ARTICLES

Arrest Us!

Sacramento Jesuit Directs Homosexual Program for Public Schools

By Eric Reslock

About 15 Sacramento-area Catholics and Protestants turned out to protest a meeting of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network and the Gay-Straight Alliance at St. Ignatius Church on Arden Way in Sacramento on January 26. The meeting was facilitated by a Jesuit priest, Father Gregory Miller, who identified himself as a executive board member of the network in a January 12 letter sent out to Sacramento-area public schools inviting students to the event.

At about 9:20 a.m. the protesters were confronted by two event organizers and were told to leave. The organizers said they had contacted law enforcement and that the protesters' cars, which were parked in the parish parking lot, were going to be towed. The Catholic picketers responded that they would not leave because they were Catholics and had a right to be on Church property. The Protestant picketers moved out of the parking lot onto the sidewalk along Arden Way.

A few minutes later Sacramento sheriff's deputies arrived in three squad cars. While the deputies were speaking with the homosexual organizers, crews from three Sacramento-area news outlets arrived. The deputies approached the picketers and news crews with an adult organizer of the event. The deputy told the organizer to ask the picketers to leave and said he was then going to arrest them all. The organizer said she had contracted to have the property for the day and that she wanted the group to leave. The picketers refused, one of whom said she belonged to the parish and she had a right to be there. Amid cries of "Go ahead and arrest us," one parishioner asked the deputy who seemed in charge, "Are you a member of this parish?" He responded, "No." The picketers then asked the deputy to bring Father Miller outside so he could tell them they had to leave. Father Miller declined to come out of the hall. After insisting several more times that they were going to arrest the protesters the deputies moved away to the entrance of Campion Hall where the event was taking place and ordered the protesters to stand back from the hall. Two more Sacramento county sheriff's department squad vehicles arrived, bringing the total number to five, one of which was a minivan identified as the watch commander's vehicle. Shortly afterward, a gay network member driving a Honda Civic drove into the parking lot and nearly hit several picketers as she parked. When she got out of her car, she said, "I did that because you are not supposed to be here." The picketers responded, "No, YOU'RE not supposed to be here!" She retreated into Campion Hall to join the meeting.

Inside among the participants was Hannah, age 14, self-described "non-denominational Christian" and high school freshman, of Sacramento. She said, "My friend called me last night and wanted to know if I wanted to go a picket. She said, 'It's at a church.' Then, as we were driving there, I said, 'Oh, wow, my brothers went to Boy Scouts there.' We were sitting there looking at folders, which were basically a bunch of guidelines for how to start a GSA [gay-straight alliance] group at your high school. There were 100 people there and probably one rep there for every high school. No one told us their last names. They made us sit in a circle and say your drag queen or drag king name. They gave you a formula like your drag king name is your dad's middle name and the street you first lived on and a drag queen would be your mom's middle name and your first car. I thought it was really sad because these kids are obviously being lied to about the whole perspective, like a fantasy.... It's just aggravating to see it's gotten this bad."

Vanessa, age 14, of West Sacramento said that one of the adult counselors took a piece of literature and said, "This is what will really attract the little kids, because it's a drawing of two kids, and one is a sheriff," and he said, "This will attract the kids because it looks like a painting." Vanessa said, "That totally took me by surprise. I overheard this one girl -- she was about 14 -- saying her parents thought she was at a Catholic Church event, because they didn't see any protesters when they dropped her off."

In a telephone interview, Father Gerald Robinson, pastor of St. Ignatius Church, said, "Yes, I did give permission for the event to take place at St. Ignatius." Asked about the appropriateness of hosting such an event, he said, "In hindsight, I think it is not an appropriate use of Church property." Asked to comment on the sheriff's deputies' repeated threats to arrest the protesters, some of which are parishioners of St. Ignatius, Father Robinson said, "Who called the sheriff? No one here called the cops."

Father Michael Walsh, a media liaison for the diocese of Sacramento, said that Bishop Weigand did not know of the event in advance and referred further questions to the bishop's spokesman, Father Charles McDermott, from the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Father McDermott said, "The bishop had no idea this thing was happening." Father McDermott was not aware of the gay network, but after hearing what the acronym was when spelled out, said, "We would see that something like this would be confusing to the people. The question is, does the diocese support everything such a group stands for? Our business is to avoid that kind of confusion. That is something, had we been notified in advance, we would not support." Asked if he thought it appropriate that a priest in the diocese is a board member of such an organization, Father McDermott said, "We would not encourage our priests to be members of such an organization." But he said because Father Miller is a Jesuit, his membership in such a group is a matter for the Jesuit provincial.

In 1986, Pope John Paul II approved A Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. The letter states, in part, "All support should be withdrawn from any organizations which seek to undermine the teaching of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which neglect it entirely. Such support, or even the semblance of such support, can be gravely misinterpreted. Special attention should be given to the practice of scheduling religious services and the use of Church buildings by these groups, including the facilities of Catholic schools and colleges. To some, such permission to use Church property may seem only just and charitable; but in reality it is contradictory to the purpose for which these institutions were founded, it is misleading and often scandalous."

Edward Hernandez of the American Family Association speculated why the third annual meeting of the group was taking place in a Catholic facility. He said the event had taken place at River City High School in West Sacramento the previous year. "We were told by some parents of students at the school that no parents would be allowed at the meeting." Hernandez's group contacted the Pacific Justice Institute, who told the school that they would have to allow parents into the meeting or they would take them to court. The school relented. State law does not provide the same protection to parents for meeting held at private, or religious facilities.

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