MAYOR'S ASSISTANT SAYS "HATE MONGERING" CHRISTIANS
ARE COSTING THE CITY THOUSANDS 5/30/04

HARRISBURG – In a remarkable statement to Harrisburg’s Patriot-News, Assistant to the Mayor, Randy King, openly called Christians who preach the Gospel at the city’s annual homosexual PrideFest event, “Hate mongering”. The Christians are seeking an injunction to stop police interference and harassment during their evangelistic efforts at the gathering in the city, but King says that they are “intolerant” and suggests that they should “…cease and desist from their hate-mongering actions”. King says the “hate mongering” is costing the city thousands of dollars in legal fees.

The City of Harrisburg has been aggressively fighting to keep Christians from evangelizing outside of South Riverfront Park during the PrideFest event. Each year the ministers who open-air preach and evangelize at the event are consistently harassed by police and threatened with arrest.

The ministers' attorney filed for an injunction, asking the court to prohibit police from interfering with the preachers’ free speech. “The injunction is necessary because of a repeated pattern of harassment and arrests,” stated Len Brown of Clymer and Musser, P.C., a law firm based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

The Mayor has now proposed legislation to institute a 50-foot “buffer zone” around the public park to prevent the Christians from being close enough to talk with the attendees. King, who presented the Mayor's proposal, said that the “buffer zone” would not even be necessary if it were not for “hate mongering” Christians. “Intolerance is not a Christian value, regardless of how they try and twist or misinterpret the Scriptures to justify it,” he told the Patriot-News.

Last July, Jim Lymon, an evangelist from New York, James Grove, Pastor of the Heritage Baptist Church in Loganville, Pennsylvania, Stephen Garisto, an inner-city minister in Harrisburg, and Michael Marcavage, a field preacher of the Philadelphia-based REPENT AMERICA, were all arrested. Three of the men were jailed for several hours until the event was over.

“What a nation we have become where Christians ministering in public are being arrested, jailed, and brought before judges, while those who openly celebrate breaking God’s Law are free to do so in public places,” Marcavage stated.

Dauphin County Judge, Scott Evans, acquitted all four ministers of a defiant trespass charge last month. Grove was also cleared of a disorderly conduct charge, while the judge upheld the charge against Garisto and Marcavage, in which they have since appealed.

“The comments by the Mayor’s assistant are sobering and should cause Christians everywhere to either come out of the closet or wait for the destruction of our nation,” stated Michael Marcavage. “As Christians, we have failed to be the salt and light. This is the reason why our nation is in its current condition. May God allow whatever it will take for the eyes of Christians to be opened.” he concluded.

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