Christian Men’s Movement Withdraws Request for Rally

Promise Keepers, the nationwide Christian men’s movement, unexpectedly withdrew its request Monday night before the Pasadena City Council to hold a rally next May at the Rose Bowl.

Instead, area Promise Keepers officials said they expect to hold the rally--which in the past has attracted tens of thousands of men--at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

The decision was announced as the council girded for a debate over the request. “Promise Keepers did not want to be in an adversarial position and have to go to bat against a municipality,” said John Reekie of San Gabriel, a Promise Keepers regional organizer.

Although the council dropped the item, it did allow one opponent to speak. Nancy Novosad, who described herself as a writer and researcher from Lakewood, Colo., called Promise Keepers “a male supremacist, conservative religious organizations that advocates strongly gender bigotry.”

Promise Keepers officials say that the program’s only goal is to make men better husbands, fathers and grandfathers--to make men “promise keepers” instead of “promise breakers.”