Soulforce 2007 Annual Report a Note from the Executive Director

Soulforce 2007 Annual Report A Note from the Executive Director Dear Friends, distorted representations of our lives. our donors, board of directors, and staff. 2007 was a These courageous Soulforce We’ve used every penny to finance new remarkable year for activists were not standing alone. 2007 and exciting strategies for moving toward bringing nonviolent was a watershed year for collaboration. equality as we expose and resist religious direct action to new Soulforce staff and volunteers worked and political oppression. places and new side-by-side with members of Atticus As vital as money is to our success, it is people. By stepping Circle, Beyond Ex-gay, American Civil certainly not our greatest asset. Dedi- Jeff Lutes onto the most Liberties Union, and numerous statewide cated people around the country volun- defended bastions of Christian higher equality organizations. Collaboration teered countless hours to help us create, education, Equality Riders tread new strengthens our movement, expands our organize, and implement each and every ground for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and impact, and allows us to make connec- action. I’m proud of the tremendous suc- transgender students. Survivors of ex-gay tions between oppressions in order to cess denoted in this annual report and programs, emboldened by a new sense of advance the dignity and equality of all even more grateful for the passion and community, shared their powerful witness persons. commitment of remarkable people who outside the strongholds of the ex-gay As this report indicates, our infuse Soulforce with their energy. Be- industry. Through Seven Straight Nights, annual income has gone from just over cause of you, we are making a significant straight allies found a dynamic venue $80,000 when our organization began in impact in creating a safer and more just to make public their political support 1998, to just over $1,000,000 this year. world for LGBT people and their families for equality. And at Focus on the Family, In the two years since I’ve been Execu- and a more equitable world for all. brave men and women used their relent- tive Director, I’ve watched our income In the next few pages we share the less presence to belie James Dobson’s almost double due to the loyal support of story of our 2007 activities. l The Equality Ride March 8–April 26, 2007 n 2007, 52 young adult Equality Riders traveled to I32 Christian colleges on a mission to start conversations about faith, sexuality, and inclusion. The impact of their journey is still unfolding across the nation. All of the colleges on the 2007 Equality Ride have policies that silence or exclude LGBT students. But while discrimination was the common thread, the schools exhibited a wide variety of responses to the Equality Riders’ invitation to create a public dialogue about the experiences of LGBT students. Negotiations with prospective schools began in October 2006. Some The Equality Ride at Notre Dame schools welcomed the Riders’ diverse perspectives, some set narrow limita- tions on the Riders’ campus access, and others went so far as to ban them from campus. In the end, the Riders suffered more than 100 trespassing ar- rests in order to bring a message of hope and justice to every school on both the Eastern and Western routes. Impacts on individual hearts and minds will continue to develop long after theEquality Riders have returned home. Student newspapers continue to cover students who have come out in the wake of the Equality Ride. And, in cities across America, hundreds of people have now engaged in conversations about sexuality and faith because their churches, student groups, and equality organizations joined Riders for meals, community service, and public presentations. Six of the schools now have gay-straight alliances, and students at several schools have made progress on changing policies. Seattle and New York City proclaimed April 11 and April 14, respectively, as official Soulforce Equality Ride 2007 Day. The Equality Ride at Gordon College The Right To Marry Campaign New York State July 14–28, 2007 n July 14th, 2007, a group of young Oadults from New York and across the country set out to speak with the citizens of New York and their legislators about marriage equality. For four weeks, the Soulfore Q Right to Marry campaign used a variety of creative and unconventional means to engage with local communities. The campaign kicked off with a visit to the office of State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Right to Marry participants shared their views and stories with staffers and left an unorthodox calling card: a pair of shoes. The shoes represented the young adult hopes that Bruno would “walk a mile in their shoes” and consider how marriage equality might affect their lives. In their efforts to create a statewide dialogue about marriage equality, the young adults of the Right to Marry campaign also connected directly with the citizens of New York. For example, Riders on the western route handed out free