Barbeque Celebration on Tap for Gay and Straight Community in Pasadena This Sunday

By Terry Miller

BBQ is for ALL Families -Organizers Say to Promote Unity not Bigotry

In the wake of the controversial choice by Arcadia Mayor Amundson to have a Focus on Family pastor speak at the Annual Community breakfast next month, organizers of those opposed to discrimination and homophobia are planning their own event in Pasadena this Sunday.
A small church in Pasadena that is developing a ministry to the LGBT community is spearheading a special event this coming Sunday to counter the bigotry felt over this recent news. Pastor Rick Eisenlord is not a community activist nor a social organizer, merely a pastor who happens to be gay and was outraged when he learned the Mayor of Arcadia is planning on spending more than $5000 of public money to host a “Community Breakfast” March 4 where he has invited an official of “Focus on the Family” to be the featured speaker. Eisenlord says “Focus on the Family” equates homosexuality with alcoholism, and believes that homosexuality is “preventable and treatable”; they claim that anti-bullying laws are part of a “gay agenda” to “promote homosexuality” and that homosexuality can be “cured” through “reparative therapy”.
A few weeks ago Pastor Rick and many others in the LGBT community appeared before the Mayor and City Council and asked them to reconsider the choice of speaker. Pastor Rick said “I watched in sorrow as an Asian mother of a gay son wept as she spoke before the Council. Then I watched in horror as the Mayor of Arcadia bragged openly that we as “gay activists” were helping him sell tickets to HIS breakfast.”
As an openly gay man, Pastor Rick feels that those in the LGBT community can no longer be silent. “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered family members — including children — are threatened and made to feel unsafe in their schools, workplaces, and places of worship by the hateful messages of Focus on the Family.” Eisenlord said
This Sunday February 27 at 1pm at Good Shepherd Church Pasadena all families are invited to a fun Bar-b-que. At 301 North Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena.
(On the campus of Neighborhood Unitarian Church)
There is also a planned demonstration for families against “Focus on the Family”
Friday March 4, 2011 – 7am-8am which will be held outside the location of the Arcadia Mayor’s Community Breakfast at :365 Campus, Drive, Arcadia to show disapproval of the Mayor’s choice.

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