c. 2000 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ As thousands of marchers prepare to descend on Washington, D.C., for the Million Mom March on Mother’s Day to demand gun control legislation, three different religious groups _ including the Nation of Islam _ are gearing up for their own mega rallies in the upcoming months.

The scheduled demonstrations range from a May rally in support of the reinstatement of prayer in U.S. public schools to a call from the Nation of Islam for a multiracial Million Family March on Oct. 16.

“Our purpose is to strengthen families, to put God back at the center of the family,” said Minister Benjamin F. Muhammad _ formerly the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, president of the NAACP _ the national director of the Million Family March. Chavis also served in the same capacity for the Million Man March in 1995.

Chavis said organizers expect hundreds of couples to renew their vows or get married at the march. “We believe that the social, economic, political and ethnic problems facing the United States is primarily the result of disobedience to the will of God. Instability in the family will cause instability in society.”

The march is the latest successor to the Nation of Islam’s black-empowerment-themed Million Man March, which spawned the Million Woman March two years later and the Million Youth March in 1998.

October’s march will feature controversial Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan as its keynote speaker, but Muhammad emphasized that organizers want people of all races and faiths to attend _ an acknowledgment, he said, of the “oneness of the human family.”

“We want to reach out to all of the various ethnic communities that make up the United States _ black, white, Hispanic, Native American, Asian,” said Muhammad, a former United Church of Christ minister who converted to Islam in 1997. “We’re inviting all families as an affirmation of the oneness of God and the oneness of the human family.”

Noting that the march is scheduled three weeks before the Nov. 7 national elections, Muhammad said organizers also plan to present at the march a “family-friendly report card” on all members of Congress.

“We’re going to look at whether their policies have been family-friendly,” said Muhammad, “whether they have voted in the interests of strengthening families.”

The Million Family March has already been endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus, said Muhammad, while a number of religious leaders _ from Baptists to Roman Catholics to Episcopalians to Orthodox Jews _ have said they will support the event.

“We have a lot of support from political, civil rights and religious leaders,” Muhammad said. “I think it’s time now for the whole family of Abraham to come back together, to pray together and work together for the benefit of humanity.”

The Million Family March will be preceded by two other rallies on the National Mall, the “Take A Stand Rally” May 19-21 and “TheCallDC” on Sept. 2, an event billed as a “day of fasting and praying for repentance and revival in the nation.”

“We will have a massive gathering of people from every race and denomination, coming together in unity and in prayer for a spiritual awakening,” said Che Ahn, an organizer of “TheCallDC,” which will be held from dawn until dusk. “In a spiritual awakening, a conversion will take place among the young people, turning them from darkness to light and from selfishness to love.

“As a result, we hope to see an increase in personal responsibility, like decreases in violence in the schools or in teen-age pregnancy. We expect not just spiritual transformation at TheCallDC, but also social transformation as well.”

Speakers at the event include Darrel Scott, whose daughter Rachel was killed during a shooting rampage at Columbine High School last year, and Promise Keepers founder and president Bill McCartney, who helped organize “Stand in the Gap” on the mall in 1997, an event that drew thousands of men from around the country to affirm male responsiblity in the home.

Coordinated by Truth Broadcasting Corp., a North Carolina-based media group, the “Take A Stand Rally” will call for the restoration of prayer in public schools in the United States. Event organizers plan to launch a nationwide petition campaign asking legislators to reinstate prayer in public schools.

“Freedom is the right to pray whenever and wherever you wish _ it is not limited to certain hours of the day and those hours cannot be dictated to us by our government,” said Linda Furr, director of Truth Broadcasting. “We are not merely taking a stand for Christians alone, but for religious freedom everywhere.”

Darrel Scott will also speak at the rally, as will William J. Murray, the director of the Religious Freedom Coalition and son of atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair _ whose efforts to end prayer in the nation’s schools led to the 1963 Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution prohibited state-mandated prayer in schools.

KRE END DANCY