Gazette-Times reporter

Alert drivers headed east on Monroe Avenue past Oregon State University may have that déjà vu feeling by the time they reach Ninth Street and see the white banner above the First Presbyterian Church sign that reads "Honor God - Stop Torture Now."

The sign also appears on the front of the Westminster House United Campus Ministry center at the corner of Monroe and 23rd Street

and above the entrance to First United Methodist Church between 11th and 12th streets. Two other congregations, the First Congregational United Church of Christ and Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, have posted similar messages as well.

The local churches

are displaying the banners as part of Torture Awareness Month sponsored by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and endorsed by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Nationally, an estimated 300 congregations are participating in the banner promotio

n.

Many more faith groups are collecting petition signatures with the hopes of presenting 50,000 signatures calling for an end to American policies that allow torture or inhumane treatment to Congress and the president by the end of June.

The NRCAT represe

nts tens of thousands of people from diverse religious backgrounds, including evangelical Christians, mainlines Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Quakers, Unitarians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and others. Its Web site, www.nrcat.org, states tha

t even though there are many theological differences among its members, there is a common affirmation of the inherent dignity of each individual and a shared understanding of the "Golden Rule" which implies a person should never do to another person what h

e or she would not want done to them.

LoErna Simpson of First United Methodist said church members there have been aware of the NRCAT campaign for two years after participating in a Lenten study on "Torture and Jesus" in the spring of 2007. The group's pet

ition was placed on the Justice Table sponsored by the congregation's Active for Peace and Justice Committee and the estimated 50 people who signed it then were some of the first Oregonians to do so.

"I believe that people of faith should be speaking out o

pposing the use of torture on other humans," Simpson said. "Whether torture is done by America or by other countries, it is morally wrong. If our faith groups won't speak out against torture, who will?"

Simpson said she was especially appalled at the use o

f torture by the United States prohibited by the Geneva Convention including water boarding, sleep deprivation and "the use of stress positions where medical military personnel need to check every hour or so to make sure the prisoner is still alive."

By di

splaying a torture banner, the church hopes to remind people that torturing others is a sin and yet the United States is still allowing it to occur, Simpson said. "We're living in the 21st century," she said, "but America is not acting like it."

In additio

n to the NRCAT emphasis, First Methodist hosts the monthly meetings of an Amnesty International Writers group where people gather to write letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience who are jailed, tortured and sometimes killed for speaking out for human

rights. The church also has shown documentary films focused on incidents of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq during the past two years.