Louis P. Sheldon, inflammatory anti-gay crusader

Protege of Pat Robertson called homosexuality an ‘attack on marriage’

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, a onetime Presbyterian minister who was an inflammatory and influential crusader against gay rights, winning support on Capitol Hill against what he denounced as “the homosexual agenda,” died May 29 in Orange County, Calif. He was 85.

The death was announced on social media by a son-in-law, James Lafferty. No cause of death was cited.

Sheldon, who had an endless appetite for confrontation and TV-ready sound bites, founded the Traditional Values Coalition in 1980 and wielded considerable influence over conservative voters and lawmakers for years. From his base in Anaheim, Calif., he brought an aggressive — not to say abrasive — style of advocacy to what he considered the defense of traditional morality and religion.

A protege of Virginia televangelist Pat Robertson, Sheldon jumped easily from the pulpit to politics as a self-proclaimed “lobbyist for the Lord.” He was once ranked among the 10 most influential figures in the evangelical political movement.

He spoke out on a range of issues, railing against abortion rights, the teaching of evolution and artworks that he deemed hostile to religion, but he reserved his most fiery rhetoric for his “open warfare” toward gay rights and same-sex marriage.

“I’m not a gay basher,” he said in a 1989 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I’m not homophobic. I feel sorry for a guy who can’t lay with a woman.”

Sheldon always used the term “homosexual,” never “gay,” and maintained that homosexuality was a learned behavior, a lifestyle choice. Inevitably, he linked homosexuality to unfounded claims of pedophilia and said it was part of a secular society’s “attack on marriage.”

“We must protect our children and youth from this homosexual recruiting,” he said in a 1994 letter, rallying other pastors to his cause. “You don’t want to tolerate sin. You don’t want to tolerate perversion.”

At the height of his influence, in the 1980s and 1990s, Sheldon could mobilize hundreds of supporters to appear at legislative hearings and thousands more to write letters to lawmakers. He was a member of the Republican State Central Committee in California and lobbied for municipal ordinances and state legislation to repeal laws outlawing discrimination against gay people in the workplace. He touted what he called “reparative therapy” as a way to change the sexual orientation of gay people — a discredited practice that is illegal in some states.

“This is a man who does a tremendous job of spreading hatred and fear to further his own career,” Leonard Graff of the San Francisco-based National Gay Rights Advocates told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. “He’s very dangerous.”

With the rise of Republicans in Congress in the 1990s, Sheldon became a powerful figure in conservative circles. With Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., installed as speaker of the House in 1995, Sheldon once delivered a prayer in the House chamber as a guest chaplain — drawing ire from Democrats who said the prayer violated rules against registered lobbyists appearing on the House floor.

“I’m not saying that you’ve got to have the state adopting theological statements — absolutely not,” Sheldon told the New York Times in 1994, treading a line between politics and religion. “But what the Bible teaches in morals and in behavior is relevant to public policy. And there are millions of people who are holding to that firm belief.”

As gay people and gay rights became more widely accepted, ultimately resulting in a 2015 Supreme Court decision approving same-sex marriage, Sheldon kept up his attacks, preaching to a shrinking congregation.

By 2008, his Traditional Values Coalition was called an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist organizations. Sheldon and some of his followers considered it a badge of honor. In 2018, as the coalition shut down its website and became increasingly irrelevant, the designation was removed.

“We know that in America the people are with us,” Sheldon maintained in 2006. “They’re just confused.”

Louis Philip Sheldon was born June 11, 1934, in Washington. His father was raised as a Protestant, his mother as an Orthodox Jew. At 16, Louis heard a sermon and adopted a fervent evangelical Christian faith.

He graduated from Michigan State University in 1957 and received a master of divinity degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1960. He became an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative offshoot of the larger and more mainstream Presbyterian Church (USA).

During the 1960s, Sheldon was associated with Robertson, an influential force in evangelicalism, and worked on political campaigns in Delaware and North Dakota, where he was a church pastor. In 1969, he moved to California’s Orange County, then a conservative stronghold. One of his political patrons was Rep. William Dannemeyer, R-Calif., a longtime anti-gay zealot.

Sheldon was a church pastor in Anaheim until 1980, when he devoted himself full time to the Traditional Values Coalition. In 2012, he left the Presbyterian ministry to become a priest of the Anglican Church in North America, a conservative sect that broke from the mainstream Episcopal Church.