Stop Governor Rick Perry's and Lou Engle's THE RESPONSE in Houston

Cancel The Response Rally August 6

Greetings,

I just signed the following petition addressed to: Governor Rick Perry, Pastor Lou Engle, Endorsers of The Response.

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Cancel The Response Rally August 6

The Response is hosted by Governor Rick Perry (Texas), Lou Engle's International House of Prayer and the American Family Association, all of whom are documented as advocates of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. http://theresponseusa.com/

The Response is patterned after The Call in Uganda where
Pastor Engle’s ministry openly supported the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda. http://wthrockmorton.com/2010/05/03/new-york-times-first-report-from-the-call-uganda/

In February, I went with Soulforce, the Human Rights Campaign and GetEqual volunteers to Engle’s church and presented a petition of 70,000+ signatures asking him to cease and desist from inciting violence against gay people in Uganda.

We asked him to go back to Uganda and retract his support of David Bahati, the MP of Uganda, who proposed the bill that would (1) sanction extra judicial killings of gay people or people who gave safe haven to gay people or, much like some of the legislation passed in Arizona for “ identifying immigrants”, the Kill the Gays bill would (2) allow vigilantes and police to kill even people who just look like gay people. He blew us off and sent his lieutenants Luis & Jill Cataldo to deal with us. They are now the directors and coordinators of Governor Perry's event in Houston.

We want to a church service with them. They received our petition. They promised that the church leadership would review it. Engle promised to meet with us face to face at a later time. We have followed up often with his office as has a reporter from the Associated Press. No response.

Understandable since Engle believes that the world would be a better place if lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families and allies were dead. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/25/international_uproar_over_uganda_anti_gay?gclid=COXy-o723akCFY9V7AodTz2-ZQ

Another of Governor Rick Perry’s endorsers of The Response is on record for blaming homosexuals for the Holocaust and for Hurricane Katrina. http://www.katiehalper.com/top-ten-hageeisms-new-and-improved-neverbefore-released-hits-his-quotthank-god-hitlerquot-sermon Engle is on record for suggesting that America needs to raise up a generation of people willing to be Christian martyrs so the scourge of homosexuality and abortion can be ended once and for all.http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/6/2/83943/72096

This rhetoric is all too familiar in our history. It’s a Perry-Engle sanctioned "holy war" against those who are pro-choice and pro-gay---or, at minimum, a form of ethnic cleansing in which people who are non-gender role conforming and who choose to terminate pregnancies are put at high risk right here in America.

The Perry-Engle Partnership was not, I fear, made in heaven, but in a back room where the radical right is planning its win of the Presidency of the United States. They’ve lined up a row of ultra conservative dominionists---Palin, Bachman and Perry, who have no discomfort calling other Americans names that incite violence against them and who apparently have no hesitation in suggesting that it is ok to exterminate those with whom you disagree about the interpretation of the Bible.

In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter if any of them really win. As long as they keep people distracted and running from the center of democratic thought where tolerance and fair treatment reside to the edges of radical exclusion and intolerance, they ensure that fair-minded, true citizens of democracy will be worn down and worn out by the time people go to the voting box.

One way that we can care for one another in America is to “just say no” to the use of political office and power to systematically discriminate against any group of citizens in the United States---many of whom would have been considered abominations under the law of the land in Jesus’ era. He came to clarify what an abomination really is---the absence of love and the intent to harm. His life makes this very clear.

For those who insist that we are and must be a Christian Nation, may I suggest that the current strategy is not only flawed, it is anything but Christ-like.

Please sign the petition and if you want to help recruit more people to sign, go to http://www.change.org/info/how-to-collect-petition-signatures

Thank you!








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Peace,

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love
Executive Director of Soulforce

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