This Holy Week's a big, unholy mess

Jimmy Breslin - The great Bush favorite, the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. He is out of Anaheim, Calif., and now is in Washington because he has the big issue and he belongs downtown with it.

"Homosexuals are dangerous," Sheldon assured me one day. He was a short man with eyes gleaming when he mentioned how bad homosexuals truly are.

"How?"

"They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual."

"You should be confined," I told him.

"I speak the truth for the Lord," he said.

"You're a fruitcake," I told him.

"No, I speak the truth. They steal your son."

Lou Sheldon denies this conversation occurred.

What do you think?

Sheldon: Gays are like Hitler and Gestapo

"The Rev. Lou Sheldon, president of the Traditional Values Coalition, said the 'hate crime' designation is increasingly going to be applied against those who believe homosexuality is wrong. 'What Hitler began to build against the Jews is now being built against people of faith who believe the Scriptures are valid for today and their injunctions against certain sexual behaviors is correct,' he said. Several years ago, homosexual activists disrupted a similar conference of his in Sacramento, he said, 'but I didn't have the finances to get a lawyer. For a long time we were the target of their wrath. Now other people are surfacing against them, thank God. If you don't agree with [homosexual activists], they use Gestapo tactics to stop you.' - Washington Times, Tuesday, October 27, 1998, Page A2

Sheldon for quarantining AIDS patients

"Reverend Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition has come out in favor of quarantining AIDS patients in what he calls 'cities of refuge.' " - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995.

The Reverend Lou Sheldon of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition has battled what he calls the Satan-inspired "homosexual threat" to America for more than 26 years.

Sheldon paints a frightening, conspiratorial picture. Gay bureaucrats and politicians have "permeated" government with plans to convert unsuspecting heterosexuals. Elementary schools harbor "militant" gay teachers who secretly "recruit" children. The "perverts" even control numerous U.S. corporations whose advertising and nondiscrimination policies desensitize the population to a sexuality that is "a stink in the nostrils of God."

A onetime television-ministry aide to the Christian Coalition’s Pat Robertson, Sheldon has no problem justifying his "open warfare" against gays. His goal is to "protect the heterosexual ethic," and he won’t rest until gays undergo "reparative therapy" or hide "back in the closet." He says homosexuality is worse than bestiality and is a "bigger threat to society than illegal drugs." In the 1980s, he got nationwide media attention for claiming that gay men were "a tropical island of exotic diseases." Over the years, the reverend has promoted state-sanctioned anti-gay employment discrimination, advocated quarantining AIDS patients in "cities of refuge," labeled professional efforts to thwart disturbing levels of gay-teen suicide "recruitment," pushed tougher laws against consensual-adult sex, called for the firing of gay teachers, and helped block official recognition of gay Republican clubs.

According to the reverend, humans have not a genetic predisposition but a "propensity" for homosexual behavior. Same-sex relationships are apparently so appetizing that exposure risks not just tolerance or acceptance but also full-blown participation. That is why Sheldon and the other Prop. 22 advocates so strenuously reject anything other than complete public repudiations of homosexuality. Their position is the ultimate back-handed compliment to the potential attractiveness of gay marriage.