Raising Cane

photograph by Alan Pogue

Mark Weaver is back and, for better or worse, we've got him. The anti-porn and anti-gay activist has been laying low since 1991. That was when the young minister was arrested for criminal trespassing, handcuffed, and removed from an AIDS Services of Austin board meeting. He said he decided then that he had played out the full measure of his political effectiveness. So Weaver packed up his "Gay is not OK" banner (which he had often draped from the 11th St. overpass over I-35), along with his "You don't have to be gay" and "Gay = Got AIDS Yet?" signs. With that, Austin's self-appointed morality watchdog - who in his heyday had convinced HEB stores to stop distributing The Austin Chronicle (a decision that was reversed within a few weeks), tried to run clandestine lovers out of Pease Park, and protested every gay pride march, transvestite beauty pageant, and spring cotillion in town - retired from public life. For the past few years, Weaver says, he has focused his energies on his pastorship of the New Hope Wesleyan Church.

But today is a new day. For his opponents and other Weaver watchers, the antics are an interesting break from the monotony of a world without Weaver. From his office adjacent to the corrugated metal sanctuary of the New Hope Church, the preacher is plotting his comeback. He says it was an Austin American-Statesman article about the proposed zoning ordinance for gay bathhouses that drew him out of retirement, prompting him to return to his old familiar soapbox in the City Council chambers.

"Right now I'm poking my head back up and seeing that Austin's problems are worse than they've ever been." Weaver said. "What I want to do is look at issues and prioritize them, and tackle them one at a time." Among his next goals, he says, will be enforcement of state decency laws, and extending Austin's sexually oriented business regulations to include all of Travis County.

Though some have called him Austin's most notorious gay basher, Weaver says he's never bashed anybody. "If they think that pulling the covers off their lifestyle is gay bashing, then they're right," he said. "But I've never personally attacked any individual. I've never used unkind gestures or words or made fun of people with AIDS." Weaver serves on the board of directors of a ministry called LifeGuard, which provides support for gays and lesbians who want to "leave the gay lifestyle." Weaver and his wife have hosted weekly potluck dinners for many such people, he says, even inviting them into their home to live when they had nowhere else to turn.

Despite Weaver's outreach efforts, and his exceedingly pleasant demeanor, local gay activists fear his rhetoric can in the long run serve to legitimize and lead to hate crimes against gays. Weaver disagrees. "I love people, though I hate a lot of activities of people. You do what you do because you believe in it. Edmund Burke said that `Evil can only triumph when good men sit and do nothing.' Well it's time for some good men to stand back up." - J.S.