Real Love Comes to the St. Louis Gay Pridefest

Written by Angela Michael

The intolerance of the “tolerant” was witnessed by all. You were told to leave the parade if you were a Christian and brought your Bible. You were told to leave if you were a Christian and carried a large cross. You were told to leave if you were a Christian and wore a Christian T-shirt. You were told to leave if you were a Christian and acted like it. Even striking teamsters against Budweiser were thrown out of the park. Where's the love?

John 7:7 “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.”

 

A sea of over 70,000 homosexuals and heterosexuals descended upon St. Louis Pridefest in Tower Grove Park which included a parade on Sunday, in sweltering heat and high humidity…

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay led the parade as grand marshal, and St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa and St. Louis Fire Chief Sherman George were at the head of it and shook hands with some of the thousands of parade-watchers who lined South Grand Boulevard . Mokwa passed out plastic badges from a sack he was carrying. Angela shook his hand and handed him a tract on homosexuality and told him this was an abomination, and he told her, “I have to do what my boss tells me.” We then called out to Mayor Slay and told him this parade was an abomination and his representation was disgraceful and a blight as a leader and member of the Catholic Church. The look on his face testified against him. Isaiah 3:9 “The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom ; they do not hide it…”

          The parade participants included all sorts of gay groups and clubs, from the Gateway Gay Rodeo Association, whose members threw beads to the crowd, to the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, wearing their purple T-shirts, to the St. Louis chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans.

 

            What happened this weekend is that love came to the Gay Pridefest in St. Louis . When perfect love comes what it does is it confronts evil and sin because God hates sin because of what it does to His people. And when you come and expose that, it feels like initially condemnation but you know that condemnation has to come, not so that you’ll feel condemned for the rest of your life but so that you’ll say, “Is there any hope for me?” and the answer is “Yes.” But only in Jesus. Not in you trying to get out of that mess but only in Jesus. And so when Jesus came to the Gay Pridefest on Saturday what we found out is He wasn’t welcome. Not only was He not welcomed, He was called “hate”. And how did He come? How did He arrive? In about 15 folks hearts who were just carrying Jesus in, sharing the gospel, passing out gospel tracts, including Stephen Bennett’s “I was Gay” tract.

And love came and they said “We won’t tolerate this, this is going to leave.” They called the police, they did everything that they could to stop the love that came and they, along with Officer Schreck, escorted us and made sure that we would not be tolerated there. He said, “This is a private event, this park is rented out for a private event and that is why we have the right to kick you out!” Even though it was advertised in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a free, public-friendly event. Earlier, we found out that the local teamsters from Lohr Distributing Company who were protesting Anheuser Busch products were also thrown out of the park. One striker was physically tossed out by Officer Schreck. But it’s interesting every other behavior, no matter how perverse that would destroy people, was tolerated there. But the one thing that would help people, that would save people was removed from there. Never were we allowed to go back in. The police made it clear “Don’t show your faces here again.”

We went to the church on Sunday, Messiah Lutheran which faces the entrance of the Tower Grove Park to greet the Gay Pride Parade. The pastor gave us permission to set up the sound system and pass out tracts. For exactly 43 minutes, the Church of Jesus Christ gave the community heaven. The police stood by us and for once, protected us! The one officer said, “I’m glad you’re here.” So what happened when love came to the Gay Pride Parade? We came right at the steps of the Church of Jesus Christ and there we proclaimed the Gospel message and they screamed. They taunted, they extended their middle finger, they genuflected, they did everything. Some did other things that we aren’t going to describe, but they hated it when love came to confront them. They hated it when love came to save them. One group of gay men on the steps below us turned and said, “Can’t you just give us one day to enjoy ourselves?”  

And so, there we were and confrontation after confrontation would come as those that were angry would storm up to the speakers which provided tremendous opportunities for the simple, little Christians to take that great, big faith that they have from Almighty God and begin to share it. And conversations began and those with quivering lips and twitching eyes would all of a sudden just stop. They were shaken, they were so mad and then they would be taken aback by the love and the concern of gentle Christian warriors that were sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom and it was awesome, the private conversations. Eddie was a troubled young man who was angry when he first ran up to us and I looked into his eyes and they were full of sadness and emptiness. He screamed, “Why do you hate us?” I answered, “Eddie, we don’t hate you, we love you. That’s why we’re here. To tell you the truth, in love.” He started crying, and I hugged him and he reciprocated. He tearfully told us how his mother hated him and tried to kill him and his father abused him. That’s what got him in the homosexual lifestyle. All he wanted was to be loved. He told me he saw me the day before. I had given him the Stephen Bennett tract and he read it four times. I held him tighter and told him, “I love you and so does Jesus. He wants you in His family today.” We prayed with him and he stood back and thanked us for being there.

Now the public proclamation was different. It was despised. But they came up and found that there was a truthful witness, and we realize that a truthful witness saves lives, and one gave their heart to Christ. Another young lady we got to pray for. And there were other people that we had an opportunity to pray with. And love came.

