Foes Find Common Cause Against Gay Rights

Once at odds with a conservative religious organization over Proposition 187, a new statewide group of Latino evangelical church leaders has now joined it on an equally passionate front: gay rights.

Called La Amistad, the group of mostly Spanish-speaking Protestant Pentecostal congregations is aggressively fighting gay rights legislation being considered in Sacramento.

La Amistad--which means friendship in Spanish--operates from the Anaheim headquarters of the national Traditional Values Coalition, whose leader, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, is known for his strong opposition to gay and lesbian rights.

La Amistad says it has a statewide membership of roughly 1,000 pastors, representing mostly storefront churches. That number could not be verified because the group did not provide a membership list.

La Amistad has primarily attracted Latino followers of the Assemblies of God church, a rapidly growing global Pentecostal movement based in Missouri that counts about 100,000 Latinos in its California congregations.

Nearly 70% of Latinos in California are Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church also opposes homosexual relationships but it does not lobby aggressively against most gay rights bills.

La Amistad, endorsed by the Assemblies of God leadership, bases its theology on strict interpretations of the New Testament, with an emphasis on aggressive evangelism.

“If we don’t speak up on issues of moral concern, who will?” said the Rev. Samuel Sanchez, superintendent of the roughly 300 Latino Assemblies of God churches in Southern California.

Sheldon has enlisted La Amistad to oppose legislation that would recognize gay marriages and strengthen state laws prohibiting discrimination in public schools against homosexuals.

Asked about cultivating support from Latino immigrants who may have resented his group’s support of Prop. 187, Sheldon said: “There is a healing that has to take place.”

Prop. 187--designed to bar illegal immigrants from public schools and many government services--has been largely invalidated in court. Gov. Gray Davis agreed recently not to appeal the federal court ruling.

Although some bitterness remains over Prop. 187, La Amistad members are in agreement on keeping a lid on gay rights.

“We are out to promote family values,” said La Amistad’s executive director, the Rev. Martin Garcia, a registered Democrat. “Meaning the mama and the papa. Not two mamas or two papas.”

Easy Targets for Abuse

The Rev. Jose Luis Soto, pastor of a South Gate church that belongs to the group, added: “Prop. 187 is not a good issue anymore.” What matters more these days is realizing “we Latinos can control elections in Southern California,” he said.

Group members have written letters to Latino legislators and plan a Sacramento rally this week.

La Amistad believes same-sex relations are chosen behaviors rather than inherent preferences, said Garcia, pastor of the Iglesia del Senor in Bell. That outlook, prevalent among older Latino immigrants, is often supported in popular films and literature in Latin America, experts say.

In Mexico and Central America, homosexuals are portrayed as clowns or super-villians, said Raul Ruiz, a Chicano studies professor at Cal State Northridge.

This hurts gay civil rights efforts, Ruiz said. “They can’t be considered to have rights if they’re not seen as real human beings.”

The Rev. Jorge Delgado, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in West Hollywood, said those attitudes also make gays and lesbians in his congregation and elsewhere easy targets for abuse.

With regular Spanish sermons and about 42,000 members in 15 countries, the Metropolitan Community Church believes “the heart of Christianity is supposed to focus on unconditional love for all of God’s creation,” Delgado said. Sexual preference has nothing to do with one’s spirituality, he said.

Republican leaders--who are not directly involved in La Amistad’s efforts--hope the group, although small, can help bring more Latinos to the GOP fold.

The growing Latino electorate numbers about 2 million voters in California. Republicans, pushing issues like education, crime and job security, currently have about 200,000 Latinos registered.

Wary of endorsing Sheldon’s views on homosexuality and abortion--because of varied opinions within the party--Republican leaders, such as state party spokesman Stuart DeVeaux, see a potential for benefits to the GOP in La Amistad.

Republicans Try to Capitalize

Mike Madrid, a Republican analyst who ran the state party’s Latino outreach effort before resigning as political director last year, described La Amistad as “a good harbinger of things to come in California.”

