Christian Group Runs Petition Drive to Stop WorldPride 2005
by Chad Groening
March 23, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Christian leader feels the city of Jerusalem will be subjected to "a moral outrage" if a planned 10-day event known as WorldPride 2005 goes forward as planned. If it does take place, the event will bring some 250,000 homosexuals to the holy city in a celebration of their lifestyle.
Mike Evans is founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, a group that is trying to gather one million signatures for a petition aimed at convincing the Israeli city to stop the event from taking place in that spiritually significant venue. He suspects the organizers of the homosexual pride event deliberately chose this region, which is the site of so much biblical tradition, with the intent of making a provocative statement.
"They want to flaunt in the face of Christians [their assertion] that 'We are, in fact, the same as you. We're born-again Christians, we have our Bibles, we have our crosses, and we can live in this lifestyle and do all this,'" Evans says. However, he insists that this idea goes against what scripture has to say about sexually deviant lifestyles.
"The entire book of Jude is about strange flesh," the Christian leader contends. "It's about perversion, it's about homosexuality, and Jude goes on to say that God will execute judgment upon all for these deeds."
Evans says those who participate in WorldPride in Jerusalem will be judged. He believes that, for those who consider the Bible lands sacred, the presence of the homosexual revelers will despoil the ancient, holy city.
For that reason, the head of the Jerusalem Prayer Team says his group is doing all it can to oppose the event. "It desecrates everything that's holy to us," he contends. "They're going to walk the Via Dolorosa. They're going to do everything a Christian would do as symbolisms that 'We are the same as you -- that we are you.'"
Evans says his group intends to present at least one million signatures to the mayor of Jerusalem before the official grants a final permit for WorldPride 2005. In the meantime, the Christian leader says, "We're asking the Jerusalem Prayer Team members and their friends to rally and unite to pray for these people -- pray for them, because many of them are not well."
According to Evans, holding WorldPride 2005 in Jerusalem would lead to the worst debauchery the Middle East has seen since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Nevertheless, he says he encourages the Jerusalem Prayer Team members to pray for homosexuals because they are hurting people, many of whom are infected with the AIDS virus or have contracted the disease.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
