THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 6, 1996 TAG: 9602060328
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Mel White, a Texas-based gay activist who last year held a hunger strike in jail to force a meeting with Pat Robertson, came to a hotel Monday night to show a video of anti-homosexual remarks made by Robertson on his weekday television show, ``The 700 Club.''
White plans to get gay activist groups around the nation to show the video to television stations and cable systems that carry Robertson's programs to get the broadcast companies to condemn Robertson's statements.
He launched the video in a presentation Monday night at the Holiday Inn Executive Center on Greenwich Road.
White also plans to show the video to the Federal Communications Commission, in hopes that the organization will give Robertson a warning. ``We will try to get it censured, not censored,'' White said. ``I think he should be more responsible in his rhetoric about gays and lesbians. I don't think he should be taken off the air.''
Patty Richardson, a spokeswoman for Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, said the organization had no comment on White's plan. ``We want to wait to respond until after the meeting,'' she said.
White is a leader in the 32,000-member Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Community Church, a Christian denomination for gays and lesbians. In the mid-1980s, he worked as a ghostwriter for Robertson and other leading conservative Christians, but the religious leaders cut ties with White when he came out of the closet as a homosexual.
Last year, White was arrested for trespassing at CBN after he repeatedly sought to meet with Robertson. Rather than post bail, White chose to go to the Virginia Beach jail, where he fasted for three weeks until Robertson briefly met with him.
White said Monday that he had hoped that their brief conversation would prompt Robertson to reduce his criticism of gays, but it hasn't happened.
``Not only has it not abated, most of the statements (on the video) were made in the last nine months,'' White said.
KEYWORDS: PAT ROBERTSON GAYS HOMOSEXUALS CBN < by CNB