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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 12, 2006

Contact: Liz London (llondon@fenton.com) or Ashley Harness (aharness@fenton.com), 212-584-5000
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Online Ad Campaign to Coincide With Da Vinci Code Film Asks: “Jesus Respects Women. Does Your Church or Faith Community?”

HerCode.org Gathers and Shares Stories About Response to Suppression of “Sacred Feminine”

New York (May 12, 2006). A new participatory Web Site, www.HerCode.org,launches today with a major online ad campaign launching next week on Beliefnet.org, Oxygen.com, CNN.com's entertainment page, and Google. The site provides an online "water cooler hub"to discuss the marginalization of women in today's organized religions and how women can reclaim more equal standing in their houses of worship.

"Jesus taught us that all people are equal in God's eyes, but religious institutions are not living up to their full potential because women are not considered equal partners," said Helen LaKelly Hunt, author of Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance. She is also the founding director of FaithandFeminism.org, a site dedicated to bridging the values of faith and feminism, which houses the HerCode.org project.

"The release of The Da Vinci Code is an opportunity for women and men to have an open and frank discussion about the role that women have played in the history of Christianity, and about women's modern-day struggle to secure equal standing in their spiritual life," Hunt said.

HerCode.org is a response to the deep nerve touched in our culture by The Da Vinci Code. Visitors to the website are asked: “As a woman, what does the national dialogue mean to you? Tell us your stories of struggle and triumph in your faith community." Answers are posted as part of a running discussion about the relationship women have with their religion and faith communities. This site will link to a parent site that will continue long after the debate over The Da Vinci Code dies down. The site will feature meet-up technology for women of faith, inspiring stories by women of various faiths, a press room to view related articles, and an opportunity for women seeking spiritual and intellectual discussion about their relationship to faith, their identities as women and struggles and triumphs they have experienced.

"HerCode.org is giving voice to those women who want to see their faith communities be whole again," added Hunt. "Whether we work from inside or outside our faith communities, we must reclaim our right to justice in our own spiritual homes. We must tell our stories."

Among the stories featured on HerCode.org are those of Sister Joan Chittister, a member of the Benedictine Sisters and renowned writer and lecturer, Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, President of Chicago Divinity School, Rev. Emma Jordan-Simpson, Associate Pastor at the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, NY, and Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, Asian Feminist Theologian at the Starr King School for the Ministry, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.

FaithandFeminism.org's mission is to provide a space of safety and communion to honor the vital and holy alliance of faith and feminism. It was founded on the belief that feminism is simply the idea that all people, men and women, are equal in God's eyes, and that faith and feminism must work in concert to accomplish their respective core missions of love and justice for all. For more information, please visit www.HerCode.org and www.FaithandFeminism.org.