As the Latino electorate becomes more sophisticated and confident of its political voice, Madrid said, natural links with some Republican values are bound to emerge, particularly among religious conservatives. “The Republican message has historically appealed to an increasingly older white base,” Madrid said. “This is not the future of California.”

Opponents of La Amistad’s efforts also see the group’s potential.

“Any mobilized effort to hinder the civil rights of a community is a huge threat,” said Victor Sanchez, coordinator of La Casa, a gay and lesbian center in East Los Angeles.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa accused La Amistad of fomenting animosity during a time when hate crimes are drawing national attention. “People in this state are tired of wedge-issue politics,” he said.

La Amistad does not hate gays and lesbians, Garcia countered, emphasizing his belief that homosexuality can be “cured.”

“We love them,” he said. “We welcome them in our church. We want to help them.”

But Garcia’s group opposes a bill by Villaraigosa that would increase penalties for discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing and the workplace.

Gay rights supporters “want to force everybody to obey the homosexual agenda,” complained Soto, pastor of South Gate’s World Mission Maranatha Evangelistic Center.

“They’re making a situation where we cannot fire anybody who is homosexual even though it goes against our principles and our belief of the will of God.”

In response, Villaraigosa said “somebody should be able to get a job, get promoted and buy a home regardless of who they are or what their orientation is.”

Through their congregations, La Amistad leaders say, they can mobilize thousands of previously inactive Latino voters.

They intend to launch a media campaign seeking more members with the help of the Traditional Values Coalition, a veteran of lobbying campaigns and protests.

The coalition is training La Amistad members on how to be politically effective, Sheldon said. Pastors are learning how to stir their congregations into action. Fliers in Spanish warning of gay rights legislation are being distributed to the churches.

La Amistad Is Not Alone

The response has been overwhelming, Sheldon said, adding that, on moral issues, “Latino pastors in La Amistad rise up with a greater fervor and determination than the Anglo pastors.”

Garcia said the group also seeks support from Latinos in other denominations, finding hope in the official stances taken by some national churches against same-sex unions or gay ministries.

The Catholic Church, for instance, views homosexuality as “disordered,” said Carol Hogan, of the California Conference of Bishops. But church leaders express their views only about certain bills in letters to legislators, she said, adding that the approach is one of counseling and intercession and not one of political aggression.

Some Latino Catholic lay groups, however, are more inclined to side with La Amistad on gay rights.

Publications like the Tijuana-based La Cruz de California, which is written in Spanish and distributed monthly to Southern California parishes, speak out against gay rights legislation, said editor Bob McPhail.

La Cruz portrays Latino politicians who support gay rights as sinners, McPhail says.

Some religious leaders disapprove of getting too directly involved in state politics, emphasizing a commitment to serving the oppressed and the poor. But Isaac Canales, a respected Pentecostal theologian, considers La Amistad’s existence to be healthy.

“I think there’s a very great concern that Hispanics would be stereotyped as people who support liberal legislation,” he said. “What we’re looking at is very educated Latinos on both sides arguing on significant issues.”

David Reynoso, who owns a Maywood religious bookstore and co-hosts a family therapy radio program, intends to widen the debate.

He took heart in how far La Amistad’s message has spread when a Selma, Calif.-based organization called Latinos por la Familia--not connected to La Amistad--recently bought a full-page advertisement in the Spanish-language daily newspaper La Opinion.

The ad railed against homosexuality and encouraged readers to mobilize against proposed legislation affecting gay rights.

Part of the ad backed an initiative on next March’s state ballot that would deny legal recognition to same-sex marriages. The initiative has been supported by the Assemblies of God, the California Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Mormon church, to name a few.

Getting the Word Out

Reynoso, who preaches La Amistad’s agenda on his show, mailed large red poster copies he made of the La Opinion advertisement to roughly 400 churches and friends throughout the region.

At a Maywood bus stop, Amelia Lopez of Cudahy said she does not follow politics too closely but confessed to mixed feelings when she saw one of Reynoso’s posters.

Responding to a printed claim that Villaraigosa’s bill would somehow lead to corrupting her two grandchildren in school, Lopez said: “I don’t like that.”

Then, she thought about denying others their civil rights and said, “One has to be compassionate, no?”