San Francisco: Baptist Church Becomes Target in the Culture Wars

When parishioners at Hamilton Square Baptist Church in San Francisco gathered for Sunday evening worship on September 19, they knew it might not be a typical service. But it turned out to be far more eventful than anticipated.

Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition based in Anaheim, California, was the featured speaker. Sheldon has vigorously opposed pro-homosexual legislation in the state, including playing a key role in overturning a 1989 domestic partners ordinance in San Francisco. Though the church did not publicize Sheldon’s visit, two pro-homosexual newspapers did, calling for a protest. Throughout the week before the service, says Hamilton Square pastor David Innes, the church received phone calls from people threatening to disrupt it.

And disrupt it they did, according to Innes and several eyewitnesses. Innes detailed his account of the evening’s events in a two-page news release sent to enlist support from “fellow soldiers in Christ” around the country.

Innes says between 75 and 100 “rioters assumed complete control of the exterior property and grounds of the church.” He claims protesters denied people entrance to the church, in some cases by physical contact. According to Innes, one woman was carried away from the entrance while police stood by watching as both her hands were scratched, breaking the skin.

Rioters, Innes says, vandalized church property, replaced the church’s Christian flag with a homosexual flag, harassed and scared children, pounded on doors during the service, and hurled eggs and rocks at churchgoers. Sheldon was “pelted” by “debris” as he received a police escort to a church van.

More vocal activism?

Although Sheldon has had his home painted with graffiti and his office littered with manure by radical homosexuals, this is the first time he was targeted at a church.

According to Peter LaBarbera, editor of the Lambda Report, a California-based newsletter that monitors the homosexual movement, the incident represents a trend toward increased militancy among homosexual activists.

“It’s ironic that gay activist leaders claim they want more tolerance when, in fact, they are among the most intolerant people this country’s got going,” LaBarbera says. He calls the church protest “an immensely important event because it signals the intolerance they have for people’s religious views.”

Some details of the event, however, are in dispute. Noah Griffin, a spokesman for the San Francisco mayor’s office, says, “No police officer in San Francisco would stand by while someone trying to enter a church is assaulted.”

But Innes told CHRISTIANITY TODAY, “We stand by everything in the news release. We put nothing in it that cannot be verified with video, eyewitnesses, and pictures.”

Homosexual power

Innes says he blames not police, but those in political control of the city, particularly the board of supervisors. “You really can’t compare San Francisco with any other city,” says Innes. “Homosexual advocates infiltrate and dominate the political structures here. Police are in straitjackets. They can’t do their job. They’ve been instructed not to arrest homosexuals.”

Griffin responds, “The gist of the phone calls we’ve been receiving is that police do not do anything because of the gay voting bloc in this city. That simply is not true.”

Innes, however, called attention to a letter written by a 25-year veteran of the San Francisco police force and published in the September 30 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. In the letter, the officer describes a recent assignment to keep things under control at the city’s Folsom Street Fair.

According to the letter, the fair included food and craft booths, but “appeared to have as its main theme a public display of the private sexual practices and preferences of consenting adults.” The officer described having observed “couples in bondage attire, men and women displaying … bare breasts, bare genitals and buttocks. There was also a flogging demonstration. Worst of all, I observed male couples, totally naked, engaged in acts of mutual masturbation and oral sex.”

The officer writes that he was “highly embarrassed” when people questioned him why he would not make any arrests. “At least a dozen times I had to painstakingly explain that we were to take a position of ‘high tolerance’ and not to create an incident.”

As a result of the September 19 episode, Innes has met with San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan and other city officials. Innes says he believes his concerns were heard, noting that police showed up the next Sunday to protect the church, and that the situation has quieted down.

Innes is, however, still urging supporters to file grievances with those “city officials responsible for this travesty against our church and our religious freedoms.”

By Randy Frame.

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