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Banned
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Originally Posted by cj2112
the charges have been dropped. However by arresting these guys, they did manage to shut them up for the duration of the event. I don't care what the groups message was, they had every right to be there, and to spread their message.
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Okay..................... here's s'more :
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<a href="http://citypaper.net/articles/2004-10-14/polnote.shtml">http://citypaper.net/articles/2004-10-14/polnote.shtml</a>
Eleven members of Repent America were arrested and charged with felonies and misdemeanors at the OutFest activities Sunday.
Repent America is a religious organization that claims to promote the teachings of the Bible and the preachings of Jesus Christ. Its Web site states that "Satan invades our communities through abortuaries [sic], the entertainment and pornography industries, religious institutions, sexually perverse establishments, homosexual parades and other sin celebrations, without a word from the Christian therein."
In their press release, Repent America members said that when they arrived to preach and hand out gospel literature, they were blocked by the Pink Angels, who formed a human chain and did not allow them to walk down the sidewalk. The Pink Angels, a voluntary security squad, were there to protect the LGBT community from naysayers.
Repent America Director Michael Marcavage responded that it was "one of the most remarkable and unlawful actions by police that I have ever witnessed. Their blatant disregard of the law by allowing hecklers to impede our way, block our message, and then arrest us, is inexcusable, especially by police officers who are specially trained to protect civil rights."
Irene Benedetti, the LGBT police liaison, said she was present when the arrests occurred in the vicinity of 13th and Chancellor streets.
"They became rowdy and physical," Benedetti said of the Repent members who later said they were arrested and charged under hate crimes legislation.
According to officer Maria Ibrahim of the Philadelphia Police Department's public affairs unit, five women and six men were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, failure to disperse, obstruction of highway and disorderly conduct.
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<a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/10381186.htm?1c">http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/10381186.htm?1c</a>.....Fahling said a video of the Oct. 10 confrontation showed Marcavage speaking through a bullhorn while he and his supporters were being shouted down by irate gay activists.
City officials said the video did not show the start of the confrontation, when they said Marcavage tried to interrupt a performance with his antigay preaching and then disobeyed a police order to move to the perimeter of the Outfest to avoid the potential for violence.
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<a href="http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:9aaBpOptfnAJ:www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/10640442.htm+&hl=en">
Posted on Fri, Jan. 14, 2005
JACQUELINE LARMA / Inquirer
Michael Marcavage, right, listens to his attorney after a court appearance Wednesday. He is accused of disrupting a gay and lesbian Outfest celebration in Philadelphia in October.</a>
Flaunting his faith, bullhorn in hand
Michael Marcavage's tactics have brought the Lansdowne evangelist some legal scrapes - and national attention.
By Kathy Boccella
Inquirer Staff Writer
Clearing the Record
This story about Michael Marcavage, founder of Repent America, incorrectly described his actions in two incidents, overstating his use of lawsuits. In Bridgeport, Conn., he was a passenger, not the driver, in a vehicle that police pulled over. He did not sue police in that matter. In an incident in Lansdowne, Marcavage did not file a lawsuit against a woman who squirted him with a hose.
The video shows a young man with a bullhorn and guitar surrounded by pink-T-shirted marchers blocking his way with large pink banners.
The man presses on, negotiating with police as to where he and his followers can go. Finally, he lies down on the ground.
"If they're going to eject us, they're going to work for it," Michael Marcavage, of Lansdowne, said with a laugh while watching a video of the Oct. 10 ruckus at Outfest in Center City.
The high-profile case has put Marcavage, a 25-year-old who looks like a baby-faced Keanu Reeves, on the national evangelical Christian radar. He's as in-demand for interviews, including Fox's O'Reilly Factor and ABC's Good Morning America, as a televangelist with a tell-all book.
As founder of Repent America, a conservative Christian organization, Marcavage has clashed with many different groups, including homosexuals, non-Christians, and his own family.
"There's always a battle between darkness and light," he said in an interview this week in the spacious home where he lives alone.
That battle has defined his life so far - and may get him a lengthy prison term if he is convicted of criminal charges from the gay-pride event. It's also, he believes, how he'll get into heaven.
But others say he is spreading hate, not the word of God.
"Hate has many faces," said Kevin Lee, an openly gay Lansdowne Borough councilman who has faced off with Marcavage.
Marcavage founded Repent America after graduating from Temple University with a degree in broadcast journalism in 2001. But the seeds of his ministry began long before that.
He grew up in Simpson, a blue-collar town near Scranton. His mother died when he was 3, an event that "propelled me to search for meaning in my life."
That search took him from Catholicism to more fundamentalist beliefs while he was still in high school, where he was involved in theater, Boy Scouts and community service.
