  More details: urlLink Update: The Austin American-Statesman, Austin's liberal paper, published this urlLink article on the rally. Notice the article does not mention that the homosexual activists repeatedly yelled and interrupted songs, speakers, and prayers with horns, shouts, and chants, including the frequent "liar, liar, liar" while Tony Perkins was speaking. This is not the way to win over hearts and minds, if that is in fact what these folks were hoping to do. To be fair, the interruptions were from a small minority of the activists. The speakers and anttendees responded with restraint and love. It is very saddening to see how hate seems to drive so many folks in the homosexual lobby.
We all need Christ so very badly. We all need Him. By Anita Powell While nearly 100,000 Austinites flocked to Zilker Park for this year's Independence Day festivities, about 400 others thronged the empty Texas Capitol to toss a hot issue on the grill: gay marriage. In sweltering late-afternoon heat, about 150 supporters of gay marriage and about 250 people on the other side of the issue participated in an impassioned but orderly event that featured singing, speeches and a spontaneous union of the factions for a group prayer on the Capitol steps. "The issue is, we will be codifying into law what God himself has called an abomination," said keynote speaker Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based lobbying group that sponsored the Christian-centered event with Austin-based TakeUp.org. Representing the opposition were the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas and Soulforce Austin, both gay rights groups.
Randall Ellis, executive director of the lobby group, said he felt it was his patriotic duty to represent gay rights. "I would much rather be home with my mother and father," he said. "But I feel very strongly that I had to be here. " Austin resident Doug McArthur, 59, came with his wife, Joan, to support their daughter, who is gay. "We have a 33-year-old boy and a 29-year-old girl," said Joan McArthur, 57. "And both of them should be able to marry their girlfriends if they want to.
" Bryan Sturdivant, 46, brought his wife and daughter, but to support the opposite view. The family attends the Church at Canyon Creek, a Baptist congregation in North Austin that brought a group to the event. "I believe God created us as man and woman, and that's the way it should be," he said. "America was founded on God. And we've got to get back to him. " Some Christians in the crowd did not agree with that message, however.
"I believe that God created all people and that everyone is equal in his eyes," said Kristen Thomas, 20, who is Catholic. "Jesus loved tax collectors, he loved prostitutes; why wouldn't he have loved gays? " Megan Steves, 26, and Naomi Douglas, 28, stood with their arms around each other's shoulders on the Capitol steps. Steves held a sign in support of gay marriage that read, "I can't. " "Independence Day doesn't mean anything when people aren't able to make their own decisions," Steves said. "They did this with blacks.
And they're doing this with gays. " But Julius Buckner, 50, who said he opposes gay marriage, blanched at the comparison to the civil rights movement. "It's not the same," said Buckner, who is black. "They still have the right to do what they want to. " An unexpected moment of solidarity occurred at the end, when the Rev. Michael Hatcher, pastor of Lighthouse Community Church in Fort Worth, invited the protesters to join him onstage in prayer.
"Let freedom ring in your heart," he prayed, stricken with emotion, surrounded by a throng of activists, arms linked, hands clasped, intermingled and indistinguishable. "I saw it as an opportunity to spread love," he said of his call to prayer. "For me not to call my enemies to come and reconcile would be the wrong thing for me to do. " 
