Rev. Al Sharpton on Marriage, Mormons and Prop. 8
Rev. Al Sharpton left no doubt on where he stands on marriage equality and the passage of Prop. 8 in his speech at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta:
It amazes me when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when the they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being delegated into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners. There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you.
Yeah, I know that doesn't fit with the white gay world view that African-Americans are holding back the marriage equality movement, but the reality has always been more complicated than some would like to believe.
Rev. Sharpton was in Atlanta celebrating the launch of the Alliance of Affirming Faith-Based Organizations.
Rev. Sharpton has been on record for years as supporting full equality for LGBT people including marriage.
Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign presidential forum in 2004 Rev. Sharpton drew raucous applause from the 500 attendees when he said that marriages between same-sex couples shouldn't be treated any different than "black marriages or white marriage." There was also a hysterical line akin to "telling gays they can't marry is like telling Black and Latino people they should just shack up."
And, while Rev. Sharpton was stating his unequivocal support for marriage equality in 2004, Sen. John Kerry was saying "Marriage is viewed as a union between men and women, and that is a historical and cultural view that I believe. And that's my position."
Widening the view a bit: it was white Catholics and Mormons who banded together to push Prop. 8 on to the ballot and contributed tens of millions of dollars to strip away marriage rights from same-sex couples. It was also white voters who cast the vast majority of the votes in favor of Prop. 8.
I don't deny that there is a great need for education and outreach campaigns focused on creating understanding between LGBT people and African-Americans. But, to ignore the public support of LGBT equality coming from Black leaders such as Rev. Sharpton, Board Chairman of the NAACP Julian Bond, Coretta Scott-King, Rev. Eric Michael Dyson, Rev, Peter Gomes and the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus is to engage in narrow-minded thinking that paints all African-Americans as anti-gay while discounting the anti-gay attacks launched, funded and promoted by white Americans.
This harms our ability to build the necessary alliances to win equal rights and ignores the existence of people like me who are both Black and gay.
Rev. Sharpton's words are not as much of an aberration as some white gays would like to believe. We, the LGBT community and our allies, would do well to let go of the stereotypes labeling African-Americans as anti-gay and open our minds to the serious possibility that we can build substantial support for LGBT equality including marriage among Black people.
Cross-posted at The Bilerico Project.
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I think the entire proposition has been misframed. I don't know why the government has any involvement in "marriage" to begin with given that it's a religious institution. I'd prefer a civil union that would provide my partner and me with the same benefits and legal protections that are now provided straight couples via "marriage.
The reason government is "involved" is because Civil Marriage is a legal contract and has nothing to do with religion. INfact, it was governments who owned the word "marriage" first, not religion. Historically, couples would be married by the government. And then, if they chose to, would go to their church and standing OUTSIDE on the steps, wouls ask their clergyman to "bless" their union. At the time the sexual nature of marriage was considered too unseemly to even have this "blessing" done inside the church.
Now, if you would like the goverment to grant civil unions to ALL including straights, I'm fine with that. Then churches could choose which couples they may want to bless. And, this additional, unnecessary blessing will provide no additional legal benefits at all. But, you understand that there are churches who will bless gay couples. So, anyone wanting to use the word marriage will end up able to do so anyway.
I'm hoping that the launch of this new "Alliance of Affirming Faith Based Organizations" will finally be able to break the stranglehold that evangelicals appear to have on the definition of acceptible religious beliefs.
Why should one group be able to use their religious beliefs to deny another group of their religious beliefs? Why should the government be allowed to favor one set of religious beliefs over another? The government is specifically denied the ability to select a "preferred" religion. And in the case of CIVIL marriage, which has nothing to do with religion, it is even more important to keep religious beliefs OUT of the conversation. Remember, there is no requirement to ever set foot inside any church in order to be legally married.
The California Council of Churches has been very active in fighting Prop 8. Their lawsuit (California Council of Churches v. Horton) includes 4,557 churches against Prop 8. The CCC site's marriage page has a great bit of logic, where they argue that gay marriage is a religious right, and must be protected from restriction by the state!
"Those [churches] seeking to permit same-sex marriage must have equal standing with those that do not. To forbid such marriages across the board infringes on the religious liberty of clergy and congregations whose faith requires them to perform this pastoral care. It is anti-democratic to impose one religious viewpoint on everyone else." http://www
Hopefully as the public becomes more aware of religious associations like CCC and AAFBO, they will begin to realize that the majority of churches are NOT anti-gay.
well, what has to happen is for the media to include these types of church organizations as part of the discussion when these issues are talked about. But, they NEVER do. They will include one wacko like Tony Perkins and one representative member from the LGBT community. They need to start including members from the religious groups that support gay rights just to let the public become aware that they exist.