As a senior he created such a stir when a teacher wanted to show the groundbreaking episode of the sitcom Ellen, in which the main character says she is a lesbian, that the principal was quoted in the local paper calling him a "religious zealot."
Then in college, when the theater department staged Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi, which depicts a gay Jesus figure, Temple officials said Marcavage became so distraught during a Nov. 2, 1999, meeting with a university vice president that they ordered a psychiatric evaluation.
Marcavage maintains that he was calm and has a doctor's report to prove it, and he has sued the vice president and a campus security official for unlawfully restraining him.
During college he switched career paths, from journalism to religious ministry, and now sees himself going into politics or starting a church. He runs Repent America from his home with income from three rental properties and donations from Christian groups.
In a short time, Marcavage's free-floating outrage has resulted in nearly as many lawsuits and confrontations as a rosary has beads. In San Francisco, he was arrested for protesting same-sex marriage. In Bridgeport, Conn., he sued police after they stopped him for driving a truck plastered with pictures of fetuses. In Springfield, Delaware County, he scuffled with police at an abortion rally - and won a $2,500 settlement from the township.
Chris Purdom, of Philadelphia, remembers Marcavage shouting into a bullhorn, setting off sirens, and asking personal, sexual questions at a gay Christian event in August at Holy Trinity Church on Rittenhouse Square.
"He yells at people at Christian services, and he's now claiming he's being persecuted for being a Christian," said Purdom, a Presbyterian elder.
That's not what happened, Marcavage said. "I was simply preaching the Gospel." He says he did turn on sirens to get people's attention.
Brian Fahling of the American Family Association, which provides free legal services, said Marcavage "takes the First Amendment seriously and also takes being a law-abiding citizen seriously."
And his friend, Jason Storm, a fellow evangelist, said that Marcavage is "a good man" who once took in a homeless man for a week and got him a job.
Most people react negatively to his preaching, Marcavage acknowledged, but once in a while someone sees the light. On a mantle in his living room is a framed letter from a woman thanking him for preaching in the parking lot of a strip club near Scranton.
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Link to Michael Marcavage's website: http://repentamerica.com
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<a href="http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:1ViVgdM1f0UJ:www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/8232200.htm+Philadelphia+Inquirer+03/20/2004++Preacher+is+jailed+on+sex+&hl=en">
Posted on Sat, Mar. 20, 2004
Preacher is jailed on sex charges</a>
The Rev. Craig Stephen White was convicted of trying to solicit sex from a West Chester teenager.
By Kathleen Brady Shea
Inquirer Staff Writer
Against an emotional backdrop, a Philadelphia preacher convicted of trying to solicit sex from a West Chester teenager was sentenced yesterday to four to 10 years in prison.
The Rev. Craig Stephen White, a fiery street sermonizer known as "Brother Stephen," showed no reaction as Chester County Court Judge Anthony Sarcione imposed the punishment, which also included five years' probation...............
.................Michael Marcavage, a character witness at White's trial, had been ejected earlier after Callahan expressed concern about an Internet site that offered a $5,000 reward for information on both the victim and prosecutors that might help free White.
Marcavage, 24, of Lansdowne, became agitated, stood up, and accused Callahan of lying. He also admitted setting up the Web site before being escorted from the courthouse.
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<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040119032200/http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/7712934.htm">The Rev. Craig Stephen White, who has denounced homosexuality, was found guilty of soliciting a boy.</a>
"I'm thankful the jury believed the truth. I'm also thankful it was me and not someone who might not have known what to do," said the victim, who is now
He said he hoped people in the community would "become more aware of what can happen."
Michael A. Marcavage, a White supporter from Lansdowne, said he believed the community should be alarmed.
"This was an outrageous travesty," he said. "Citizens should be concerned about how a man can be tried and convicted on the testimony of a 14-year-old."
Marcavage said that, although the verdict had devastated the family, he believed White would be vindicated.
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Support for the "Christian" Protestors........
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<a href="http://www.tidmus.com/blog/index.php?id=73">http://www.tidmus.com/blog/index.php?id=73</a>
<a href="http://www.tidmus.com/blog/index.php?id=74">http://www.tidmus.com/blog/index.php?id=74</a>
Fred Phelps and his good Christian (GodHatesFags) Westboro Baptist clan from Topeka, Kansas must have had a prior engagement this past 10 October 2004, because the radical religious right sent in the second string. Repent America showed up with huge banners with Biblical quotations condemning gay people, bullhorns, concealed cassette recorders, and a film crew, to “preach the Word of God” at the City of Brotherly Love’s OutFest.
And eleven of them ended up in the slammer.
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