Watchmen on the Walls Return to Latvia

Over the past two years, the Watchmen on the Walls have brought their traveling anti-gay road show to Sacramento, Seattle and Riga, the Latvian capital. In Seattle last month, they were greeted by more than 100 protesters, who challenged the Watchmen’s 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’ll return to Riga, where they will be joined by Americans Larry Jacobs and Don Feder of the World Congress of Families. Feder is involved with several extremist groups. He is a member of the board of advisers of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, 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 said the goal of the gay rights movement was to “transform 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,  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’s Latvian summit. When the Watchmen met in Seattle last month, they expected 700 people. Less than 150 turned out.