Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 3, 1993 TAG: 9307030012
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL CATTAU DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Long
"Jerry Falwell is a practical joker, and he'll bump you as you're coming out of an elevator and laugh if the doors close and you get stuck on it, and he'll be down there laughing when you come off," said White, who ghostwrote two books for the former Moral Majority leader.
"His practical jokes are legion," he said. "And they are funny. And I like being with him."
On Sunday the "ghost" for the likes of Pat Robertson, Billy Graham and W.A. Criswell will be invisible no more: He will be installed as dean of Dallas' Cathedral of Hope, the largest gay and lesbian church in the world. The 1,200-member congregation is the flagship of the Metropolitan Community Church, a 30,000-member denomination based in Los Angeles.
From the striking new church building near Love Field, White will start a national media-based ministry to counter religious-right figures such as Robertson, who he says wants to destroy his "gay brothers and sisters."
Not so, says Robertson. Like many who condemn homosexuality as contributing to the United States' moral decay, he says he's fighting only the sin, not the sinner.
The MCC's movement, called Circles of Hope, will combine spiritual outreach and social action for those in communities with little or no visible gay presence. It will use modern technology - television programs, modems and 800 numbers - to help create Bible study groups.
"The goal is not to persuade the right that they are wrong," said Senior Pastor Michael S. Piazza, who recruited White for what will, at first, be an unpaid position. "But we want to communicate with those in rural areas who have questions and doubts."
Piazza is particularly concerned about people with AIDS, parents of gays and lesbians and an "epidemic" of suicide attempts by gay and lesbian teen-agers.
"Fighting the religious right or helping the churches re-examine their prejudice and their homophobia is an impossible task," said White. "My real job is to provide comfort and community to my gay brothers and sisters."
On a rainy, cold Sunday morning in early January, White and his partner of nine years, Gary Nixon, attended services at Dallas' First Baptist Church. They were newly arrived from Laguna Beach, Calif.; Falwell had come to town to be guest preacher.
For more than a year, White had sent letters to Falwell, asking him to correct "misinformation" in his statements about homosexuality. Although there had been no response, White hoped at least to meet with Falwell. It didn't happen.
During the service, the 53-year-old writer's anger grew as he heard the Lynchburg, Va., televangelist talk about President-elect Clinton's plan to lift the ban on gays in the military.
"It's bad enough to put our guys out there in the foxholes, who must focus on the enemy, without having to look to see who's crawling up behind them," Falwell told the congregation.
White was offended but not surprised. He has heard churches condemn homosexuality, directly or indirectly, for most of his life. He knows by heart the "five or six lines" in the Bible - namely those in Genesis, Leviticus and Romans - that are used to condemn homosexuality.
But White says other passages bear an altogether different message - one of love and forgiveness.
"Don't let the haunting voices of these five or six lines destroy your life like it did mine," he tells other gays. "Finally, instead of killing myself, I had to throw myself onto grace."
In an interview this week, Falwell said he hadn't known White was gay when they worked together. But, he added, "It wouldn't have made any difference."
About a year ago, "Mel wrote me a long letter telling me he was gay," Falwell said. "While I don't agree with his lifestyle, I'm not his God."
He describes White as "perhaps the finest writer I know" and "a man of integrity and fairness." Recently, "I gave him an unreserved recommendation" for a job.
"I am Mel's friend," Falwell said, "and I think he's mine."
When White came out as gay to his family and close friends in the early 1980s, he was married with two children and living in Pasadena, Calif. While he taught communications and media studies at Fuller Theological Seminary - where he received his doctor of ministry degree - he had built a successful career as free-lance writer and filmmaker.
He produced more than 50 motion-picture and television documentaries, including "In the Presence of My Enemies," the story of Vietnam POW Howard Rutledge. He has written more than 15 books, including "Tested by Fire," the life of burn victim Merrill Womach, and "Aquino," about former Philippines president Corazon Aquino and her martyred husband.
His ghostwriting jobs often brought $100,000 for a few months' work. His clients included Graham, with whom he collaborated on "Approaching Hoofbeats."
"Once you've ghostwritten for Billy Graham," he said, "there's not a person in the religious world who doesn't want you to ghostwrite for them."
But White said the word got out in the early 1980s that he was gay, and Graham stopped returning his phone calls. Graham was unavailable for comment, but said in a prepared statement, "Homosexuality is not a lifestyle that is endorsed by the Bible. The Bible indicates that when you come to Christ you change your lifestyle.
"I believe that the attitude of a Christian to a homosexual is also one of love. . . . They need Christ just as we do."
From the beginning, Mel White was pushed to be an evangelist - his idol was Graham - but it took him decades to find a calling. He won awards and prizes for writing and filmmaking, hobnobbed with celebrities, made lots of money - and was miserable.
White was raised in a congregation of the Anderson, Ind.-based Church of God, where his mother directed the choir.
by CNB