Human Rights Campaign President and Prop. 8 Architect Become Friends
Talk about bringing civility to the culture wars. Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign—the nation's biggest gay rights group—recently sat down with the pastor who spearheaded the religious community's push for California's Proposition 8 for a 90-minute get-to-know-you meeting.
Carrie Prejean's pastor, former NFL-er Miles McPherson, also attended.
Conservative pastor Jim Garlow, who founded the Pastors Rapid Response Team to organize conservative clergy around Prop. 8—which outlawed gay marriage when 52 percent of Californians voted for it last November—still stands by the ban. Solmonese, meanwhile, is strategizing to overturn it.
But follow-up meetings between the two may be in the offing. "I would like to keep that dialogue open," says Solmonese.
"I had a delightful time and consider [Solmonese] a friend and would welcome him into my home or church," says Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, Calif.
The meeting grew out of a recent episode of Dr. Phil (above) that featured supporters and opponents of Prop. 8, including Solmonese and Garlow. The evangelical pastor, who has long made a point of befriending political opponents, told Solmonese after the Dr. Phil taping that he'd like get to know him.
"There was a great deal of yelling and name calling on the show, which achieves nothing at all," he says. "It's disrespectful to our integrity as human beings. I doubt we can establish common ground, but we can establish friendships that allow us to keep the debate on the issues."
Most of the meeting, which happened in Washington in May—when Garlow was in town to receive an award from the Family Research Council—saw the pastor asking Solmonese questions about his life and beliefs. "I'm fascinated by people's individual stories," Garlow says.
"My heart was moved" by Solmonese, Garlow continues. "The real moving moment was when he talked about his father dying when he was 13 or 14, which he described with some degree of pathos."
Garlow invited McPherson, who is a pastor at a nearby church in San Diego, because the two had attended a meeting together just before the scheduled session with Solmonese. "I definitely felt an increased level of compassion for him and that community," says McPherson, while adding that his opposition to same-sex marriage is unchanged. "My views on that have nothing to do with my emotion or intellect," he said, "and everything to do with what God has designed.".
Neither Solmonese nor Garlow said his mind was changed by the meeting. But both said they're interested in sitting down again. "I don't know how we can hope to change people's views if we don't keep the dialogue open," says Solmonese. "We need to take the time to engage religious leaders and see if there is any opening or any possibility of finding common ground."
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polygamy
i would just like to point out to the previous comment mentioning polygamy that the patriarchs were polygamists.
Most don't understand....
that this country was built on a seperation between church and state! Most christians cling to " well it's in the bible" so on and so forth. Yet what they missed is that our founding fathers did not want our laws to based on the bible. Most of them (including our 1st president) were not christians and saw the bible as silly and controlling. They were diests and uninatarians. The purpose of this country was to stear clear of the mix of church and state. So if most don't like it, get out! If you think "all hell is going to break loose" on this country then by all means get out! Sheesh!
Personally I cannot knock anyone. But if a gay person has a personal relationship with god, who are you to tell them they are bound to eternal damnation. The God i worship is loving and caring. He accepts us all!
Generalizations
I wish people would stop making generalizations about the Christian community. Christians do not condone divorce. Christians do not condone sex before marriage. @ Dr. Love, no, divorce itself is not a sin. Divorce for any other reason than unfaithfulness is a sin. Yes, some people do divorce for the wrong reasons, and this is also wrong in God's eyes, just like homosexuality, lying, stealing, Polygamy, beastiality, and a slew of other sins that, if not for Christ, all would perish for, and I certainly do not condone any of those activities (yes, I do make mistakes, I do sin, I am not perfect, but this is different from choosing to live a sinful lifestyle). The Constitution was based on the Bible, and that is historical FACT. Who would have thought that 220 some odd years later we as a country would already be trying to do away with such values that just plain make sense, and that goes beyond the argument of homosexuality. It saddens me to see the narrow-mindedness that some Christians show on this subject.
And Jay of LA, guess what? All of those churches and Christian groups that condone and in any way support homosexual activity are WRONG. Period. They are helping to ruin the definition of marriage, right in front of God's eyes. Also, Jay, please understand this: Christians do not hate homosexuals. Christians hate homosexuality. If we had it our way, all gay couples would turn from being gay, find Jesus, and lead heterosexual (hopefully Christian!!) lifestyles. God loves us all and tells us to do the same. We love the gays, but we do not condone or support their lifestyle in any manner.
And for the gay community, if we as a country allow same-sex marriages, where does it end? What if I love my sister? Is that right? What if I love my dog, or my cat? What if I want to marry two women at the same time? Three? What about me, another man, and a woman getting married at the same time? Sounds ridiculous, right? To God, all of these are equally as ridiculous as two women or two men getting married. The message I am trying to get across here is that any way you slice it, no matter what the law of the land says, the law of God proclaims all these as sinful, wrong, and disgraces to the name of marriage, just as (the general view of) divorce and neglect are. Let's leave human emotion out of this argument. The bottom line for all of this is that gay marriage is wrong simply because God says it is wrong.
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