greatest obstacle in an oppressed people's stride towards freedom is not the few hardline oppressors, but instead the many who would rather the oppressed stay in their place, always critical of activism, and voicing such concerns as "now is not the time", "this is not the place."

Critics of Martin Luther KIng, Jr. often said to him "this is not our time, we must wait". He spoke briefly of this in the letter from jail. I don't remember the exact words, but the essence of his words amounted to this.

There is no time like the present! They may not like what we do, but it is time to do it.

I don't understand how some one can be so opposed to families showing up at a easter egg roll, this guy really doesn't seem to understand when Mel said that it isn't a protest.... It's just a way of saying, "we're no different from anybody else".... this of all things seems like it would be a big deal. All we did was encourage families to go to the event...

"Equal rights are not special rights."

I don't know a lot of the specifics about what's going on here with the "Easter Egg Roll", but it seems to me that this event has always been (or should be) for the children. To deny children that opportunity simply because their parents are one of the following, "LGBT", is no less of a disgrace than the tactics used by segregationists in the south years ago.

Not buying
 

I've been gay since I can remember (5) and I have rarely agreed with Tucker Carlson on anything. I can remember one. However, while Dr. White was okay at defending the position to participate, as all should who want to, he did not address the email (if this is indeed true) about "flying underneath the radar of the media" and that demonstrates coversion. It smells like a coversion I may agree with, but looks like a coversion nonetheless. If the t-shirts say something harmless, address what that will be. Be factual, but don't say, "They might say..." I respect what I have read by Dr. White and agree with most of the opinions on these threads. But it seems that we do have to show due diligence in picking our battles. By announcing ( or being caught in email ) that a gay group is trying to subvert the media, we may do ourselves a disservice.

My hope is not to open a can of worms among my fellow Lifeforce members, but based purely on what I saw, our position lost control of the interview. The phrases that Tucker used that Jamie quoted were used our of context. Tucker wasn't calling people names, I don't think, but was calling out the act of subversion.

If I'm wrong, and I hope I am, then I'm wrong. I think Tucker made his case well. (Boy, I never thought I'd say that.)

Let's go there if we want to, but let's pick our battles and our strategies more carefully in the future so that we don't look so fringe.....after all, we're not fringe.

Well, I would submit that Mr. Carlson is banking most people will see it that way. He's smart and found an acceptable vehicle to get that particular language in. He knows it is no longer acceptable for the new conservatives to call gays those things outright.

To me, it would be like living in the late 60's and an organization representing interracial families wanting to participate in the White House Egg Roll for visibility during their struggle. And then having a tv host condemning the action by saying, "This is nothing less than mongrelization of your political agenda with a children's event!" Blacks and their allies would immediately pick up on the word "mongrelization" to stir up fears and prejudice. The tv host, however, would claim he was only referring to the action.

Hear you
 

I hear you Jamie. And if TC was trying to hide those words cleverly, I agree, that would be despicable. It seemed to me that they were having two different conversations, or began the chat prepared to talk about two different parts of the "story". TC also surprised me by saying, "I don't care if you're ...." Dr. White just wanted to make his point, and maybe TC changed his angle at the last minute. If that's the cae, I still think we came off looking the worse. But I'm open to other thoughts.

By the way, is there a copy of Dr. White's email request available to read? I'd be interested to see it.

Past Soulforce Email Alerts can be accessed at www.soulforce.org/email

The one being addressed in the interview is the January 4th email alert.

Thanks
 

From this site:

"The success of this action depends on keeping it under the radar of the media and the administration -- Please be discreet!!! Please do NOT put a link to this website anywhere other than in an e-mail."



This obviously isn't working anymore if someone as banal as Tucker Carlson can get to it. So let's just be upfront and honest. We have so much at stake we can't chance being seen as "subversives trying to push our agenda". We shouldn't give them the bait.

I appreciate your sending that to me Jamie. I looked at the clip again; still the same response. But I will try again later.

Enjoy the day!

I remember reading that action alert and thinking there was no way any such plan, advertized via listserve, was going unnoticed.

Let's assume that anything we post here or submit to email subscribers is public knowledge. . . because it is as easy as CLICK to sign up for Soulforce email alerts, and of course it stands to reason there are some who oppose Soulforce who have signed up in order to get the "scoop" on what Soulforce does. Who read this forum to see what we're "up to." It's my opinion that everything we do ought to be visible in plain sight to the community at large, because what we are doing is so completely innocent, why hide it? And besides, it is too easy to sleuth out what people are doing, it is not worth trying to hide plans.

Additionally, I don't think the appearance of gay families at an Easter egg roll needs to be hidden until the day of - just plan it and go. What difference in impact were we expecting? Just show up and be part of the world, as we usually are.

Amen, Zerbie.

May I say that we have gotten tons of media attention on this endorsement of Family Pride's event. Had the alert not said "The success of this action depends on keeping it under the radar of the media" I dare say we would have gotten no coverage at all especially this early. I'm glad we added that language, and maybe we should try it again! lol

I think at this point we all agree though... we have nothing to hide, so way try to? We've done nothing wrong, so who cares what people say about us... we just can't let them bother us. :)

"When fear rules, life dies."

This is true. We've known our email alerts are monitored by anti-gay organizations for some time. After all, we monitor some of theirs. The Soulforce staff, along with Family Pride, decided to send out the alert under those conditions. We figured it might go unnoticed, but then suddenly it showed up everywhere.

In the book Jesus and Nonviolence, there is a list of "rules" starting on page 39. One of those rules is "the threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." By simply going "Shhh, don't tell anyone" in an email, we sent the anti-gay forces into high-alert, shouting that gay families are crashing the Easter Egg Roll. It generated a lot of press and when our families show up, just being themselves, and their children are laughing and playing with easter eggs, it will make the IRD and the others look ridiculous. Maybe not to the viewers of Fox News, but to thinking Americans, which is still the vast majority.

Rule 5 on page 40 is "Ridicule is your most potent weapon."

I like that part about ridicule.

We just always have to be mindful that it means ridiculing the unjust actions of the oppressor, never the person. That's sometimes tough when such anti-gay individuals as James Dobson and groups such as the IRD have been so mean-spirited. Maybe we can discuss these "rules" further in the following thread:

http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64

This sounds awesome! :)

The first lady is very gracious, I doubt she would let her husband spoil that event for any reason. It just wouldn't be proper.

Now to see if I can find a husband and adopt some kids before Easter... :D

I could be the kid but I don't know about a husband... :lol: lol