Black Clergy Wooed for Values Fight

[CrimsonTide4]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...forvaluesfight


Article Excerpt:

Conservative black pastors from across California were urged Tuesday to join white evangelicals on the front lines of the nation's culture wars — particularly in the fight against gay marriage.


The campaign debuted at the 27,000-member Crenshaw Christian Center, one of Los Angeles' biggest churches, at a summit organized by ministers who backed President Bush (news - web sites)'s reelection last year and now are seeking an expanded role in the Republican Party.


It was the first of several such meetings set to take place across the nation in the coming months — an effort closely watched by GOP strategists eager to forge alliances with black churches long associated with Democrats.


As heads nodded affirmatively, the 70 black pastors in attendance Tuesday were urged to pressure lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington to oppose gay marriage — harnessing the power of churches that in some cases have tens of thousands of members.


"We are the spokesmen for this issue," said Bishop Frank L. Stewart, pastor of the Zoe Christian Fellowship of Los Angeles, who said he was a lifelong Democrat but backed Bush because of moral issues. "Black people have to change their whole paradigm of thinking. There is a philosophical war going on."


The organizer of Tuesday's summit, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, a white evangelical minister and lobbyist with close ties to the White House, set the tone by playing a video, "Gay Rights, Special Rights."


Distributed to all attendees, the video explored tensions between blacks and gays and assailed Democrats such as President Clinton (news - web sites) for supporting the "homosexual agenda." The video graphically detailed gay sex acts and showed scantily clad gay and lesbian activists dancing at rallies and invoking Martin Luther King Jr.