Pastor Sponsors Family Celebration in Response to Mayor's Breakfast

Community members will gather this weekend in Pasadena for a barbecue to celebrate families and "fight homophobia and bigotry."

The event will take place a week ahead of plans to protest the , which will feature a guest speaker from a conservative Christian organization opposed to gay marriage and alternative lifestyles.

Pastor Rick Eisenlord of Good Shepherd Church Pasadena has scheduled the barbecue for 2 p.m. Sunday at his church.

"I'm organizing this barbecue as a positive response to the mayor of Arcadia's community breakfast, which is going to invite a speaker from Focus on the Family," said Eisenlord. "Members of the community wanted to protest at the breakfast, but I wanted to focus on a positive response before the breakfast happens. We want this to be a happy event, it's a celebration."

The barbecue will have food provided by Bonnie B's, guest speakers, music performed by the Good Shepherd Choir and an optional 4 p.m. worship service, said Eisenlord, who noted the social void for families led by gay partners. He hoped the event will start an annual series.

"It's a good idea that we celebrate all families each year, especially for non-traditional families," Eisenlord said. "There isn't much of a social network or safety net, and it's good for the community to come together and celebrate that these families are functioning quite successfully."

said the backlash against his decision to invite Focus on the Family's H.B. London Jr. to speak at the breakfast has actually bolstered ticket sales.

"It is an American ideal to have divergent positions on issues," Amundson said. "Unlike those who wish to suppress the speaker at the Arcadia Mayor's Breakfast, I wish the activists well at their event."

The mayor expected the breakfast "will still be a very positive event [that] will celebrate Arcadia's great past and our hopes for an even greater future, centered around the love and strength of family."

On a website promoting the barbecue, Eisenlord summed up the main gripe against Focus on the Family.

The organization "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,'" Eisenlord wrote.

Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger denied these charges.

"We don't believe it's a choice, which is often attributed to us," said Schneeberger. "We believe it's likely developmental in nature and caused by a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors, which is the American Psychological Association's position on what causes homosexuality."

Arcadia resident Marsha Aizumi is one of several speakers who will address barbecue attendees. Her son is transgender and has suffered bullying that Aizumi claimed is at least tacitly encouraged by the doctrine of conservative religious groups such as Focus on the Family.

She will be at the barbecue "to support a counter event that infuses more love and acceptance into our city and neighboring communities, so other LGBT individuals and families know there are those who don't agree with Focus on the Family and celebrate all individuals and families," Aizumi said. "I also want to raise awareness that will increase the love and acceptance in general so kids don't get bullied or harassed because they do not fit a stereotypical mold."

urged Focus on the Family's detractors "to take the totality of an organization into account, not just [its] stand on a particular issue on which there are widely divergent views," he said.

"For example, I have been for the past two years chairman of the Lucky Baldwin District of the Boy Scouts of America," Harbicht said. "I think it is a very positive force in our communities, [and] I also recognize that there are some people who do not support the Boy Scouts because they have a policy against homosexual scoutmasters. However I might feel about that particular aspect of the organization, I strongly support the overall goals and objectives of the Boy Scouts."

The councilman also referred to the specific subject matter of London's upcoming speech.

"If the current speaker had been invited to talk about homosexuality, I would condemn that choice of both speaker and subject," Harbicht said. "But I assume he is coming to talk about family and family values. As the 'best city in California to raise children,' that seems like a very appropriate subject."

Eisenlord hoped the barbecue will help make people "aware that in today's society, family encompasses more than just the standard one man, one woman and 2.5 kids," he said. "The reality is the modern family is much more than that. Having two gay dads or two gay women raising a child is just as much a family as a traditional family."

Eisenlord and other demonstrators also plan to assemble at 7 a.m. on March 4 outside the which will be held at the community center in Arcadia.