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Talk about bringing civility to the culture wars. Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign--the nation's biggest gay rights group--recently sat down with the pastor who spearheaded the religious community's push for California's Proposition 8 for a 90-minute get-to-know-you meeting.
Carrie Prejean's pastor, former NFL-er Miles McPherson, also attended.
Conservative pastor Jim Garlow, who founded the Pastors Rapid Response Team to organize conservative clergy around Prop. 8--which outlawed gay marriage when 52 percent of Californians voted for it last November--still stands by the ban. Solmonese, meanwhile, is strategizing to overturn it.
But follow-up meetings between the two may be in the offing. "I would like to keep that dialogue open," says Solmonese.
"I had a delightful time and consider [Solmonese] a friend and would welcome him into my home or church," says Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, Calif.
The meeting grew out of a recent episode of Dr. Phil (above) that featured supporters and opponents of Prop. 8, including Solmonese and Garlow. The evangelical pastor, who has long made a point of befriending political opponents, told Solmonese after the Dr. Phil taping that he'd like get to know him.
"There was a great deal of yelling and name calling on the show, which achieves nothing at all," he says. "It's disrespectful to our integrity as human beings. I doubt we can establish common ground, but we can establish friendships that allow us to keep the debate on the issues."
Most of the meeting, which happened in Washington in May--when Garlow was in town to receive an award from the Family Research Council--saw the pastor asking Solmonese questions about his life and beliefs. "I'm fascinated by people's individual stories," Garlow says.
"My heart was moved" by Solmonese, Garlow continues. "The real moving moment was when he talked about his father dying when he was 13 or 14, which he described with some degree of pathos."
Garlow invited McPherson, who is a pastor at a nearby church in San Diego, because the two had attended a meeting together just before the scheduled session with Solmonese. "I definitely felt an increased level of compassion for him and that community," says McPherson, while adding that his opposition to same-sex marriage is unchanged. "My views on that have nothing to do with my emotion or intellect," he said, "and everything to do with what God has designed.".
Neither Solmonese nor Garlow said his mind was changed by the meeting. But both said they're interested in sitting down again. "I don't know how we can hope to change people's views if we don't keep the dialogue open," says Solmonese. "We need to take the time to engage religious leaders and see if there is any opening or any possibility of finding common ground."
SOURCE: US News and World Report
