Besen said Smith’s approach is typical of conservative religious activists.

“The most extreme right-wingers are actually very nice on an individual basis,” Besen said. “It is easy to talk to these individuals and say, ‘Oh, they’re friendly,’ and forget that they are just really trying to take away your rights and essentially put you in a cage by passing sodomy laws and having you arrested.”

But Besen said it was appropriate for everyone to be polite to Smith.

“By the same token, I’ve been to several conferences myself and people have been generally polite on the other side,” Besen said. “It’s a free society, and we’re entitled to have a different point of view and go to these conferences.”

“She’s sweet but a religious fanatic,” Besen said. “Her sole purpose of being at this conference was to demean and smear gay and lesbian people and to distort and twist everything that was said. That was her mission.”

“From a Christian conservative perspective, the advance of homosexuality into the media as well as other spheres of society is, to us, alarming,” said Smith, who noted that her opinions have been shaped in part by the loss of several friends to AIDS, which she blames on homosexuality. “Although everybody treated me kindly and respectively, my inner feeling toward everyone is compassion and pity. I feel there is a better way than forming a movement and pushing for so-called civil rights based on sexuality.”

Smith said she and other conservative Christians fear the gay rights movement is making great strides. “I don’t think anybody denies that on either side,” Smith said. “Yes, we think you are succeeding.”

Smith said that when she went through the program and saw the list of attendees and the companies represented by them and sponsors she was taken aback.

“I was floored,” said Smith, who noted she found activist Larry Kramer’s complaints that he was dissatisfied with the progress of the gay rights movement to be even more astounding.

“I was incredulous upon hearing Larry Kramer seem to say that enough strides have not been made,” Smith said.

Smith said she and her associates oppose legislation such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because it would force LGBT employees upon Christian bosses who might not want to employ them.

“It would take away from our rights,” Smith said at the conference between sessions.