For Further Event Information:
215-732-FEST or
www.pridefestamerica.com

For Further Press Information:
Deborah Fleischman
215-735-7356

PRIDEFEST AMERICA 2002 FEATURES
NATIONAL RELIGIOUS COLLOQUY

Members of Islamic, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant Faiths
Discuss Issues of Religious Tolerance

PrideFest America, the nation's largest annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) symposium and festival, will host members of the Islamic, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant faiths discussing issues of religious tolerance at PrideFest America's National Religious Colloquy on Wednesday, May 1 at the Prince Music Theater (1412 Chestnut Street) as part of PrideFest America's Tenth Anniversary, running April 29 through May 5.

This prestigious panel, co-sponsored by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence will be moderated by Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson to Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence with panelists Faisal Alam, Founder and Director of Al-Fatiha, an international gay Islamic group; Reverend Jimmy Creech; Steven Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi; and Mary Louise Cervone, National President of Dignity.

Admission to the National Religious Colloquy requires a $5 Program Pass or is included in the $15 Week-Long Program Pass, which is available through the website at www.pridefestamerica.com. The week-long pass provides admission to over fifty (50) programs throughout the week.

"With the National Religious Colloquy, PrideFest America presents an important discussion of gays and the religious community. This panel highlights that, despite religious differences, the issue of homosexual discrimination is similar," said Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director of PrideFest America. "Societal change occurs when traditional, conservative viewpoints change. As the conservative religious leadership re-evaluates its attitudes towards gay and lesbians, as it has with women and African-Americans, progress occurs. This discussion focuses on that process."

The Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence was founded in 1991 by the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Arun Gandhi. Many of the Institute's educational programs are aimed at conflict prevention, anger management, diversity training and relationship and community building. Currently the programs include the interactive nonviolence and diversity-training workshop Faces In The Crowd, the annual Behind the Prison Walls prisoner essay contest, the international Season for Nonviolence grassroots community-building campaign, and the Circle of Friends monthly public discussion forums. Arun travels almost year-round all over the world speaking and teaching about nonviolence, including a six-week tour of "Gandhi's India" that starts in Bombay, India and travels to many outlying villages to observe Gandhian constructive community action projects still at work in India today.

24-year old Faisal Alam is the Founder and Director of Al-Fatiha, an international organization dedicated to Muslims who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, those questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity, and their friends. Alam represents Al-Fatiha as a member of the steering committee of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable and on the national advisory board of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. In addition to his GLBT faith-based activism, Alam is also a member of AQUA (Asian Queers United in Action) and Khush (GLBT South Asians). Voted an "Innovator" by Advocate Magazine in 2001, he is currently employed at the National Minority AIDS Council in Washington, DC.

Jimmy Creech is a former ordained elder in The United Methodist Church. While at Fairmont United Methodist Church in Raleigh, NC, he helped to create the Raleigh Religious Network for Gay and Lesbian Equality, an ecumenical group whose purpose was to publicly counter anti-gay religious rhetoric with a faithful message of God's love for and inclusion of all persons, regardless of sexual orientation. While serving as Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Omaha, NE, he was acquitted in a 1998 church trial of a charge of violating the Order and Discipline of the United Methodist Church when he celebrated a covenant ceremony of two women in September, 1997. In April, 1999, Creech celebrated the holy union of two men in Chapel Hill, NC. Charges were brought against him, and a church trial was held in Grand Island, NE in 1999. The jury declared Creech guilty of "disobedience to the Order and Discipline of The United Methodist Church" and withdrew his credentials of ordination.

Rabbi Steven Greenberg is a senior teaching fellow at CLAL, the national Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. A scholar for CLAL's national programs, ongoing classes and Shabbatons throughout North America, he has developed and coordinated an innovative Judaic training program for communal leaders, the Learning Leaders Program. While in Israel at the Jerusalem Fellows program, he served as the educational advisor of the Jerusalem Open House, Jerusalem's first gay and lesbian community center advancing the cause of social tolerance in the Holy City. Greenberg received his B.A. in philosophy from Yeshiva University and his rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

Mary Louise Cervone is the national president of Dignity, the nation's oldest and largest organization serving GLBT Catholics, their families and friends. Cerone's faith-based activism began in 1989 in her local Philadelphia chapter and has since taken her across the country and to the Vatican as an advocate for GLBT Catholics. Cervone also serves as the chief financial officer for Philadelphia FIGHT, the largest AIDS service organization in Pennsylvania.

Since its founding in 1993, PrideFest America has become the nation's largest annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) symposium and festival. It has expanded from a three-day conference of regional organizations to a full week of events featuring international, national and regional leaders on a broad range of compelling issues. With more than 60 programs and social events presented by 80 regional, national and international organizations, PrideFest America 2002 is the nation's most in-depth program of the emergence of a vibrant GLBT community and its civil rights aspirations.

Some of the highlights of this year's tenth anniversary festival include Tseng Kwong Chi: A Retrospective, an exhibition of approximately 85 works is the first-ever retrospective of this important postmodern photographer; the Tom Stoddard National Role Model Award to MTV at the Kimmel Center in recognition of their distinguished contributions to social change in the GLBT community; Living in a Rainbow Nation: Gay & Lesbian Dynamics in South Africa with an all-South African panel focusing on contemporary issues for gay black and white South Africans such as apartheid, constitutional protection, and AIDS in South Africa; and a National Healthcare Panel with AIDS Czar Scott Evertz, among other national, international and regional programming.

For further information, visit the website at www.pridefestamerica. com, or call 215-732-FEST.

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