wedding cake on the streets of Elmira, along with fliers outlining the difficulties that gay and lesbian couples Right To Marry participants Ryan Werb and Gabriel Cooper, want marriage equality so currently face in creating legal protections they can serve in the Peace Corps together. They have been together over two years. for their relationships. Riders on the northern route visited the Saratoga County Fair wearing t-shirts that asked “Do you believe in marriage? I do.” The t-shirts inspired conversations with Soulforce Q Notes high school students, workers, parents, and lexey Bulokhov and Haven Herrin represented Soulforce during grandparents. Aa meeting of LGBT activists in Eastern Europe. They attended the The campaign also included meetings International Lesbian and Gay Association conference in Vilnius, with religious communities, including a Lithuania as well as a queer youth and faith conference in Budapest, forum at Long Island Community Fellowship Hungary. In 2007 Soulforce became an official member of ILGA. Alexey church, where participants examined the role comments, “It was inspiring and humbling to learn that Soulforce of the church in social justice movements work is known and admired outside the U.S.” While traveling within and the role of young adults in the lesbian, Russia, Alexey also had an Equality Ride follow-up encounter: a two gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights hour in-flight conversation with a group of recent Brigham Young movement. University graduates en route to their Latter-Day-Saint mission posts. “The opportunity to spend the past several days with the Soulforce’s Right to n July, Alexey Bulokhov and Jarrett Lucas were invited to visit with a Marry Team was eye opening,” said Pastor Igroup of high school sophomores and juniors taking a summer course Shane Hibbs. “It is an experience which calls at the University of Minnesota in Morris. The class was called “Talking all religious persons from a faith of words to About a Revolution: Dissent and Freedom of Expression in Today’s a faith of action.” World” and examined the Equality Ride among its many case studies. The Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference University of California, Irvine • June 29–July 1, 2007 n June 28, 2007, three former leaders from Exo- Odus International—the powerful coalition of “ex- gay” ministries—appeared at a Soulforce press conference to present an unprecedented public apology for spreading the message that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are sinful and that sexual orientation can change. This historic press event was covered by CNN’s Paula Zahn, the Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, and the Associated Press. The Ex-gay Survivor Conference was the very first international gathering specifically designed to help those who have experienced ex-gay ministries or reparative therapy programs. The conference was a collaboration between Soulforce, the LGBT Resource Center at UC Irvine, and beyondexgay.com and was timed to provide an alternative voice to the annual Exodus conference, which convened in Irvine at the same time. After the conference,Soulforce worked with participating ex-gay survivors and beyondexgay.com to organize a month of direct actions at significant ex-gay programs across the nation. These actions featured the personal witness of ex-gay survivors, who told of the spiritual, psychological, and financial devastation that they suffered in ex-gay programs. This campaign, dubbed The Survivor’s Initiative, brought the momentum and moral force of the conference to sites across the country. Supporting Transgender Equality Soulforce Media Director Paige Schilt led a workshop for women with FTM and genderqueer partners at Gender Odyssey, a large FTM/transgender conference in Seattle in August. Soulforce Q representatives, Katie Higgins and Haven Herrin attended the conference. Katie Higgins, Director of Operations of Soulforce Q, participated in the TransForming Justice conference in San Francisco that focused on the transgender experience in the US jail and justice system. Haven Herrin and Alexey Bulhokov met and established a relationship with the New York Paige Schilt Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) and Transgender Legal Defense & Educa- tion Fund (TLDEF) while in NYC. These organizations agreed to help ensure that Transgender people are better represented on the 2008 Equality Ride. Soulforce Q mobilized young activists to hold “Silent T” parties in protest of the non- inclusive ENDA. Several documented their activities on YouTube. Soulforce joined 350 equality organizations in a letter urging the House of Representatives to pass a fully inclusive ENDA. Soulforce and Soulforce Q supported Kourt Osborn, a former Equality Rider, in his fight for housing at Southern Utah University. Matt Hill Comer, a participant in all the Soulforce Q campaigns, broke the story on his nationally popular blog and the Soulforce press release was picked up by state and local media in Utah.

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