August 30, 2000
Dear Friend of Justice,
You are invited to join us in Washington, DC, November 12-14, 2000, as Soulforce volunteers ask the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to STOP SPIRITUAL VIOLENCE against sexual and gender minorities.
- Join 500 to 1,000 friends of nonviolence in a colorful rally for justice Nov 13 featuring civil rights sheroes/heroes (including Dr. William Sloan Coffin and Dr. James Lawson) with special musical guests from the 50s & 60s.
- Visit the Holocaust Museum. Train in nonviolent resistance. Stand with us in our silent candle-light vigil at the fall meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and at the Bishops opening mass at the National Basilica.
- Face arrest (or support those who do) in a quiet, carefully-planned, nonviolent civil disobedience as we take our demands directly to the assembled Catholic bishops.
- Donate air miles, volunteer time, transportation, food, housing, or send a tax-deductible check for bail/expenses as we confront Catholic policies that lead to discrimination, suffering and death.
- If you are a bishop, priest, or nun (current or former), if you serve or once served in a religious order, if you care about the Catholic Church, stand with us for justice and truth.
We are Soulforce volunteers from every possible faith tradition. We accuse the Catholic Church of acts of spiritual violence against God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered children. We thank the American Bishops for their statement "Always Our Children" but we ask them to end the policies that destroy our children’s lives, that divide our families, that lead to discrimination, suffering and death for those we love.
Already this summer Soulforce has trained more than 1,000 volunteers in nonviolent resistance on the sites of the United Methodist (Cleveland), Presbyterian (Long Beach), Southern Baptist (Orlando), and Episcopal (Denver) national conventions. Just under 500 of those volunteers were arrested taking their stand against the holy war being waged against us. Now, it is your chance to "do justice" for those who suffer injustice and to see your spirit renewed and your society transformed in the process.
Link here to the schedule of our direct action at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC, November 12-14. Many of us will spend November 9-12 at the "Creating Change" Conference in Atlanta arriving in DC Sunday evening, Nov. 12, or Monday morning, Nov 13. Others will come early for a weekend in the nation’s capital. Join us when you can. We’ll see that you are ready in time for our direct action, Tuesday, Nov 14.
There is no registration fee. We’ll even help you find free housing in a private residence or a lowest possible rate in our Soulforce headquarters hotel. Even if you aren’t sure that you can come, pre-register online or fill out the form and mail it to us today. Once registered, you’ll get important updates as the event takes shape.
If you can’t be with us, but you want to help Soulforce continue its work to Stop Spiritual Violence, we need your financial support to pay bail and expenses, we need air miles, we need phone calls, letters of support, and faxes to the Catholic bishop in your area. (Your donation is tax-deductible.)
Whatever you can or cannot do, remember us, November 14, as we remind the American bishops that if we are always your children, then STOP SPIRITUAL VIOLENCE against us.
And to all of our GLBT sisters and brothers, remember this: God created you and loves you exactly as you are!
Sincerely,
Mel White, Jimmy Creech, and the Soulforce Board of Directors
Soulforce, P.O. Box 4467, Laguna Beach, CA 92652
Phone: (949) 455-0999 Fax: (949) 455-0959
Email: Info@soulforce.org