But then the pastor came out and realized that, you know what, when love comes to the world there’s going to be conflict and the pastor saw the conflict. We sat in his Sunday School and listened to him saying that when righteousness comes to the fore you have to stand for what is right no matter what the world says. That’s what he taught in his Sunday School class. And that’s when we asked him if we could set up our sound system and he said, “Yes,” and we gave him a copy of the tracts that we’d be passing out. But when the conflict became great and people were running in to his church, clamoring at him, he came to us and said, “You’ve got to stop this because you’re being volatile.” Flip said, “No, it is a message of love that we’re bringing. It’s not us that’s volatile, it’s not us that’s angry. It’s these folks that are expressing all sorts of anger.” And he said, “But you don’t have to live here.” That’s what he said, “You don’t have to live here.” In other words, he was more concerned with the fact that there would be “’Peace, peace’. Dressing the wound of our people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace’ they say when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 6:14

“I have to live here,” said the pastor. “I have to live here.” In other words, “Don’t rock the boat, don’t cause any trouble, please. I’ve got to live here, you don’t.” And Flip said, “But sir, I live in North Carolina . They’re doing the same thing and I have to live there. And our kids are going to have to live here too. And if we don’t stand up and do something, then there’s going to come a time when they’re not going to be able to do anything except get put in jail. And we’re going to fight this battle right now for the lives of our children. We’ve got to think of other generations. Not just, ‘I have to live here.’” That is a cop-out.

And this pastor shut down the entire sound system. This pastor shut down the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But that didn’t stop the little Christians, they just kept going. And they kept proclaiming. And they kept preaching. Shouting the truth from the housetops that Jesus saves.

            We saw the behavior with the police chief when we confronted him and said, “This is an abomination sir, and you have become a disgrace and a blight. This is the Church of Jesus Christ here. Have you forgotten that you represent them too?” And they are parading their sin like Sodom . It de-legitimized it. It caught him. He turned and looked at us and then I had an opportunity to speak to him. It de-legitimized the behavior in the mayor’s eyes as we proclaimed it from the church portico, the truth of the Gospel of Christ and it de-legitimized the behavior of the homosexual community so much so that they brought their entire band over to the sidewalk to try to play music to silence the Gospel. But they couldn’t silence it because our speakers were higher than their trumpets. Hallelujah! And it just went on.

And so, what that does is de-legitimizes the behavior. How does a homosexual know that something is wrong? When the Church of Jesus Christ says so, when the Church of Jesus Christ rises up and says something. How do people know that abortion is wrong? When they see hundreds of people outside an abortion mill they’ll know that something’s up. It de-legitimizes the behavior. But when nobody’s there or if nobody says anything then it becomes silently but surely legitimized. And that is what is happening in our culture today. And they’re gaining legitimization. Young people are beginning to believe that homosexuality is ok, when it’s not. Nothing could be further from the truth and the people of God need to say so.

            Some of the people we talked to were Genevieve and Jack who were God-haters that really didn’t know a whole lot of things. They were just young kids. The bought the whole lie of the enemy. And you know, it takes a little time to undo that until Jesus gets into their heart, but right now they have a big battle against Jesus. They don’t like him.

Angie was another one, but Angie was interesting. She was a young girl that has been a homosexual, she dropped out of school. She’s using Zoloft. She’s being adulteress in her lesbian relationship and she knows that’s wrong. And she knows there’s something more for her but she can’t stop it. She smokes, and she said that she wanted to push Flip down the steps and she said that, “I’m bi-polar and I would have pushed you down the steps.” And Flip said “But something stopped you didn’t it? What was it that stopped you?” And she said, “I don’t know, I just didn’t.” Flip replied, “Well Angie, that’s God Himself.” And we sat and we spoke and she began to soften. Flip said, “Angie, I can pray one or two prayers for you. One of them is that you will receive the Lord right now and you’ll say, ‘God, I am not going to continue in this lesbian relationship anymore. God, I am going to serve you and you are going to be my husband.’ Or I can pray for you that you will look into the Scriptures and find out for yourself and you can discern what you need because God is your only way out. There is no hope for you apart from Jesus. How do you want me to pray? The first one or the second one?” She said, “Pray the second one.” And so we prayed together and she gave Flip a big hug.

Here is a girl that was going to push Flip down the steps who now is changed. And we met a number of people the same way. They ran right up to us and we stood right in front of them. And what happened? The situation began to be defused as they saw the Jesus in us and hope in us.

But the public proclamation is hated and you can see. What do you think would have happened if it was legal for them to do whatever they wanted to us and the police just let them go? What would have happened to us then? We would be dead. And you’ve got to see that our nation is getting ready to allow not only the persecution and prosecution of Christians but the execution of Christians. It is going to happen. Now, if you’ll be a big-tent kind of a swoosh Christian, believe in any Jesus you want to and not saying that homosexuality is a sin, or abortion is murder, or other religions are a lie, if you’re like that, then it will be ok. You’ll be allowed to live.

            You know that Vision for Victory, of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, what we’ve been talking about, is that we’re living in a fatherless America . And unless we turn the hearts of the fathers to the children there is no hope for America . And unless we turn the hearts of the fathers to the heavenly Father, then there is no hope for this nation. And we found that out. We consider the design of the temple, Ezekiel 43:10 “Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel , that they may be ashamed of their sins.” And then we came and we began to see how this Gospel should be presented. How it was presented in Acts. How did they present the Gospel? They presented the Gospel and Peter presented the Gospel and it just tore into people, it just told the truth. And that truth saved lives. And you know what? That’s what we were called to do. Plow up the ground. That’s what we did at the Gay Pride Parade. We did that and what God called us to do. If the Church were just out there in the first place. If we just had a few of us out there, wouldn’t that be awesome? How about if we had praise and worship teams singing up and down the corner and everybody just giving them heaven?

And there are folks out there that will never forget what happened in the shadow of that church on June 26, 2005.

Be encouraged~ Angela