My Dakota Voice colleague Greg Johnson and I went to the Diversity Festival in Rapid City today; the event was right across Rapid Creek from the Storybook Island children’s attraction, of all places. The homosexual festival was put on primarily by a group called “South Dakotans Against Discrimination,” who want people to think that homosexual behavior is a civil rights issue and that maintaining the integrity of marriage is discriminatory.

Some of the corporate sponsors included KFC which catered food for the event, and I noticed GE had some hats and t-shirts on the raffle prize table. Another “interesting” prize on the raffle table included some men’s underwear made out of little bits of candy strung together on string like beads; the box claimed the underwear was “sweet and sexy,” but I didn’t want to find out.

Some of the local Rapid City area homosexual activists were there, including Michael Coats (of the Black Hills Area Gay and Lesbian Youth Support and Resource Center) and Thomas Allen Heald who writes for the Rapid City Weekly News (though I don't know if he was there in that capacity, or another).

There wasn’t a whole lot going on when we were there; there were 10 or 15 tables/tents set up and there were three guys playing some nightclub-style jazz on the small stage they had set up (they were pretty good), but no speakers or anything like that going on during our sojourn. Greg asked some ladies at the Democrats table and they said some politicians were expected to speak later in the day, but they didn’t know when. There were about 70 people there, including organizers and people working at the various tables.

In addition to the Democrat party table, Deb Phillips, candidate for District 31 House, also had a table there. Some other candidates were represented by their literature on the Democrat table: Jeff Nelson, candidate for Dist. 33 House; Pam Hemmingsen, candidate for Dist. 32 House; Tom Katus, candidate for Dist. 32 Senate; Justin Lena, candidate for Dist. 34 House and Dennis Finch, candidate for Dist. 33 Senate.

The South Dakota Campaign for "Healthy" Families (the group pushing to overturn South Dakota's abortion ban) had literature there, PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) had a table, and the ACLU of the Dakotas also had a tent, with Jennifer Ring in faithful attendance.

We also noticed there were some condoms out on the table next to the AIDS testing table. As I recall, condoms are supposed to be kept out of direct sunlight to keep them from breaking down, and it was a sunny day in the 90s today; sadly, if someone relies on those condoms, they may really need that free AIDS test.

Some of the other groups that had tables there were the local Unity church and Universalist group. These are two homosexual-friendly churches that believe things that are so alien to Christianity that only reluctantly do I call them a “church.”

According to the Unity literature we picked up, some of the things Unity believes are:

-     “Asks you to accept and use the teachings which appear to you to be true, and to withhold judgment on the rest”

-   “Sees religion as an open-ended search for Truth rather than a closed system”

-    “Emphasizes the spiritual unity of all churches, faiths, man and truth”

-    “Proclaims the divinity of Jesus, but goes further and assures you that you, like Jesus, are a child of God and therefore divine in nature”

-    “Declares that as a child of God, you inherit His goodness, His spiritual qualities, His spiritual and material abundance”

-    “Explains the Bible metaphysically or spiritually, since the literal ‘letter of the law’ interpretation reveals only part of the truth”

-    “Denies the existence of any power or presence opposed to God.  There is no personal ‘Devil’ or place called ‘Hell’”

-    “Views the present moment as part of ‘eternal life.’  You are, at this moment, as close to eternal life as you can ever be.”

What appeared to be a church bulletin from Unity also featured quotes from Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche. (I have always considered these to be two great spiritual leaders, in complete harmony with the teachings of Christ). :-) I guess people are entitled to believe whatever they want, but I certainly hope no one confuses Unity with Christianity.

The Unity folks apparently haven’t been fooled by the Leftist media scare tactics trying to keep churches out of politics. Michael Coats is scheduled to speak at the church on “Same sex marriage & Amendment C” tomorrow, and on Aug. 27, Amanda Hubbard will speak on “Marriage Equality,” which I believe is doublespeak for “Counterfeiting Marriage.”

There was also a lot of paraphernalia from other churches such as Lutherans (not all synods), United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and the Episcopal church. All of this literature contained some of the most messed up Scriptural and theological information I think I have ever seen. Some of it completely ignored Scripture altogether, and other pamphlets tried to emphasize God’s love while completely ignoring God’s holiness and righteousness.

Still other material worked very hard to find “alternate explanations” for what God said in His Bible. Some of the most interesting in this bent came from a brochure from a group called Dignity, which while not appearing to be an official part of the Catholic Church, nevertheless tries to make itself sound authoritative on Catholic doctrine. Here are some excerpts of the “creative” ways Dignity deals with passages where God says He’s not cool on homosexuality:

-       “…being homosexual is not wrong or sinful in itself.  But just as it is objectively wrong for unmarried heterosexuals to engage in sex, so too are homosexual acts considered to be wrong.”

-     “Read within the context of their own historical and cultural backgrounds, the Bible texts do not address adult, loving homosexual relations as we understand them today.”

-     “The story of Sodom in Genesis 19 is about offense against the sacred duty of hospitality” (it didn’t have anything to do with the rampant homosexuality in the city)

-     The terms used to describe homosexual relations in Romans 1:27 (“dishonorable” and “shameless”) indicate “social disapproval, not…ethical condemnation…Paul sees gay sex as an impurity…just like uncircumcision or eating forbidden foods.”

-     The “obscure term” in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:8-10 “has been translated ‘homosexuals’ but its exact meaning is debated…It must be interpreted in light of the abuse and licentiousness commonly associated with male-male sex in the Roman Empire.”

-     “Genesis 1-3 shows Adam and Eve created for mutual companionship and procreation.  These accounts use the most standard of human relationships to teach a religious lesson…Nothing suggests the biblical authors intended a lesson on sexual orientation.”

The Dignity brochure also makes the absurd claim that “As the Catholic Church understands it, wrong and sin are not the same thing. Wrong is harm, disorder, destruction; it is in the objective or external world. Sin is self-distancing from God; it is in the heart.” That’s like saying murder and sin are not the same thing.

It also says “Many homosexual people simply cannot believe that gay sex as such is wrong…according to the same Church’s teaching on conscience, they do not sin in their hearts nor before God.”

Well, I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. These are the folks who are trying to convince South Dakotans that not only is a man having sex with a man “normal,” but that the amendment to protect marriage from being counterfeited by homosexual activists is somehow going to going to harm heterosexuals.

The group also has an LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) dance scheduled for Saturday night. It is for those aged 18 and older, and given the age restriction, I think that tells me it’s not something I want to see, so you you’ll have to rely on your imagination for a report on that event…