THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100680
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 229 lines
In 1985, Mel White could often be found at Pat Robertson's side - in jets, hotel rooms, at the Christian Broadcasting Network headquarters - interviewing him and penning stylish prose to fuel Robertson's drive to become president.
All that time, the ghostwriter of Robertson's pre-campaign manifesto, ``America's Dates with Destiny,'' was keeping a secret: White, then-married and the father of two, is gay.
In 1991, the man who polished the phrases of conservative Christian luminaries like Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Robertson, ended his double life. He wrote and told them his secret. They immediately cut all ties.
It was then he began a public crusade against what he calls ``the religious right's war against gay and lesbian people.''
Today, White, who now leads a Dallas-based Christian denomination for gays and lesbians, is returning to challenge Robertson on his home turf. White will be the featured guest at Saturday's Gay Pride Festival in Norfolk.
On Monday, he faxed Robertson a letter requesting a private meeting. He said Robertson's ``misleading and inflammatory'' words lead to suffering in families, churches and communities. ``We must never stop trying to negotiate with the people with whom we disagree,'' he said.
Robertson faxed back, refusing the invitation. Homosexuality, he wrote, ``is the last stage in the decline of a population. In the Old Testament the statement is clear: `It is an abomination for a man to lie with a man as with a woman.' ''
For more than four decades, White believed that, too. Believed it enough to go through psychotherapy, electric shocks and exorcisms to rid himself of his sexual urges. Believed it enough to stay married for 25 years, while fighting his guilt over secret liaisons with men. Believed it enough to insist that his name not appear anywhere in the books he wrote for evangelicals - not even the acknowledgments - because he didn't want to harm them if someone discovered he was, as he says wryly, ``an evil gay person.''
Those beliefs are gone. White is dean of Dallas' Cathedral of Hope, the flagship church of a 30,000-member national ecumenical Christian denomination for gays and lesbians. His role in the denomination, known as the Metropolitan Community Church, is mainly to organize a media campaign against Christian televangelists' anti-gay statements.
With speeches and workshops this weekend, White wants to mobilize the Hampton Roads gay community in a long-term strategy to combat the statements of Robertson and other conservative Christians, which he says lead to intolerance and violence against gays.
That strategy, White said, will take more than one-day ``show biz'' events, like parades and marches. ``One of the tasks people have who live close to the center of power is to represent all of us in the daily confrontation with power,'' he said. ``Pat Robertson is at the center of the anti-gay mystique. He and his `700 Club,' the Christian Coalition, his books, that is at the heart of the moral pollution in this country about gay and lesbian people.''
Gene Kapp, Robertson's spokesman, said that White distorts Robertson's views to generate publicity for himself. ``To suggest that comments made by Mr. Robertson are somehow responsible for violence against gays and lesbians is appalling and irresponsible,'' Kapp said. ``Mr. Robertson condemns violence.''
Even as he compares the tactics of religious conservatives to those of Hitler, White insists he is struggling to express his views and change minds without escalating the angry rhetoric.
Some leaders in Hampton Roads' gay community say they invited White to the Norfolk festival because they believe his Christian perspective can reach Americans, gay and straight, who are repelled by the vehemence of the national debate. White, they say, can build a bridge between people of faith and the homosexual community.
Thomas Long, a gay activist in Norfolk and former priest at Christ the King Catholic Church, said, ``In some places, what I will call radical gay and lesbian activists have thoroughly repudiated people's spiritual, religious longing. At the other extreme, religious fundamentalists of many faiths have utterly demonized and vilified us.
``With Mel White's visit, there is an opportunity to demonstrate to the vast majority of people in the middle that there are ways to look other than the two poles.''
White's personal journey - from an insider in the conservative Christian movement to a gay activist church leader - has sometimes made him feel like a double agent.
In 1994, shortly after his autobiography, ``Stranger at the Gate,'' hit the bookstores, he commented: ``The gay press doesn't like me because I'm still Christian; the Christian press doesn't like me because I'm still gay.''
Faith has been the thread that sustained him. White, 54, said he never once turned away from his religious beliefs, though he believed for years that he was going to hell because of his homosexuality. ``I felt rejected by God and spent a lot of time hoping he would forgive me,'' he said.
His work as a ghostwriter to televangelists capped a successful career as a Christian filmmaker and publisher. Inspirational books he wrote under his own name sold millions, and he produced more than 50 Christian documentaries.
He pastored at a small Swedish Covenant church in Pasadena, Calif., and taught classes at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he received his doctor of divinity degree. With his wife, Lyla, he raised his son and daughter, while privately wrestling with his fantasies and sexual urges toward men.
Occasionally, he picked up men in gay bars, but his guilt sent him back to psychiatrists and healers. In one treatment, a therapist attached electric cables to his body, and White gave himself shocks whenever he felt stimulated by a picture of a man. Nothing worked.
By 1980, he had told his family and a few close friends that he was gay. A few years later, he ended his marriage and began a relationship with his partner, Gary Nixon, but he remains close to his wife and children.
But the success of his ghostwriting only increased the need for a public facade. He collaborated with Billy Graham on ``Approaching Hoofbeats.'' After writing for the granddaddy of televangelists, the work poured in. And it was lucrative: He could earn $100,000 for a few months' work.
