SOUL MAN.

The Rev. Mel White is determined to end organized religion's holy war against gay men and lesbians

Know thy enemy. So says the openly gay reverend Mel White.

One might think that White, a man of God who has time and again fasted and trespassed against the leaders of the religious right, might put Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson on his enemies list.

But White, who has dedicated himself to building Soulforce, a network for civil disobedience, cites only one enemy--untruth.

"Those who believe--and even those who teach--the untruths about sexual orientation are victims too," White says.

White says he was "transformed by nonviolence" after his widely reported 22-day jailhouse fast in 1995. He had been arrested on charges of trespassing at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network center in Virginia Beach, Va.

"I'd announced that I'd given up on Robertson and Falwell," White recalls. "Then I got a call from Lynn Cothren, Coretta Scott King's executive assistant, and she said, `That was an act of violence.'"

Cothren's call prompted White to read the works of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He traveled to India to meet with Gandhi's relatives and friends, and he talked with King's colleagues and family. "It was helpful just to sit at their feet," says White, who decided to apply his heroes' principles to the gay civil rights movement.

Like Gandhi, who led India to independence with civil disobedience and love, and King, who challenged legally sanctioned segregation in the United States with civil disobedience and love, White says he is determined to end organized religion's unholy war against gays and lesbians with civil disobedience and love.

"Even the discussion has become a cause of suffering," White says. "We feel that the devastation has to end. We have been polite and accepting too long."

The summer of 2000 may be remembered as a season of religious unrest. White and Soulforce demonstrators protested at the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Fla., June 13-14. And at press time the group had similar demonstrations planned against the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches--major denominations in which, White says, religious arsonists have fanned the flames of fundamentalism.

Soulforce's summer campaign began in May in Cleveland, where the United Methodist General Conference voted to retain a ban on same-sex union ceremonies and to continue excluding lesbians and gay men from the ordained clergy. Nearly 200 protesters were arrested in a demonstration that led to speculation that the church might split over gay rights, just as it had over slavery more than 100 years ago.

White--jailed dozens of times in the past six years--says the arrests in Cleveland resulted in no more than misdemeanor fines, but people were nevertheless transformed.

"Something wonderful is happening," White says. "I watched 191 people in Cleveland take their stand, tears streaming down their faces, because for the first time in their life they had a teeny tiny sense of doing justice. They will never be the same for it. They had a sense of what [Nelson] Mandela felt. And God, they will never be the same for it."

White and his band of protesters won't retire when summer ends. Demonstrations are planned in September at Falwell's ministry in Lynchburg, Va., and in November during the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C.

This will be Soulforce's second encounter with Falwell. In October White and 200 delegates held a summit with Falwell and 200 members of his ministry in an attempt to hold a civil exchange on gay rights in church and state. Falwell and White emerged from the meeting beaming, and Falwell promised to tone down his rhetoric and to help Soulforce build a Habitat for Humanity house in Lynchburg. Not long after the meeting, though, Falwell crowed that seven Soulforce delegates with whom he had met had given up the "gay lifestyle."

"I think Jerry Falwell is a liar," White says today, adding that he doesn't expect the far-right evangelist to take a hammer in hand when Soulforce returns to build the Habitat house. "But we've got to outlove [Falwell]," White says. "Love the sinner and hate their sin."

Neff is managing editor at the Chicago Free Press.

RELATED ARTICLE: LOVE IN TRANSITION

A lesbian couple joined by Jimmy Creech splits up, and "Martin"--once "Martha"--talks about the sex change that ended the union

BY SUE ROCHMAN

It was the love of two women--sanctified in a United Methodist church in Omaha--that first ignited the spark in what has become a denominational firestorm regarding same-sex unions. But three years later it appears the debate over that love has outlived the relationship itself.

The women, who went by the pseudonyms "Mary" and "Martha" when the Rev. Jimmy Creech performed their union ceremony in 1997, have broken up--in large part because "Martha" now goes by "Martin."

Although Martin had decided to become a man a few months before the union ceremony, he says today that his relationship with Mary ended in May 1999 because Mary wanted to be with a woman, not a man.

"I knew I was going to transition, [Mary] knew, and Jimmy knew around thai time as well," says Martin, who asked that his real name not be used for this story. "I had cried for weeks about it. Mary was the love of my life--and she told me up front she didn't know how she would feel about it. But she still wanted to go through with the ceremony. I told her I wouldn't transition if it meant us being separate, but she said, `You won't be yourself unless you do.'"

Six months after the couple's commitment ceremony, Martin began to undergo the physical and hormonal changes necessary to live his life as a man. Initially Mary stayed with him. But soon, Martin says, "she said I was too male for her--that the feminine emotional intimacy that we had was lost."

Looking back, Martin says he had no idea his union with Mary would cause the uproar it did. "I thought there might be something in the newspaper," he says, "but not the way it ultimately blew up."

"When we approached Jimmy, he said he had to fell his bishop he was doing the union," Martin adds. "We told him thai if the bishop was against it, we would back out. But he didn't tell us that had happened [that the bishop was against it]. We didn't know about that until we read it in the newspapers. It was devastating."

"I didn't think my losing my ministry was something they should have to worry about," says Creech, who was fired from the Omaha church due to his participation in Mary and Martha's ceremony and then defrocked in 1999 after presiding over a union for two gay men in North Carolina. "What happened to me was not their responsibility. I was honored to celebrate their union and have no regrets about it."

"Martin's transition didn't make a difference about my feelings toward them or about their commitment," Creech adds. "I don't think you measure the significance of a relationship in terms of how long it lasts. I think you measure it in terms of what people give to one another during the time they are together."

For Martin, it's been quite a road for a man who spent the first 25 years of his adult life as a married stay-at-home mother of three. In his 50s, living in Wisconsin, and working as an electrical engineer, Martin is now in a relationship with another female-to-male transsexual. And he's proud of the choices he has made. "My history is who I am," he says. "I don't think God has us go through things without a plan. I am who I am today because of my female past. And I continue to have a lot of faith in God. The church laws are made by man. God's law is a lot higher."

Rochman is a San Francisco-based freelance writer.