PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Call for a Pink-Purple-and-Black Bloc to Confront Christian Fundamentalist rally
by Pittsburgh Antifa Monday, Sep. 11, 2006 at 10:33 PM
antifa_pgh@yahoo.com

We are calling on our friends, allies, and comrades to join us on September 20th in a Pink-Purple-and-Black Bloc as we noisily, angrily, and directly confront Focus on the Family Action's Stand for the Family rally.

WHAT: Direct Action to confront Christian-Fundamentalist Rally
WHERE: Meet at US Steel Plaza, 600 Grant Street, Downtown (near 6th Avenue).
WHEN: 5pm, Wednesday, September 20th. March steps off at 5:30pm - if you're late find us near the Mellon Arena (look for the group clad in black, purple, and pink)
WHO: Pittsburgh Antifa
Contact: antifa_pgh@yahoo.com or visit http://antifa.activeresistance.org

On September 20th, Pittsburgh will be the site of a political rally organized by an organ of the extreme right-wing, the benign sounding Focus on the Family Action (FOFA). FOFA and leaders of Christian Right are gearing up for the November elections by holding three "Stand for the Family" rallies intended to mobilize "Christian voters." They will appeal to nationalist pride, Christian love, and family values while they demonize homosexuality, abortion, feminism, Darwinism, humanism, liberalism, and immigrants as threats to Christian America, requiring an even stronger military to safeguard our values and borders, and to continue the “righteous crusade” against Islamic extremism. These rallies kick off in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, September 20th at Mellon Arena.

Appearing at the rally will be some of the most powerful figures of the Christian Right: Dr. James Dobson (Focus on the Family), arguably the powerful force in the Christian Right today, chief architect of the Christian Right's political strategy to bolster power through legislative gaybashing, and who asserts that "it is our Christian duty to go to the voting booth and to vote our values"; Gary Bauer (American Values and the Campaign for Working Families), who as a member of the Project for the New American Century, lobbied for pre-emptive war on Iraq and support for the Israeli war machine in order to help fulfill biblical prophesies; Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) who says, "Our Founders expected that Christianity -- and no other religion -- would receive support from the government...They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference."

Anti-authoritarians, anti-fascists, and left-wing activists have failed, for the most part, to adequately address this threat and take appropriate steps to counter it. A general conflict is not some far off possibility; it is happening now and we are losing. To the Christian Right, the US is a country at war, with itself as much as some far off Middle Eastern country. As far as these Christian theocrats are concerned, they have to live and operate, for now, in the contaminated environment of a secular, liberal state. They have learned, therefore, to speak in code and utilize a strategy of seizing power incrementally; in school boards, city council, legislatures, corporate boards, and in the minds of a more extreme right-wing youth movement they are nurturing.

This right-wing Christian movement seeks to dominate our minds and our bodies with the power of the state, the authority of God, and the sluice of hate-filled propaganda. How can such a movement be dismissed as anything less than totalitarian? This movement will not stop until we are ruled by Biblical Law, an authoritarian church intrudes in every aspect of our life, women stay at home and rear children, gays agree to be cured, abortion is considered murder, the press and the schools promote evangelical Christian values, public assistance is gutted, and war becomes our primary form of communication with the rest of the world. We must match this threat in a manner proportionate to its seriousness and importance.

Several local and national groups are collaborating on a week of events to counter “Stand for the Family,” culminating in a “Standing With All Families ‘Presence’” outside the rally and a silent prayer vigil a block up the street. This is too narrow a framework for dissent, both in terms of the political issues addressed and the choice of tactics used.

Of key importance to many of these liberal groups is the fight for same-sex marriage. But this fight is the mirror image of the Christian Right's fight for hetero-only marriage and feeds into the same drive for a homogeneous, consumption-based American culture. The Stonewall riot and early gay rights movement was about the right to live an unconventional life unencumbered by the state or the church. To many queers, state- or church-sanctioned marriage contradicts that vision of liberation.

The mainstream GLBT movement of late has sought to exchange freedom for the myth of security, the illusion of protection by the state--including the police and the military, the belief that "equality" is the goal for the movement, and the notion that assimilation can defeat prejudice. We need to recognize that marriage is only a tiny part of a much larger and more pernicious Christian fascist agenda.

We do not desire to be sucked into this moral tug-of-war between liberals and fascists over the vision of what church and state should be. We have to separate ourselves, and our tactics, so as to confront these Christian fascists with explicitly secular and anti-authoritarian goals and messages, and one that connects the dots of authoritarian oppression. If we are to stave off an atmosphere of bigotry that directly fuels violence and intolerance, we need to demonstrate to people at war with us that we are willing to fight back against their hatred and bigotry.

So we call on our friends, allies, and comrades to join us on September 20th in a Pink-Purple-and-Black Bloc as we noisily, angrily, and directly confront Focus on the Family Action.

antifa.activeresistance.org