The "We Will Stand" event at the Phoenix Airport Marriott was a $25-a-plate dinner for dialogue on President Bush's creation of a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

It was designed to bring different religious faiths together.

For some, the keynote speaker, Father Sun Myung Moon became the issue.

Reverend Walter Fauntroy, former D.C. Delegate and pastor at New Bethel Baptist Church welcomed the gathering with warmth and common sense.

"We've come to praise the Lord. "I am in the habit of supporting positive action to deal with serious problems in our country," he noted.

The Arizona Ecumenical Council, which represents 700 Protestant churches in Arizona, would not have been a sponsor for the dinner if its leaders had known that Father Moon was a main sponsor, said the Reverend Paul Eppinger, executive director of the council to the media.

Eppinger stated that he is uncomfortable about such ties but attended anyway.

Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, a member of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification stated simply that,

"There are controversies on both sides of the aisle.

"There are people who are worried that churches are going to overtake the government.
"And churches out there are worried that government is going to take over churches.

"It's been very clear from the beginning that Reverend Moon would be one of the speakers," he said. "The invitations state that. There's been no attempt to conceal that fact at all."

Local speakers included Arizona House Speaker Jim Weiers and Doug Wead, who lost his bid for an Arizona congressional seat and is an unofficial adviser to Bush.

Larry Miller, executive director of Arizona Call to Renewal, which aims to fight poverty, attended a similar event in Washington, D.C., in January and said no one tried to convert him.

He was pleased to see so many different groups meeting on behalf of the important issue of the day.