Wednesday, December 24, 2003

As part of its update, the National Park Service plans to add scenes including rallies by the Promise Keepers, a fundamentalist Christian men's group, and by pro-life groups to the video.

To do so, however, may not be historically accurate after all. Those rallies did not occur at the Lincoln Memorial or even on the nearby Mall, said Bill Line, a spokesperson for the National Park Service.

Line told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that the pressure to replace gay and pro-choice images with Christian and pro-life scenes comes from conservative Kansas Republican congressman Todd Tiahrt.

In a letter to the National Park Service last February, Tiahrt objected to the portions of the video that depict gays and a National Abortion Rights League rally, Line said. Tiahrt is "in discussion" with the park service about adding the new scenes, Line said.

The 8-minute video, on public display since 1995, depicts images of a wide variety of events that took place at the Memorial, including black civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations. The footage of gay rights lasts about 13 seconds, and the pro-choice footage lasts about 16 seconds, Line said.

The National Park Service has been fighting a lengthy legal battle to continue to display an 8-foot cross in California's Mohave National Preserve, and has reinstalled plaques with Biblical verses along the rim of the Grand Canyon.

They have also endorsed the sale at Park Service bookstores of a creationist text, "The Grand Canyon: A Different View," which argues that, despite geological evidence to the contrary, the canyon was "created" several thousand years ago.

9:41 AM |