"This is a movement," says the NGTF director, "that bills itself as a non-political opportunity for Christian men to live their lives by biblical values and to affirm their commitment to God and their families.

"In fact, however, Promise Keepers and their leadership are closely linked to right wing organizing in this country, and through its network of stadium events and small groups, is growing faster than the Christian Coalition.

"The larger agenda behind Promise Keepers and its leaders is of grave concern to all who care about equality and social justice."

Ms. Lobel notes that the Promise Keepers' "outwardly wholesome appearance of male bonding and family responsibility is a cover for a strong anti-woman/male dominating message that invalidates the worth and dignity of women and of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. Their pledge to strengthen families scapegoats women and gay people, blaming them for the collapse of family and community. Their pledge of 'racial reconciliation' rings hollow without a commitment to overcoming institutional racism.

"Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney has gained national notoriety for his anti-gay rhetoric. McCartney has said that 'homosexuality is an abomination of Almighty God,' that gay people are 'curable,' are 'a group of people who don't reproduce, yet want to be compared to people who do reproduce,' and 'a lifestyle doesn't entitle anyone to special rights.' The Promise Keepers' literature itself reads, 'homosexuality violates God's creative design for a husband and a wife and is a sin.'

NGLTF says, "Justice-seeking people will not stand by and let this bigotry go unchallenged."

"If Promise Keepers has their way," says Kerry Lobel, "they will lead us into the 21st Century as a Christian nation of men dedicated to perpetuating racial and gender oppression and homophobia. No matter what they claim, their leaders have a highly political agenda that would turn back the clock. Our country must move into the future guided on the principles of religious and political pluralism, freedom and equality.

GayToday editor, Jack Nichols, author of THE GAY AGENDA: Talking Back to the Fundamentalists (Prometheus Books, October, 1996) and MEN'S LIBERATION: A New Definition of Masculinity (Penguin Books, 1975) recently wrote of the men's movement and of the Promise Keepers (on page p. 182-83 of AGENDA) explaining the muddied origins of the movement:

"Logically, along with feminism's phenomenal growth, there should also have been a role revolution among men, counterbalancing and complementing changes taking place in women's lives. Instead, after sparking only a few rounds on talk shows, a film or two like Mr. Mom, and sitcom jokes about machismo, especially on Home Improvement , there's been, in spite of early warnings about the pressing need for redefining male roles, an eerie silence about such liberation. Sporadically there is vague talk in women's glamour magazines about men becoming more 'sensitive,' or a nod here or there to a manly show of feelings or of men being able to help around the house or to weep without embarrassment. But these superficially treated issues have sidetracked gut discussions and have blurred a more comprehensive view. America's dominant folk art, the news media, has failed, for the most part, to understand either the substance or the gravity of male issues.

"The fledgling men's movement, divided into four disparate wings, has limped along, leading nowhere. One wing acts as a counterreaction to feminism and attempts to reclaim male privilege. Another is supportive of feminism, but weighted down by academics short on strategy and who too openly parrot feminist theories.

"They have thus failed to communicate a sense of true social urgency, making instead mere armchair challenges.

"A third, better publicized men's faction follows poet-guru Robert Bly, who leads seek-after-truth coteries into rural encampments where they discuss myths and attempt to make 'needed' connections with primitive interior images of some sort. Such tactics, however, merely provide media with a novelty feature, making it unnecessary for the TV and radio networks to demonstrate any series commitment to male-lib concerns."

Thus explaining the failures he believes have accompanied the movement for male liberation, GayToday's editor explains in his latest book how a male-bonding, liberationist void has, recently and unfortunately, been filled by the Promise Keepers. He writes:

"The fourth, and by far the largest group has been spawned, over the last two years, in right-wing waters. Known as the Promise Keepers, it capitalizes on male-bonding needs, attempting to route those needs into 'Christian' channels. Massive gatherings in stadiums throughout the nation focus also on easing the distress males know as current economic woes lean heavily on their self-images. Their protector-provider roles need shoring up, it seems. The Promise Keepers have found success as they celebrate their own brand of male camaraderie, all under the spell of conventional religious glee. Male camaraderie is thereby defined and sublimated into 'proper' channels to 'protect' Christian men from the truly serious meanings behind the equality of the sexes."

Nichols writes that the Promise Keepers and other men's organizations offer a mixed bag of both positive and "retrogressive effects" but that they presently allow antiquated pundits "to gently scoff at what has now become society's underlying need, an effective challenging of male roles, and, as has occurred among feminist women, an increase in bonding among liberated men."