On a church in San Francisco in September, now since that story aired, that attack has
gained a great deal more media attention in San Francisco itself.
On Monday of this week, the city's board of supervisors looked into the incident and people
on both sides spoke out very strongly.
CBN news reporter Richard Hunt brought you that first report, and now he has this update.
Jesus, protect us from your followers.
That was the message on a banner unfurled by homosexual activists Monday morning as
they held a press conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall.
But in order to understand the unusual banner, it's important to provide you with some quick
background information.
On September 19th, homosexuals targeted San Francisco's Hamilton Square Baptist Church
for a protest.
The guest speaker that evening was Reverend Lewis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition.
Because police protection was minimal, activists were able to deface the church building and
vandalize property.
Worse yet, worshippers like Carrie Vaughn were accosted by demonstrators.
This one guy, great big guy, dark hair, shoved his face in my face, I mean like right up
to here, you know, menacing again, and called me a bitch, a bigot.
During the service, angry gays pounded on doors to the sanctuary, frightening young
and old alike.
In an exclusive interview in October, Captain Rich Carnes told CBN News that under some
circumstances, the politics of the liberal board of supervisors does impact police operations.
In reality, there is some politics that are going to override what might occur.
Reverend David Ennis, pastor of Hamilton Square Baptist, blames the supervisors, not the police,
for the attack on his church, and he decided to take on City Hall.
More than 300 ministers from 28 states responded to Ennis' call to rally, then march on the
board of supervisors this past Monday.
Just four hours before the pastor's rally, homosexuals held a hastily arranged press
conference.
Their cry was, Christian bigots are trying to hurt us.
Rebecca Hensler with Act Up.
We would be wrong to allow Lewis Sheldon or anyone else to promote violence against us
simply because he cloaks his bigotry in scripture and plans our holocaust in a church.
Pro-homosexual activist Margie Covino.
The problem is not with good Christian people, it is with the new Ayatollahs in America who
use feminism and who use gays and lesbians to manipulate those good Christian people
to further their own political agendas and to reconstruct America into a fascist theocracy.
However, the activists refused to hold homosexual protesters responsible for their actions against
Hamilton Square Church.
Back at the church, ministers had received word that the gays were going to try to fill
all the available seats at the board of supervisors meeting in hopes of keeping the Christians
out.
As a result, Christians immediately marched to City Hall with police escort, then waited
outside the chambers alongside homosexuals for the doors to open.
There were encounters.
It's a disgrace to call yourselves Christians.
You are not a Christ, you're a Beelzebub.
In response to homosexual taunts, the ministers broke out in song.
It was a crowded and rowdy session of the San Francisco board of supervisors as Christian
pastors and homosexual activists took turns at the microphone.
San Francisco is a city of refuge for us, the gay men and the lesbians and the bisexuals.
We come here to escape hostility, to escape bigotry, to escape hatred and physical harm
perpetrated on us by our families and by our neighbors and by the churches in which we
were raised.
Now, the same intolerant biggest that drove us from our homes and from our cities are
here in San Francisco.
Is there a double standard in this city?
One opposing gay bashing and another winking at Christian bashing?
There is so much Christian phobia and anti-Christian bigotry in this supposedly tolerant city that
it ain't funny.
I just want to say that no people were prevented entry into that church.
Everyone who wanted in got in.
They might not have got in exactly when they wanted to, but they got in.
I also want to say that I do not apologize for my community or its outrage, never.
We will not stand to be intimidated on how to preach, what to preach and when to preach.
Amid cat calls and interruptions, Reverend Lewis Sheldon was finally allowed to speak
after Angela Alioto, chairwoman of the board of supervisors, threatened to clear the room.
This is a first amendment right he has and he's exercising it and it's important.
I want to hear what he has to say.
I've been fighting him for six years.
I want to hear this.
I preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and we will not have any particular group tell us
what is politically correct.
We will do what is morally correct.
Now watch your television carefully as a man with glasses in the lower right part of your
screen spits into Sheldon's face.
Police immediately moved in and arrested the man, dragging him away.
Homosexual activists were outraged by this.
A few more people were allowed to speak.
Then as Reverend Chuck McElhenney was about to talk, the supervisors moved to stop the
public comments.
Hamilton Square's David Ennis, who had planned to present the gay flag raised over his church
to Carol Migdon, a lesbian supervisor, was not permitted to or to speak.
Migdon issued a media statement that read, this demonstration today is not a call for
justice.
It is a well orchestrated publicity stunt to generate support for an extremist attack
on lesbians and gay men.
And supervisor Sue Bierman voiced this assurance to homosexuals that all but confirms the special
status given to gays by city government.
And I want to speak for just a minute to the gays and the lesbians and transsexuals
in this room.
You just don't have to get all upset here because we know what you're going through.
But later back at Hamilton Square, the mood was joyous, not because any supervisors had
been won over, but because politicians had shown their true colors and Christians had
taken a bold stand in the chambers of what is likely the most pro-homosexual city government
in America.
Richard Hunt, CBN News, San Francisco.
Ladies and gentlemen, when you hear of these initiatives to give special rights to homosexuals,
you see what happens when they get special rights.
They prohibit people from worshiping in church or assault them or delay their getting into
church.
Have you heard an outcry or an outrage in the secular media if this was an abortion
clinic?
Imagine what would be done.
And it's time that people speak out.
This was the most outrageous example of a discriminatory attack against one segment
of society, and for the state under the rubric of their government to deny equal protection
of the law to one group and give special rights to another is constitutionally improper.
And there could be indeed a court challenge, and I don't know why they're not asking for
it, but the courts must rule that this Board of Supervisors has to give protection to various
groups.
Imagine if it was a black demonstration, you know, Martin Luther King was speaking instead
of Lou Sheldon, and a group of angry racists came outside putting their face into innocent
women and screaming at them.
I think you could very clearly see which side was the one that was the angry, bitter, hostile
biggest.
There was a demand of the civil rights law for protection, and it is in the Constitution,
it's the 14th Amendment, and it's in the civil rights laws passed by Congress that were won
by the black demonstrators in the south.
And this is comparable.
One of the things we didn't hear here today that was on that original report was that
these people were hollering, give us your children, and frightening the children of
these people.
This wasn't just a sincere...
Oh yeah, blocking entrance into them, but this was private property, they were trespassing
on private property.
It was terrible.
Well, what's next?
Well, coming up next, we have another...