For three consecutive days, June 15-17th, the Project Strait Gate team quietly picketed the Pastors and Deacons at their national conference in Phoenix on the streets around the big conference center.

Inside, the delegates, called messengers were busy passing resolutions. One of these affirming President George W. Bush for the bombing of Iraq, another asserting that Baptists deplore all forms of hatred or bigotry toward any person or people or group. After denouncing a document few Baptist have ever heard of called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion the convention passing a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. The many resolutions can be viewed on (http://www.sbc.net/).

One would think someone among the over 6000 attendees would point out that the Iraqi people, who the two Bush presidents have bombed into the stone age, and who are now virtual prison inmates in their own homes, are almost entirely Semites (see Webster’s New International Dictionary).

The Baptists Resolution No. 2 on the liberation of Iraq alludes to weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, an   International Coalition to free the Iraqi people that now has in fact murdered and imprisoned them, and a warranted action based on principles of just war. The SBC forgoing reasons to justify its last years convention resolution when they led the charge in demand war on Iraqi people by calling on the United States government to protect our people against rogue nations in their quest for weapons of mass destruction.

The resolutions committee also stated that the Southern Baptist Convention loves all people, including the Iraqis, and in a separate resolution reaffirmed its position for the right to life for all humans, born and unborn with a separate resolution. The SBC made no effort to explain whey non-Jewish Arab children do not qualify under its right to life plank.

Outside, in the land of Baghdad like heat and political reality, Strait Gate volunteers, some in business suits and long dresses, stood in searing, Baghdad like heat, with 16 square foot yellow and black signs easily visible from a block away. Signs with blood red and black on white background were interspersed with the unmistakable messages directed at the leaders of the conference.