P hilip and Randi Reitan, the middle-age parents of four children, sat in the back of a federal court room in Middletown, N.Y., watching as their son Jake, 24, was arraigned for trespassing on the property of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The court appearance late last month was not a new experience. Jake, a gay activist, has been arrested seven times for protesting outside Christian colleges, service academies and church conventions that discriminate against gays. And on most of those occasions, his parents were beside him.

“We watched Jake when he started the first gay-straight alliance at his high school,” she said. “We were frustrated as parents because we wanted to help, but we didn’t know how. We were so ignorant at that point in this battle. We sat in the courtroom in Middletown knowing we would be called next before the judge. We thought, ‘Once again, Jake leads us.’ “

Federal Judge Martin R. Goldberg, after arraigning the son, called up the father, an attorney in Minnesota, and then Jake’s mother. The three family members were registered and fingerprinted.

Twenty-two activists who protested on April 26 outside the gates of West Point were arraigned for trespassing on federal property. They were demonstrating against the refusal to allow gays in the military. If found guilty, the activists could each receive a $500 fine or six months in jail or both. The judge will decide their fates on July 25.

“It takes these acts, which lead to arrests, for us to be heard, for people to understand the discrimination against our son and those like him,” Randi Reitan said. “It is not just a law we are fighting, but the assault on the dignity of these people, including our son. When there is a policy in place that hurts people, it is our moral responsibility to speak out.”

The arrests in April were part of a 61-day bus tour of 19 colleges, the Conference for the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, military academies and Texas A&M by a group called Soulforce.

Soulforce was founded by the Rev. Mel White, once a leader in the Christian right, who came out as a gay man in 1995. He and his partner, Gary Nixon, have been leading a lonely, often unheralded nonviolent movement against the bigotry and hatred preached by many of White’s former associates.

Soulforce activists stage peaceful protests outside Christian Right institutions, such as James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. They pray with their feet.

“This is about creating a conversation, about sending a message to gay and lesbian students at these colleges that God loves and accepts them as they are,” said Jake Reitan, who in the fall will attend Harvard Divinity School. “The root of all suffering for gay people in this country is religious, whether it is an antigay judge who decides a case, a legislator who passes a law that is bigoted or a parent who throws out their gay child. This discrimination is rooted in a fear and misunderstanding, and is perpetuated by misinformed religion.”

The voices of these Christian activists are not as amplified or shrill as those of the better-known televangelists who often denounce homosexuality as a sin and claim that “same-sex attraction” can be cured. But the faith and persistence of the Soulforce activists bear witness to another brand of Christianity, one that also has long roots in the American religious tradition. This Christianity celebrates difference, speaks of forgiving those who persecute you and sees social justice as an integral part of the biblical message.

Most of the activists in the courtroom had suffered the sting of bigotry. The group included men and women who had been disowned by their parents, thrown out of Christian colleges for their sexual orientation or forced to leave small towns because of overt and often religiously inspired hatred.

“I was expelled from North Central University because I am gay,” said David Coleman, 23, of Delano, Minn. “Before I left, students laid their hands on me to cast out the demon of homosexuality.”

At Brigham Young University, the stop before West Point, the riders read a list of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Brigham Young students who had committed suicide. As each name was read, a rider walked onto the campus and placed a lily on the ground before being led away by police.

As Philip and Randi Reitan smeared their fingers and palms with black ink, they showed us that there are other ways to be a mother and a father, other ways to cherish family. Their love and fidelity to their gay child was a challenge to those in the Christian Right who, while they speak of family, at the same time strip gays and lesbians of their self-esteem and civil rights, tell them they are sick and toss them out of church communities and, at times, their own homes.

The couple reminded those present that love is more powerful than hate, that acts of faith often take place in the odd, quiet corners of life where few look and that there are other Christian voices in America we need to hear.