Friday, April 7. 2006Gay Sofa King Donates Millions to End Religious Bigotry Gay furniture maven Mitchell Gold is working on a national educational campaign to end religious bigotry against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in the US through the upstart not-for-profit Faith in America.The organization's mission is for "the emancipation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from bigotry disguised as religious truth" and is headed by the Rev. Jimmy Creech. Gold is the largest contributor to a campaign expected to cost between $10-16 million. The aim is to affect change in just one year. Gold told The Advocate, "This is not 'Let's spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars and let's see what happens. Our attitude is that this is a one-year project. I want to change this country in one year." The project, which started in February, centers around a media campaign starting with print ads that will appear in local and national markets but will later extend to other media like radio, TV and film according to the organization's website. Drawing a comparison with other struggles in the US where the bible was used to justify discrimination such as slavery, women's suffrage, & civil rights one ad reads:
CHRIST'S DISCIPLES CONFRONTED IT IN THEIR DAY. View all the Faith in America ads The ads don't shy away from religious images or ideas but embrace them as part of their core strategy to reach their target audience reminding them that bigotry and intolerance are un-Christian. Rather than focussing on centrists that may already be thinking about gay rights in terms of civil rights (the moveable middle), Faith in America is directly targeting the people they believe are using religion to justify intolerance and discrimination. The Advocate writes, "Gold isn't content with reaching the middle. He's determined to reach and reshape people of faith at the extremes, those who've never considered the impact of their churches' hard line against gay equality. I for one commend Faith in America and Gold's efforts to directly engage our most vocal opponents and hope that their message doesn't fall on deaf ears. Trackbacks
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