The Jan. 20 press conference came four days after the deadline for turning in signatures to qualify the so-called "California Defense of Sexual Responsibility Act" for the Nov. 7, 2000, ballot. In addition to repealing gay rights laws, the measure, proposed by Lee W. Olson, a Long Beach man, would ban "public entities" in California from using the phrase "sexual orientation" and would prohibit "endorsement, education, recognition or promotion of homosexuality as an acceptable, moral behavior."

Judy Han, the national coordinator of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and coordinator for the new coalition, expressed confidence that the small band of right-wing activists pushing the initiative had failed to gather the 419,000 valid signatures needed to qualify. If that assumption proves correct, Han said, then proponents of the initiative probably did gays and lesbians of Korean descent a favor.

"I want to be cautious in saying this, but I think this is one of the best things to happen if we want to discuss gay and lesbian civil rights in the Korean community," she said. "This kind of adverse reaction to civil rights advances provides us a way to frame an urgent political struggle when dialoguing with the Korean community and other communities of color."

The press conference was called to trumpet the formation of the Korean Americans for Civil Rights, (KACR), whose founding members are the Gay Asian Pacific Support Network, Korean immigrant Workers Advocates, and the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium.

As described in the press release, the organization's objectives are: educating the Korean community about anti-gay initiatives; conducting a series of forums to raise awareness on gay and lesbian issues in Korean churches; and fostering long-term alliances in the Korean-American community. To help achieve these goals, the coalition published full-page ads in two major Korean-language newspapers on Jan. 18.

Turnout was good for their press conference two days later at the United Methodist Church in downtown Los Angeles, even though it was a drizzly holiday.

"Theirs is an attempt to strong-arm a minority community into oppressing another minority community," Jeff Kim, director of legal services at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, said of the backers of both the Knight initiative and the Olson measure. "They seek to pit one group against the other. We will stand united and opposed to that effort."

Han was nearly overcome with emotion as, trembling, she spoke out against the efforts by the Religious Right to, "degrade the basic dignity of the people in the community."

She elaborated, "Because of the stigma faced by gays and lesbians in the Korean church and other churches of minority groups, many are frightened to speak out and sit quietly listening to their religious leaders declaim them. We call upon the straight community to support our efforts to extend basic civil rights to gays and lesbians as they have been extended to people of color."

Indeed, the Rev. Seung-Bae Paik of the Wesley United Methodist Church in Glendale took the podium and movingly described his own preparations in coming to speak at the press conference. "There is an important difference between advocating and supporting gay and lesbian rights and in insisting on basic civil rights for gays and lesbians," he said. "I counsel my parishioners to beware of the false arguments of those who would strip rights from communities, for might we not be a target ourselves one day?"

Paik noted that the Christian Coalition opposes immigration into the country. "We should avoid those who would divide us so as to conquer us," he said.

Inbo Sim, a board member of the Korean Resource Center, said the coalition will work to counter the misinformation being spread by anti-gay groups. "Church members are being told that homosexuality must now be taught in schools, when in reality the legislation (AB 537) protects their children from violence. They are told that AB 26 means gays can marry, when it only provides domestic partnership registry."

The conference was a response to recent organizing in the Korean community by the Christian Coalition, which included full-page newspaper ads in Korean-language newspapers in December, as well as a series of meetings at Korean churches across the state. Although the effort is billed as an attempt to qualify Olson's initiative for the November ballot, Miriam Archer, director of the Christian Coalition of California, acknowledged a broader purpose in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Of course they're not going to get enough signatures for this," she said, before elaborating on her hopes that the effort will inspire Korean Americans to form their own Christian Coalition chapter. "I think it's going to turn out to be a very good thing."

While the Religious Right's focus on the Korean community is new, they have often attempted to inflame perceived prejudices in minority communities to further their anti-gay agenda. Last year, they targeted Latino and African-American communities with homophobic ads and flyers in their efforts to defeat pro-gay legislation being considered by lawmakers. And earlier this year, Traditional Values Coalition head Lou Sheldon helped form La Amistad, a group of Latino evangelicals dedicated to passing the Knight initiative, which would ban state recognition of same-sex marriage.