An interesting aspect of the recent analysis of prop 8 voting was that religous african americans were less likely to support prop 8 than religious white voters, while non-religious black voters were more likely to support prop 8 than non-religious black voters. Of course religious black voters were still significantly more likely than non-religious black voters to support prop 8.
Some of that is the black churches closer connection to liberal causes like the civil rights issues. Not sure entirely what explains it, or what explains the discrepency among non-religious voters.
"It was also white voters who cast the vast majority of the votes in favor of Prop. 8. "
It was the white voters who cast the vast majority of votes, period. (which only approved prop 8 by a proportion of 51 percent)
However, point taken. And indeed, the perspective has changed significantly since it had been recently discovered that CNN exaggerated the degree to which African Americans in California supported the measure by 13 percent. Apparently, the actual figure was 57 percent, hovering roughly within proportion to each of the other ethnic groups.
For somebody who calls himself Reverend, he obviously doesn't know a whole lot about the Bible, which calls homosexuality an abomination.
Also, the Mormon Church likes their following to be white, especially northern European. So that it hasn't paid attention to brutality against blacks (or hispanics or Asians or anybody else not resembling Orrin Hatch) isn't a surprise.
The issue for me, given the ridiculous indictment of gays in the Bible, is whether Christianity in particular and religion in general is still relevant in a modern age since it reflects the mindset of a loose conglomeration of writers from 1500-2500 years ago and many of the stories it tells have since been proven to be historically false or as mere allegories.
Sharpton is little more than a hustler and Christianity has been hijacked by him and other crooks such as Pat Roberston, Paul Crouch and Benny Hinn. Stop the craziness people!
Where does the Mormon church say they like their following to be white? Over half of the members of the Mormon church live outside the US and over half of them are not white. The Mormon church is strongest in Latin countries of South America and has seen tremendous growth recently in Asia and Africa as well. You will see the Mormon church pays just as much attention to black brutality as it does to white brutality. Please stop your craziness!
The Mormon Church has spent a lot of money in Asia (I am particularly conversant with their efforts in Japan) and it has been a total waste of time in terms of winning converts. The only real result that has arisen from it is you have what the expats in Japan snidely call "panda gaijin," who are, for the most part, Mormons such as Kent Derricott and Kent Gilbertson, who make their fellow Americans cringe with their lameness during Japanese tv show appearances.
It is also true that the origins of Mormon followers have a significant northern european, especially Scandinavian, component to them and the church has a long history of discrimination against blacks and other minorities.
So I stand by my statement.
"For somebody who calls himself Reverend, he obviously doesn't know a whole lot about the Bible, which calls homosexuality an abominatio
The Bible also calls the consumption of shellfish, pork, etc. as an "abomination" yet I haven't seen Christians protesting outside of Red Lobster lately.
Jesus spoke out strongly against divorce, but I haven't yet seen Christians band together and try to outlaw it or undo divorces already granted. In Acts, Paul says that it is better to marry than to burn [with lust] - yet I haven't seen any Christians protesting outside of city halls where marriage licenses are handed out willy-nilly to opposite-sex couples, even if they really know one another or not.
Your assumptions about "the white gay world view" are themselves overly simplistic.
I'm sorry, but as an AA I share John Kerry views on marriage. Therefore, my advice to you people is to take your complain to the courts and maybe you will have better luck.
"you people"?
My advice to you is return your bible to the fiction shelf and pick up "Animal Farm"
co-sign 100%
"You people"
Right there you tell us what sort of person you are. You say that you are African-American. Don't you recall that is wasn't that long ago when you would be legally prevented from marrying a white person? Don't you recall that is wasn't that long ago when you and I (a white guy) couldn't eat lunch together in the same restaurant, use the same water fountain or restroom, etc.?
The underlying basis of those Jim Crow laws was TRADITION and PREJUDICE. The same goes today for gays and lesbians, especially in regards to marriage rights.
John Kerry was and is wrong on same-sex marriage, and buddy so are you. Don't forget that we did indeed complain to the courts, won the decision, yet still had to endure watching our fellow citizens vote away a right that is meaningless to them but vital to us.
I disagree. Same-sex marriage is not the same as interracial marriage or blacks civil right. Interracial marriage is still between one man and one woman. Blacks civil rights is more to do about skin color.
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