BY CANDACE WAGNER
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Hundreds of supporters of women's and gay rights protested the Promise Keepers' "Sacred Assembly of Men" rally on the Washington D.C. mall October 4. Located on the route to the mall from Union Station, the participants handed out information sheets containing statements by Promise Keepers' leaders that reveal their rightist political agenda, including opposition to women's rights. The demonstrators came from as far away as Savannah, Georgia, and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Carloads of women came from New Jersey. The National Organization for Women organized the protest.

Earlier in the day 100 women's rights supporters, mostly college students, mobilized to defend area abortion clinics. According to Heather Amston, president of the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force (WACDTF), antiabortion groups many times target clinics during Promise Keepers rallies. Forty abortion opponents picketed the Capital Women's Clinic, including Pat Mahoney, former president of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue.

The overwhelmingly male crowd at the Promise Keepers rally was estimated at about 500,000.

In the weeks leading up to the rally, article after article ran in the capitalist papers analyzing the group. For the most part the media coverage has been positive. The stated purpose of the organization, to atone for sin and make men better husbands and fathers as the solution to "a nation whose morality has been on a downward spiral," received big play. Promise Keepers leaders were quoted numerous times claiming the nonpolitical, purely religious nature of their organization.

On September 7 the Washington Post ran two counterposed articles in the Op Ed section. One by Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women and the other by Stephanie Coontz, history professor and writer on women's issues.

"Promise Keeper rallies give these men a way of mobilizing personal willpower and emotionally charged experiences with other men to reinforce their family obligations," Koontz stated. "For many women, indeed, benevolent paternalism may well be the highest quality of life they can aspire to in today's winner-take-all, dependents-be-damned economy and culture."

Ireland wrote, "Feminists will not be fooled by the many recent public disclosures about this feel-good form of male supremacy with it's dangerous political potential." She pointed to major support to Promise Keepers by longtime activists against abortion rights, including Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The fact sheet produced by NOW contained a number of revealing quotes by leaders of the Promise Keepers.

"Don't you understand mister, you are royalty and God has chosen you to be the priest of your home?" Tony Evans, co-editor of Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, stated in August 1996, quoted in The Progressive magazine.

"Abortion has become `a second Civil War,' " Bill McCartney, founder of Promise Keepers, was quoted as saying in the Denver Post, Feb. 11, 1992. "Homosexuality is an abomination of Almighty God," he is quoted on the same occasion.

Of the participants in the rally, 90 percent answered a Washington Post poll saying that they are born-again, Evangelical, or charismatic Christians. Many expressed the opinion to the pollsters that Promise Keepers should take a stand opposing gay marriage and supporting vouchers for students to attend religious schools and laws making divorce more difficult.

The survey stated that 80 percent of the participants were white and 14 percent were Black. The leadership of the Promise Keepers has made efforts to reach out to Black churches. Whites were encouraged to bring Black men with them to "demonstrate the power of biblical unity."

Candace Wagner is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27.  
 
 
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