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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 1996)
ju st o u t ▼ a ugu st 10, 1 9 9 0 ▼ 17 local news Into the lion's den A group of Lane County feminist and gay-rights activists find common ground with Promise Keepers. Are they being misled? by Inga Sorensen our community is clear, regard ayle Landt thinks every conflict is less of the debate about [the an opportunity. group’s] right to be here.” That’s why the 44-year-old di According to Butler, more rector of the Eugene-based Conflict than 600 students signed peti Resolution Center weighed in on tions calling for the university the recent controversy involving a Promise Keep to use the profits generated by ers gathering at the University of Oregon’s the stadium rental fee to support Autzen Stadium. an academic conference address An estimated 35,000 men participated in the ing “problematic issues” related event, which was held Aug. 2-3. to the Promise Keepers’ confer Promise Keepers is an evangelical Christian, ence. male-only organization whose stated goal is to ‘There were lots of people unite men “through vital relationships to become who felt alienated when they godly influences in their world.” According to the heard about Promise Keepers organization, men must reclaim the leadership coming here,” Butler tells Just position in their families, as well as society. Out. “It was very disconcert During the past six years an estimated 2 million ing.” men have attended the group’s rallies; women are “strongly discouraged” from attending. hat unease is what Landt The group was founded in 1990 by former says she wanted to try to University of Colorado football coach Bill address. McCartney, who was a staunch proponent of A trained mediator and life Amendment 2, the anti-gay initiative approved long Oregonian who has wit by Colorado voters in 1992 and recently ruled nessed growing divisions be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. tween urban and rural popula D uring that highly volatile cam paign, tions, timber workers and envi McCartney reportedly stated while on a univer ronmentalists, OCA supporters and gay rights sity podium that gay men and lesbians were “an supporters, Landt was herself dismayed by the abomination against almighty God.” Promise “enormous waste of human energy” prompted Keepers’ official position is that homosexuality by so much dissention. is a sin that “violates God’s design.” In 1994, she brought together 12 community In the group’s book, The Seven Promises o f a leaders—six on “each side” of the gay and les Promise Keeper, Tony Evans, a pastor from bian rights issue, who met for more than 120 Texas, offers instruction to his male readers: hours. Their mission? To look for areas of agree ‘T h e first thing you do is sit down with your wife ment and an alternative to “cultural warfare” in and say something like this: ‘Honey, I’ve made Lane County. a terrible mistake. I’ve given you my role. I gave According to Landt, the project, known as A up leading this family, and I forced you to take New Community Meeting, was designed to pro my place. Now I must reclaim that role.’ Don’t vide “an environment in which formerly alien misunderstand what I’m saying here. I’m not ated leaders in a controversial issue meet one suggesting that you ask for your role back, I’m another, learn new conflict resolution skills, urging you to take it back. If you simply ask for work past their limiting beliefs and negative it, your wife will likely [refuse].” emotions, and learn to work as allies to address Not surprisingly, many people became upset the underlying interest of everyone in the com when they learned that UO administrators had munity.” rented Autzen Stadium to Promise Keepers for ‘T his creates a very different community its conference. climate than the one characterized by frustra Margaret Butler, co-president of UO’s Les tion, rudeness and noncoopera bian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance, helped orga tion,” she says. “Noncoopera nize a candlelight vigil to help counteract the tion by groups of well-meaning alienation created by the Promise Keepers’ pres citizens is costly to any commu ence in Eugene. nity in terms of problems not ‘T h e Promise Keepers’ implicit and explicit solved and solutions not imple negative messages about women, gays and non- mented.” Christians contribute to a climate of hatred for Project participants were people who fall into any of those categories,” taught an array of skills involv says Butler. ing listening, conflict resolution “While we appreciate the Promise Keepers’ and effective dialogue. They efforts to engage men more fully in community eventually signed a statement and family life, we have several concerns about of points they agreed upon, and the Promise Keepers,” she said via a separate Landt says some have contin written statement. ‘T he group’s anti-denomina- ued to hold joint speaking en tional flavor and the desire for the submission of gagements “or just go out for women are both troubling.” coffee.” Matthew Scotten, president of Associated Earlier this year, some mem Students/University of Oregon, sent a letter to bers pondered getting more ac Dan Williams, UO’s vice president. It reads, in tively involved again, and then part: “At issue to me, as an elected representa the Promise Keepers contro tive of the students, is not the content of the versy emerged. Promise Keepers’ event, their faith or their mis Landt helped orchestrate sion. What concerns me is the atmosphere cre ated by such an event, and the fact that students joint meetings with Promise Keepers supporters and leaders, were never asked about or informed of the pos as well as concerned citizens sibility of this event until the decision had been including gay men and lesbians, made. The fact that the presence of the Promise feminists and liberal clergy. Keepers will create an atmosphere of fear and There were three formal intimidation for women and gays and lesbians in T gatherings