Watchmen on the Walls Return to Latvia
Over the past two years, the have their traveling anti-gay road show to Sacramento, Seattle and Riga, the Latvian capital. In Seattle last month, they were by more than 100 protesters, who challenged the Watchmen鈥檚 beliefs that gays are a threat to society and were instrumental in orchestrating the Holocaust. In Latvia this March, American Watchmen leaders tried to pass themselves off as envoys of the US White House, a claim refuted by White House spokesmen.
This Nov. 14-18, they鈥檒l return to Riga, where they will be joined by Americans Larry Jacobs and Don Feder of the . Feder is involved with several extremist groups. He is a member of the board of advisers of the , an anti-immigrant group whose leader has compared immigrants to bacteria. Last year, speaking at a conference put on by the anti-gay group, Vision America, Feder the goal of the gay rights movement was to 鈥渢ransform us so that Salt Lake City on a Sunday morning looks like today's San Francisco on a Saturday night."
The Watchmen conference is sponsored by New Generation Church, which has over 200 congregations in 15 countries. Alexey Ledyaev, the 56-year old church head, wrote a 2002 book,聽 New World Order, that says countries must enact biblical law in order to stave off a supposed alliance of gays and Muslims hell-bent on destroying Christianity. "The first devastating wave of homosexuality makes a way for the second and more dangerous wave of islamization [sic]."
Organizers expect between 3,000 and 5,000 to attend the Watchmen鈥檚 Latvian summit. When the Watchmen met in Seattle last month, they expected 700 people. Less than 150 turned out.