Throughout the 1980s, he was hired to write books for Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker and speeches for Oliver North. Pat Robertson, on the brink of launching his presidential bid, hired White to write Robertson's political vision for the nation.
While White hobnobbed and joked with some of his other clients, Robertson was always distant, he said. ``Pat really feels he is a modern-day prophet called to save America from its sin,'' White said. ``He has a sincere urge to purge. He's terribly focused . . . and disinterested in other people's agendas.''
Robertson's agenda, along with that of other leading televangelists, included preaching against the sin of homosexuality. For years, White cringed at their rhetoric and quietly pocketed his paychecks.
But the strain of his double life grew, as White recalls in his autobiography.
His landlord refused to renew a one-year lease because he and Nixon were a gay couple. When the two men walked the streets together, people shouted ``faggots'' or ``fairies,'' and sometimes threw bottles at them. In White's Bible study circle, he listened as gay Christians talked about suicide attempts and family rejection.
In October 1991, he received a fund-raising letter from Jerry Falwell. In the letter, Falwell said he was attacked by ``a mob of homosexuals,'' and he called upon his supporters to fight homosexuals' ``violence'' and ``perversion.''
The ghostwriter's silence ended. White sent a Falwell a letter, informing him of his homosexuality and asking to meet to discuss Falwell's anti-gay comments. More letters flew out, to Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and James Dobson of Focus on the Family.
Not one agreed to meet with him. White's letters and phone calls were ignored. Book and film contracts were abruptly canceled.
Since then, the once-secret scribe for conservative Christians has become one of the nation's loudest voices for gay rights. After years of affluence, he serves without pay at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas.
In 1993, he was arrested with 50 others at a White House protest of Clinton's compromise on lifting the ban on gays in the military. This July, he held a weeklong fast in Colorado to protest the work of James Dobson and his Focus on the Family organization.
White is frank in admitting that he's not sure that these efforts are the best way to change minds. What he wants is one-to-one dialogue, private or public, with his influential former employers.
``I feel so certain that God created me gay, to be part of an army of people bringing truth to the world about this subject, which is dividing the nation,'' White said. ``I feel called by God to be part of the solution. It's my struggle to understand how to do it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
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WHITE'S LETTER
Pat Robertson, the Chancellery, CBN Center
Virginia Beach, Va. 23463
Dear Pat,
For the past six months I've been reading Gandhi, Mandela,
Romero, Aquino, King, and especially Jesus. They all insist that we
must never stop trying to negotiate with the people with whom we
disagree. You know how strongly I disagree with you about your
public stand on gay and lesbian people. But I was wrong to give up
on the possibility that you would ever meet with me to talk about
this important issue. Forgive me. When I was writing your America's
Dates With Destiny, we had several conversations that proved to me
that you are open to contrary views and willing to change your
position when the evidence is solid.
For the past three years, we have monitored your broadcast and
print comments about gay and lesbian Americans. We have collected
hours of video samples of your direct accusations and casual asides
about us on the 700 Club. You have every right to say what you
believe; but much of what you say isn't true. Worse, so much of what
you say is misleading and dangerously inflammatory.
I know you don't mean for people to suffer from what you say; but
there is growing evidence that suffering comes directly and
indirectly from your words against us. And in this climate of
misunderstanding, families are ruined, churches are split, lives are
wasted, and hate crimes against gay and lesbian people increase.
Vanity Fair (February, 1995) tells the story of the recent murders
of gay men in Texas. How would you feel if you, the 700 Club, and
the Christian Coalition turn out to be major sources of the
misinformation that leads to these tragic deaths?
Once again, in the spirit of Matthew 18:15, I ask for the
opportunity to meet with you privately to discuss your claims
against us. What if you are wrong about sexual orientation? What if
your anti-homosexual words and actions are the cause of broken homes
and ruined lives? Isn't it worth a few moments of your time to hear
the other side, even if I am wrong?
On the weekend of February 10-12, 1995, I will be speaking to
various gatherings of gay and lesbian Christians in the Tidewater
area. Would you find time in your busy schedule to talk to me while
I am in Virginia Beach? I will be free Saturday and Sunday,
afternoons and evenings, and though I am scheduled to depart Sunday,
I will remain in Virginia Beach if you could see me any time during
the day of Monday, Feb. 13.
In the name of Christ, our Savior and Lord,
Mel
ROBERTSON'S RESPONSE
February 7, 1995
Dear Mel:
I thank you for your letter. My theology is framed 100 percent on
the Bible.
We are told in the Bible to love all people including those who
sin against the Lord. For this reason I must have love in my heart
toward homosexual and lesbian people, and to the best of my
knowledge, we are able to minister to about 2,000 of these people
through our counseling centers every month.
On the other hand, the Bible indicates in the book of Romans that
``God gave them up.'' It is the last stage in the decline of a
population. In the Old Testament the statement is clear: ``It is an
abomination for a man to lie with a man as with a woman.''
There is nothing you could say and nothing you could do which
would make me believe you more than I believe Moses or the apostle
Paul. For this reason, I do not wish to meet to debate the merits of
homosexuality. You have chosen your lifestyle, and I hope that God
will reveal to you one day what His Word says about it.
In the meantime, I don't wish you ill, and I would very much
appreciate it if you would stop going around the country wishing me
ill.
I remain
Sincerely yours,
Pat
by CNB