and a handful of smaller meetings between May 1 and the end of July. Sponsors of the meetings included the Conflict Resolution Center, par- ticipants in the 1994 A New Community Meeting, and uni versity administrators. Landt says the meetings sought to give parties a chance “to explore how the upcoming Promise Keepers conference could be an opportunity to build community in Lane County.” The culmination of their ef forts came on July 31, when more than two dozen commu nity members— including con servative and liberal religious leaders, Promise Keepers sup porters, gay men and lesbians, and others— signed a statement that “defined substantial areas of agreement.” Landt says two Promise Keepers leaders involved in the discussions declined to sign. She blames that on tight time constraints which hindered the ability to find wording that all could agree upon. Seven Lane County evangelical leaders and ministers who support the Promise Keepers movement did sign, however. “I feel a commitment to what I experienced in A New Community Meeting, and an obligation to our community to keep the level of hostility and verbal violence here from escalating be cause of the Promise Keepers’ conference, which I believe is a good and wholesome event for our community,” says the Rev. John Koekkoek, se nior pastor of the Norkenzie Christian Church. Signers agreed, in part, that there are “many diverse families and family structures in our country.” They acknowledged “the worth and dignity of all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, age, eco nomic status, disabilities, marital status and eth nic background.” They further maintained that they opposed discrimination— including discrimination based on sexual orientation— in “ac cordance with federal and state law and the human rights codes of Eugene and other communi ties in Oregon and the North west.” One of the signers, Nadia Telsey, a UO self defense in structor, says: “By signing this paper, we recognize the prin ciple that we worked with in the 1994 A New Community Meet ing process. That principle is: ‘We all live in this community together.’ I am grateful for the signatures of the caring evan gelical ministers on this paper. “It seems to me that they recognize that non-Christian individuals and families live here with them. I am Jewish— they acknowledge Jewish fami lies,” she continues. “I am a wom an who lives with a woman— they state their respect for me and my family. My defi- Promise Keepers' official position is that homo sexuality is a sin that "violates God's design." I believe [the confer ence] is a good and wholesome event for our commu n ity," says the Rev. John Koekkoek. I nition of respect is ‘refusal to violate.’ I suspect that these evangelical signers don’t think that my family is the best of all possible structures— but they state their respect—that includes their re fusal to harshly condemn, coerce or harm my family, and I’m grateful for that.” “The sessions I attended were about healing and building bridges,” adds Henry Alley, co chair of UO’s standing committee on Gay, Les bian and Bisexual Issues. “I ended up hugging a Promise Keeper, which is something I never thought I would do. We hugged not because we agreed, but because we found we were both committed to communication and respect.” day after the agreement was signed, Steve Gardner, research director for the Coali tion for Human Dignity, which monitors white supremacist and neo-Nazi activities, co facilitated a teach-in in Eugene entitled “Con cerns About Promise Keepers.” He also attended the conference. Gardner subscribes to the belief that Promise Keepers is best understood as a cultural manifes tation and recruiting arm of the Christian right. “This is about covert politics. All social and political movements need some kind of group to bridge the gap between, let’s say, the Sunday church gathering and getting involved in promot ing a conservative cause or candidate, he says. A newly released report by the New York City-based Sterling Research Associates, de scribes Promise Keepers as the “third wave of the American religious right.” The first, it says, was Jerry Falwell’s funda mentalist-led Moral Majority, followed by Pat Robertson’s charismatic-led Christian Coalition, with its attendant grass-roots structures. Now comes Promise Keepers, with its leadership based in the non-denominational "Signs and Wonders” network of Vineyard Christian Churches. The movement, says the report, is packing up to 70,000 recruits into massive stadium rallies nationwide, and “receives significant backing” from activists such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. According to the report, Promise Keepers’ distinguishing qualities include its organizational prowess (it recently organized the largest rally of clergy in history—nearly 40,000 in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome) and its push to restructure the nation’s social order. “This involves explicit calls for women to be in submission to men, [and a] goal of placing Promise Keepers ‘key men’ into each of the nation’s 400,000 churches and the establishment of thousands of local small group cells of male recruits across the country under supervision of Promise Keepers’ cadre,” says the report. Sharing that analysis, Gardner wonders whether “mediation and negotiation” are appro priate given the circumstances. “You can try to understand them, but when you attempt to negotiate with the leaders of a political movement, you undermine critics of that movement. The model may work for people in a particular group, or a conflict between individu als, but I don’t think it can be applied to a political movement or very fanatical people,” he says. “People in political movements go to the table thinking, ‘What can I get out of this?’ ” Gardner adds. “While the other side—certainly well-meaning people— go to the table saying, ‘I want to feel better about this conflict. How can we understand each other?’ Now, you tell me who’s going to walk away from that table a winner.” A