The last chapter of Mel White's book Holy Terror, Lies the Christian Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality describes his personal journey to founding the organization Soulforce to counteract the battle being waged against us by the Fundies. That journey began with the publication of his previous book Stranger at the Gate in 1993 in which he describes his thirty years trying everything possible to not be gay. Prior to that book he had been a biographer, and sometimes ghostwriter, for many of the fundamentalist leaders. With the publication of that book two things happened: His previous colleagues and employers turned their backs on him and he suddenly became a gay activist.
At the end of 1994 the New York Times reported that 60% of murders of sexual minorities were "overkill," using a great deal more violence than needed to cause death. It didn't take long to figure out that the brutality of these deaths were due to the toxic misinformation flowing from the Fundie leadership.
White spent much of 1993 and 1994 trying to contact his former clients in hopes of meeting them to make the connections between their words and all these deaths and ask them to at least tone it down. He was ignored. His Christmas letter in 1994 expressed his frustration, "I'm finished trying to talk to the fundamentalists. They're hopeless. I'm giving up on them."
Within days he got a reply from Lynn Cothren, Coretta Scott King's assistant at the King Center in Atlanta and a gay Christian.
I've been following your progress since I read about you in the Southern Voice and until your recent letter I liked what I saw. But your angry decision to break off communications with the radical right signals a turn towards violence. I hope you will seriously reconsider.Violence? What is there about breaking communication that is violent?
Cothren guided White to re-read the writings of Martin Luther King and Gandhi. This is what White learned there:
[King] went on to defend nonviolence on principle as he had for almost a dozen years. And he made it clear that giving up on an opponent was an act of violence against him. He is our brother. We are children of the same Creator. We are in need of reconciliation, and reconciliation will never happen if we call them "hopeless" and walk away.
…
[The fundamentalist leaders] had ignored my pleas for dialogue. So, like a petulant child, I was about to take my toys and go home.. Even worse, I was feeling more and more like blowing up the playground. Although I couldn't see it, anger was crippling my spirit; and though I would have denied it then, the same anger was leading me slowly but surely toward violence.
White began to formulate his own guiding principles. From Jesus: "Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. And pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. … These things I command you that you love one another."
From Gandhi: The law of love has two sides, "to cooperate with all that is good" and "to non-cooperate with all that is evil." The love that Jesus means is "the largest love, love even for the evil-doer. It however does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer. On the contrary it means putting one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Evil, however, cannot be overcome by evil, by violence and retaliation. To use violence against the evil-doer is to deny spiritual unity with him."
From King: "Nonviolent resistance had emerged as the technique of the movement, while love stood as the regulating ideal. In other words, Christ furnished the spirit and the motivation while Gandhi furnished the method."
From Gandhi: "Truth (Satya) implies love and firmness (agraha) serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement 'Satyagraha,' that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love. … Satyagraha is soul force pure and simple and whenever and to whatever extent there is room for the use of arms or physical force or brute force, there and to that extent is there so much less possibility of soul force."
That passage gave White the name for his new organization. It is called Soulforce.
From King: "Never begin a protest if you're not going to take that protest all the way."
King's basic beliefs of soul force: "First, this is not a method of cowardice or passivity. It does resist; second, it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding; third, the attack is directed to the forces of evil, rather than persons caught in the forces; fourth, it not only avoids external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit; fifth, it is based upon the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice."
King's summary of soul force: "We will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We will adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to be witnesses to the truth as we see it."
King's method of soul force, as written by White: "First, gather your evidence. See where injustice prevails and make your strong case against it; second, meet with your opponent to negotiate an end to the injustice; third, if negotiations break down or are used to delay injustice, recruit, train, and equip people of good faith in the principles of relentless nonviolent resistance; fourth, with people committed to nonviolence of the heart, tongue, and fist, plan and carry out nonviolent direct actions that prove to your opponent that you will not be satisfied until justice is done."
White says if we are to satisfy that justice shouldn't we protest unjust wars, demand the end of boycotts that prevent medicine from reaching the needy in hostile countries, take a stand against billions spent on the military instead of on the needy, take care of the prisoner by making the court and corrections systems more just, demand relief for the Palestinian as well as the Israeli, and work to preserve our wounded earth? I'm sure the list should be much longer and include justice for the youth I serve supper to every week at the Ruth Ellis Center. White adds, "This kind of love will cost us."
Hermann Hagadorn's poem The Bomb That Fell on America includes a conversation between himself a the Voice. He is compared to Jesus and the Voice confirms a difference is that "You have never been crucified. Do you know why?" He answers, "I have never made people angry enough." The Voice replies, "The world is sick for dearth of crucifixions."
As for the place of sexual minorities in the church White says we must quit cooperating with those who oppress us. Our opponents assume we are infinitely patient or too comfortable in our closets to lead a revolution. Love demands we call a stop to studies and debates. Love demands we recruit, train, and organize around the principles of relentless nonviolent resistance. Love demands massive and relentless direct actions to confront injustice and end the lies against us. It is time for boycotts, picket lines, mass vigils, serious fasts, candlelight marches, and other acts of nonviolent spiritual disobedience against those who oppress us.
That's a lot to take in. Not enough crucifixions? Must I be so annoying to those in power that they kill me? Or are there other ways of sacrificing myself? Can the sacrifice be in time, treasure, and energy?
I think about my time at the Ruth Ellis Center. I've served supper there for six years. I've been there so long they've declared me to be an angel. I volunteer because the needs of gay youth cast out from their homes because of a Church is so important to me that sending money is not enough. I have to involve me. Have I helped the youth? They aren't as hungry and my work means the staff can spend more time taking care of all the other needs these kids have. But is it justice? Have I helped tackle the reason why these youth are tossed to the street? Alas, no.
What does my work towards justice look like? What does yours?
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