CAMPAIGN 2000, Convention prayer breakfast a love-in for right-wing ideals
BURLINGAME - After listening to a passage from Corinthians about the greatness of love, California Republicans sat down to a prayer breakfast and a warning: Gay marriage is an evil akin to Nazi Germany and the "filth and pornography of another kingdom."
The Sunday breakfast at the state GOP's convention here featured evangelist Bill Bright, co-founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ, and state Sen. Pete Knight, R-Palmdale, sponsor of an initiative on the March 7 ballot that attempts to ban gay marriages.
Knight has kept a low public profile in supporting Proposition 22, leaving much of the work to a team of Sacramento consultants and his chief of staff. But Sunday he spoke of being branded as "bigoted, racist and mean-spirited," someone who puts "forth divisive issues and wedge politics. You name it, and I'm it."
"Go for it!" a man yelled from the audience gathered in front of Knight, many of whom then laughed and applauded.
"Fifteen or 20 years ago, nobody would have thought about debating this issue," Knight said. "Today there are minority groups all over the country that are screaming and demanding and we as a people are giving in to their demands, one right after the other. I don't think we can continue to do that and maintain these United States."
At past conventions, the prayer breakfast has been a source of controversy and embarrassment for the state Republican Party as it tries to attract more minority voters and throw away a patina of intolerance.
Last September at a GOP convention breakfast in Anaheim, state party Chaplain Doc Burch offended ethnic and religious groups by telling a joke that cast Egyptians as adulterers, Syrians as thieves and Jews as cheap barterers.
Homosexual jokes
This Sunday, Burch made jokes about public school officials allegedly taking teenagers into a "gay and lesbian and homosexual recruiting office" where they are asked, "Have you ever had a sexual feeling you didn't understand?"
"I never had one I did understand," Burch dead-panned. "Every hairy-legged boy I've ever known was hornier than a two-peckered goat, and you're asking him if he's ever had a sexual feeling he didn't understand? It's insanity, and that's what we've done to our kids."
The audience roared with laughter, but state GOP Chairman John McGraw, who was sitting next to Burch, just forced a thin smile and rubbed his forehead.
The state party endorsed Prop. 22 at its last convention, so there wasn't much discussion about the initiative outside the prayer breakfast. A group of Republicans, including anti-affirmative action leader Ward Connerly and moderate members of the Legislature, have come out against the measure.
But the vast majority of convention delegates at the breakfast and the convention seemed enthusiastic about Prop. 22. Many of them signed petitions signaling their public support of the 14-word measure which reads: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
Knight said if the initiative doesn't win by 60 or 70 percent, gay-rights groups will put an initiative on the November ballot attacking marriage. "They will see there is a crack in our armor, that we as a people can be beaten," he said.
Burch said being gay is "not norm" and then admitted he and his wife had a relative who is a lesbian. He put his hand on Knight's shoulder and made reference to Knight's son, who also is gay and has denounced the initiative.
"He loves his kinfolk just exactly like we love ours. It has nothing to do with that," Burch said. "We will continue to love them. But we will continue to stand for what we believe is right. We're not out to bash anybody. We're talking about issues, we're talking about morality, right and wrong. We're talking about something that has destroyed nations all through biblical history.
Burch finished up: "The last two stages of decadence of any nation that ever fell from within was sacrificing their babies and homosexuality. No exceptions to that in all recorded history."
Fasting for Prop. 22
Bright warned the crowd that
immorality is like an infection of cells that must be fought. He asked the crowd of about 200, dining on a breakfast of quiche and bacon, to fast in support of Prop. 22.
Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union "expelled God" and paid the price, Bright said. And then he warned of the same phenomenon in the United States with its acceptance of gays and lesbians.
"(God) doesn't tolerate the way we are living today, embracing all kinds of evil," Bright said. "I commend Sen. Knight for the marvelous and courageous stand he is taking and the vicious attacks from those who hold a different view. I think you can understand why we must support this legislation. Our nation is faced with a spiritual death."
Bright added: "The No. 1 enemy of everything you and I stand for is the secular school, which denies the Bible, embraces homosexuality and lesbianism and all the pornography and filth of another kingdom."
Burch wasn't the only one joking at the prayer breakfast. Jo Ellen Allen, an Orange County Republican, read a passage from the Bible and then offered a joke about the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
The April bloodshed left 12 students, a teacher and two gunman dead.
Allen read a mock letter: " 'Dear God, why did you let the children die at Littleton? Signed, A Concerned Parent,' And God wrote back: 'Dear parent, I'm not allowed in the public schools anymore. Signed, God.' "
A few people in the audience laughed. ©2000 San Francisco Examiner Page A1
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