The 1,296 registrants debated and passed, by an overwhelming voice vote, a resolution that:

	noted "the heinous beating death of Matthew Shepard," a gay university student in Laramie, Wyoming
	noted that "...some in the national media [have] accepted and perpetuated homosexual attacks on the moral witness of the Church without any factual basis and have thereby failed in the fundamental journalistic responsibility to report truth and not false accusation ..."
	asked that the media "refrain from and repudiate unsubstantiated, untruthful, and hateful accusations against evangelical Christians and to report truthfully concerning the Church's true message of the good news that God offers forgiveness for sins through faith in Jesus Christ."
	noted that "...advocates for the social normalization of homosexual behavior have laid the blame for hate crimes on the moral witness of the Church and God's gracious offer of forgiveness to repentant sinners..."
	affirmed "as biblical and do ourselves agree with the position that Christian moral opposition to homosexual behavior is not and can never be license for anyone to engage in any form of slander, harassment or violence against one with whom we disagree." It may be worth noting that they did not include discrimination in employment or accommodation in their list.
	reaffirmed that homosexual activity is contrary to the teachings of the Bible: "...we affirm that Scripture clearly teaches that homosexual conduct is always an abomination in the sight of God for all human beings, both men and women, in all circumstances, without exception, (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9) ..."
	rebuked the U.S. media for  "unsubstantiated, untruthful, and hateful accusations against evangelical Christians."
	went on record as being opposed to hate crimes legislation. Such laws are based on the concept that if a criminal is motivated by the hatred of a group or class of people at the time of the crime, that they should receive a longer jail sentence. So, a mugger might normally receive a sentence of, say, 12 months for beating and robbing an individual who he selected at random. Their sentence would be increased if they selected a victim because he was Jewish. The rationale is that a hate crime is different from a regular crime. It is partly motivated by a desire to terrorize an entire segment of the population: those of a specific religion, race, nationality gender, sexual orientation, etc that the criminal hates. The ETS quoted the Bible passage: "man looks on the outward appearance...[but only] God looks on the heart." They argued that judges and juries cannot accurately judge a criminal's motive at the time of a criminal act. "..the idea of hate crime is about adding civil sanctions for something no human being can accurately or fairly discern in any other..." The gay-bashing murder of Matthew Shepard is "already subject to the most severe criminal sanctions...we oppose any attempt by civil authority to judge the hearts of men and women for any purpose, much less for the purpose of creating a legal fiction that can only ensure unequal treatment for equally heinous criminal actions."

President Grudem expressed the hope that this resolution will "give courage to the churches in all Evangelical denominations to hold firm to the clear teaching of Scripture on moral right and wrong and on forgiveness and power to change through Jesus Christ." Evangelical groups frequently believe that gays and lesbians choose their sexual orientation and can change it through prayer, counseling and personal effort. Almost all gays, lesbians, human sexuality researchers, liberal Christians, psychologists and psychiatrists disagree with this assessment.

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