Homosexual Group Distorts Judge’s Ruling to Put Pressure on Southern Baptists     6/5/2002

Homosexual Group Distorts Judge’s Ruling to Put Pressure on Southern Baptists
‘Soulforce’ Rearranges Sentence, Claims Moore Favors Executing Homosexuals
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Soulforce, a religious homosexual pressure group, has twisted the words of a February opinion by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to make it appear as if Moore favors “executing” homosexuals to keep them from influencing children.

In an interview, Moore said Soulforce had taken his words out of context and that he never intended to suggest that homosexuals should be executed.

In a widely reported “gay parenting” case in February, Chief Justice Moore wrote a concurring opinion to a unanimous Alabama Supreme Court decision that denied an open lesbian mother’s attempt to regain custody of her three children. The mother had left the father and entered into a homosexual relationship with a woman in California. The decision (available through www.findlaw.com) overturned an appeals court ruling that in turn had reversed the original trial court’s finding awarding custody of the children to their father.

Moore wrote a special concurring opinion to make the case — in line with Alabama law — that the mother’s homosexual behavior “alone is sufficient justification for denying [her] custody.” Reaching back to the Biblical origins of English common law, he laid out the historic legal precedent for punishing sodomy as an infamous “crime against nature.” In a section designed to show that Alabama is correct to “disfavor practicing homosexuals” as a matter of promoting “the general welfare of the people of our State in accordance with our law,” Chief Justice Moore wrote (emphasis added):

Soulforce founder Rev. Mel White — a former speechwriter for Rev. Jerry Falwell who defected from evangelical Christianity after embracing homosexuality — changed the above underlined sentences as part of his upcoming protest at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in St. Louis. (This is the third straight year that Soulforce has targeted the Convention to protest what it calls the SBC’s “anti-gay teachings.”) In a May 23 letter to SBC President Dr. James Merritt, Rev. White wrote (emphasis added):

In a subsequent release posted June 3 on its Web site, Soulforce stated that it had invited Merritt “to denounce the anti-gay rhetoric of influential Southern Baptist Justice Roy Moore.” The Soulforce release continued [emphasis added]:

CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE RESPONDS
In an interview with Culture & Family Report, Chief Justice Moore said that he “never intended to suggest that homosexuals should be executed.”

“They have taken this out of context,” he said. “I certainly never stated that homosexuals should be executed. Indeed, if we executed everybody who violated the law, there would be nobody left.”

Moore said he was “just describing that the power of the state is immense,” and added, “It’s not even the role of a judge to suggest the sentence for a crime. That’s the job of the legislature.”

He added that Soulforce’s accusations against him reflect either “intellectual paranoia” or “intellectual deceit.”

“These activists don’t like the truth, so they try to attack the person speaking it,” he said. “They try to demonize anyone who opposes them. It’s very obvious.

“Maybe it takes something like this to bring the truth out,” he said.

WHITE DEFENDS WORD SWITCH
Contacted by C&F Report, Mel White issued the following statement by e-mail regarding Soulforce’s interpretation of Justice Moore’s remarks:

“Power of the sword” is an historic phrase representing governmental authority.

Rev. White added via e-mail that he wants to believe that Chief Justice Moore did not intend to advocate the execution of homosexuals, and if this is true, he should “join us at our press conference on Tuesday and say to the world’s media, ‘This is what I meant.’” (White was not aware at press time of Moore’s explanation of his opinion given in the interview with C&F Report.)

LARUE CITES CRUEL ‘SLANDER’
Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel for Concerned Women for America, agreed with Moore that Rev. White and Soulforce have completely distorted the meaning of the Alabama Chief Justice’s remarks.

“He was simply denoting the various powers of the state to punish criminal behavior,” LaRue said. “In this case, the power that the state used was simply to deny custody to this woman who left her family and children to pursue a lesbian relationship in California.

“By taking two sentences out of context from his ruling — and then reversing them and combining them into one — Soulforce has distorted Justice Moore’s intent in order to create the impression that he wishes to ‘execute’ homosexuals,” LaRue said. “The truth did not fit their agenda, so they just created a new version for their propaganda.’”

“This is a cruel and devious attempt to slander a good man, and the media should hold Mel White and Soulforce accountable for this deception,” she said.

CONDONING VIOLENCE?
Laura Montgomery Rutt, the spokesman for Soulforce, defended the group’s characterization of Justice Moore’s judicial remarks, in a phone interview with Culture & Family Report on Tuesday.

“Technically, we did not misquote” Moore’s opinion, Rutt said. Noting his use of the example of a state’s power to execute criminals, she said, “It does condone violence against gay and lesbian people and is totally un-American.”

“People should read [Moore’s] statement for themselves and come to their own conclusion,” she said.

Rutt acknowledged that Moore actually may not have been condoning the execution of homosexuals, but said, “We believe what he said is dangerously misleading.”

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