News Coverage of the 2006 Soulforce Equality Ride

[Jamie McDaniel]

This thread is for posting links to news coverage of the Soulforce Equality Ride. If you find a story or video, please post it.

KARE11 Minneapolis News Coverage from March 2, 2006 (story and video)

[schoolboi]

I have found the most comprehensive search for links to news coverage can be found at Google News: Equality Ride I would encourage people to sign up for the news alerts.

[sidhe]

here's some local coverege of a tourstop in lynchburg va from http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0306/308474.html, but as a bonus to really tick everyone off scrol down to the botom of the page and read or try to read (without puking your guts out) at the just pure hate in that little hick town, i've been there severel time and every time i've been there it's been bad, oh and by the way don't go to the sun news forums for the sun news in myrtle beach sc if you think lynchburg's bad myrtle beach is worse.

[schoolboi]

Sidhe,

As a resident of Lynchburg I would like to say that many of us are very proud of our “little hick town”. I am a local youth minister and openly gay. In the years that I have lived here I have never been personally attacked for my sexual orientation by anyone in the city. Most people are actually quite accepting. No matter where you are there will always be someone who is hateful and offensive. While Lynchburg might not be a gay mecca we still hold our own.

[keltic63]

Ok, I read some of the responses, and yes, there is some hatred there. What stands out to me is not so much the hatred, but the ignorance. They do not understand that being lgbt is not a choice, and not a lifestyle. One of the posts says that he? has gay friends but they don't shove it in his face. Perhaps they know better than to do that if they don't want to lose his friendship. He (Guru) obviously doesn't know those people very well or he would not have said the following phrases: "life they choose to live" or "You do not see hetro people going around marketing their lifestyle."
of course we don't "see" hetero people marketing their lifestyle because it's not viewed as a lifestyle choice for them, AND more importantly, our society is saturated with hetero marketing.

as far as Falwell and the Equality Ride is concerned, it almost sounds like Jerry has thrown down the gauntlet.

[Vanessa White]

Just a quick note: in my child welfare training in Phila. yesterday, one of the hardest topics for people to embrace/realize the importance was the idea of heterosexism. Most of the persons in the group I believe were heterosexual, but they do not see the idea of heterosexual priviledge, and end up thinking of gay persons "we don't have to know your private business" and ignore the fact that we are all just bombarded with pretty exclusively heterosexual messages. Interesting dialogue.

[Zerbie]

How simple it can sometimes be. . .

My dad was vaguely, theoretically anti-gay just by knee-jerk conditioning, and it mostly disappeared all in a moment, years ago. We were somehow on the subject of gay people and dad mentioned there was a gay guy at work, who was "a good guy" except that he kept "flaunting it." So I asked my dad to give me an example of flaunting. Dad said, "Well, sometimes he mentions his partner during conversation."

I said, "Dad, you ever mention Mom when you talk at work?" He said Of course all the time. I said, "Then you're flaunting it. No different than that gay guy."

Dad looked annoyed and took in a breath as if to argue, then stopped abruptly and laughed. "Oh! Hahaha. I never thought of it that way. It IS the same."

Dad was more at ease after that. So sometimes, it really is simple.

The question becomes, is there a way to speed up the process of "educating" the public?

[Emproph]

I got this in my e-mail recently.

Not having any agenda "dirt" on Soulforce, they made it a point to mention:
"Soulforce "stole" the idea from civil rights bus tours four decades ago."

We now have the ability to travel back in time to steal ideas. Next we'll hear that we invented Original Sin. After all it was a snake. Snake sin and Steve all start with the letter S. Snake/Steve, hint hint.. think about it...


http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0039646.cfm

[Jamie McDaniel]

I almost hate to post a link to this and I would suggest you only glance through it, but where it gets interesting is comment #37.

www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/023052.html

[schoolboi]

Originally Posted by Jamie McDaniel

I almost hate to post a link to this and I would suggest you only glance through it, but where it gets interesting is comment #37.

www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/023052.html

Jamie,

# 37 is interesting. I know several Liberty students both gay and straight and this seems to be the thoughts of the majority. Very interesting.

On a lighter note, when I read # 50 I could hardly stop laughing.

[schoolboi]

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22798

Interesting

[Jamie McDaniel]

Campuses Brace for Soulforce
You know the one thing that I don't think I'll ever understand about media types is these sensational titles they come up with. I mean are we homosexuals here or hurricanes?

[NathanATX]

Originally Posted by schoolboi

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22798

Interesting

The guy at FOF is doing something awesome... encouraging the schools to prepare by teaching their viewpoints to the students.

That's going to get a ton of young people thinking & talking about these issues.

And it's going to be incredibly powerful to speak to the exact dogmatic things that they're being taught. It's going to be very easy to bring truth to the conversation.

[Jamie McDaniel]

Christianity Today article:
Gay Rights Group Targets Christian Colleges

[schoolboi]

Update on events at Regent University

[Jamie McDaniel]

This isn't news coverage, but we've got some photos on the web now.

Photos from the Soulforce Equality Ride, March 5th - 9th, 2006

[Jamie McDaniel]

Protestors Arrested at Regent University

[Venari]

These are local newscasts about the visit to Regent University by Soulforce.

In the first video is the coverage of "Day 2" when 6 people were arrested I find the comment by the school representative to be the most interesting that Soulforce is only looking for camera time and not to create a honest dialogue.

The second link is viewer feedback about the protest; the last comment is by a regent student and seems to reflect the feelings of many students at the various schools the Equality Ride is visiting.

-Venari

PS
You need to turn off your pop-up blocker to view the videos.

Protest At Regent University

The Rant Letting Gays Into Religious Colleges

[schoolboi]

Jonathan! You are on tv and you got arrested for Justice! you are my hero!

[Jennifer5]

After seeing the link Venari put up... it's looking to me like we may need to try and be a little more thoughtful about what we say, especially at a time like this.... may be a little more caring and a little less judging???????? I don't know, am I the only one that feels this way.... that we're not helping the matter, and maybe making things harder for the Equality Ride???