D.C. Gay Activists Protest Against O.C. Rev. Sheldon

WASHINGTON —  Chanting slogans and carrying signs, a small group of gay rights activists faced off this morning with the Rev. Louis Sheldon and his Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition at the opening of a national conference to promote “repairative therapy” for homosexuals.

“Don’t you see, repairative therapy is bigotry,” the activists shouted as they confronted Sheldon at the Sheraton Washington Hotel, where the evangelist was about to convene a meeting of the “National Task Force to Promote the Heterosexual Ethic.”

Sheldon largely ignored the demonstrators, at one point asking them to “leave me alone,” before they were ejected by hotel security forces.

The confrontation was the first assault by a national coalition of gay rights organizations that plans a rally and march here tonight to protest Sheldon’s goal of using psychological therapy to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality.

“Their goal is to make the average working person threatened by me,” said Sue Hyde, one of the organizers of the morning protest and a member of OUT--Oppression Under Target--a Washington-based militant gay rights group.

“We will not stand idly by while the Rev. Lou Sheldon makes his bid to move into the national arena,” Hyde said.

Of the demonstrators, Sheldon said, “That’s their right, but would they deny us the right to help those who have asked for help. Do we not have that constitutional right?

“I believe they would take it from us. He who yells the hardest about special rights never want to give just normal rights to others who differ. They simply do not want us to talk about this process of treatment.”

Among those who spoke this morning were Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), perhaps the most vocal congressional opponent of special rights for homosexuals.