Tweet
This is so sad. Dr. King and Coretta Scott King are rolling in their graves over the way some of the members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization the slain civil rights leader founded, are treating the Rev. Eric Lee, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the org.
Lee stood up against many of his fellow members and opposed Proposition 8 in support of marriage equality. Now his status as a straight ally has put his head on the chopping block for the small-minded, narrow-thinking people around him at SCLC. (NYT):
Mr. Lee said that his opposition to Proposition 8 had “created tension in my life I had never experienced with black clergy.”“But it was clear to me,” he added, “that any time you deny one group of people the same right that other groups have, that is a clear violation of civil rights and I have to speak up on that.”
In April, Mr. Lee attended a board meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Kansas City, Mo., and found himself once again in the minority position among his colleagues on the issue of same-sex marriage, but he was told, he said, by the group’s interim president, Byron Clay, that the organization publicly had a neutral position on the issue.
A month after that he was told to come to Atlanta to meet with the National Board of Directors. When Lee said he could not come on short notice he was sent two letters from attorneys for SCLC that he faced suspension or firing if he didn’t “explain himself.”
The thing is, since the chapters are autonomous (Lee was elected by a local board), it’s a question whether the national board can do a damn thing other than look like top-down homophobic bullies. Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, who is chairman of the local board has contacted the national board to clarify if any SCLC regulations have been violated — there has been no response.
Mr. Lee, the former pastor of In His Steps, an African-American Wesleyan church in Los Angeles that he described as “very conservative,” said he saw failures both in the leadership of the conference (“Dr. King would be turning over in his grave right now,” he said) and the largely white anti-Proposition 8 movement that did not more actively seek the support of church-going African-Americans.“The black church played a significant role in Proposition 8 passing,” Mr. Lee said. “The failure of the campaign was to presume that African-Americans would see this as a civil rights issue.”
And he’s right. Anti-Prop 8 forces readily admit that outreach to the black community was poor or non-existent. The challenges of reaching the religious conservative black community (non-church attending blacks voted no different than the rest of the pop) are myriad. One approach that has been launched recently by Equality California and the Jordan/Rustin Coalition. This ad hits the mark, featuring, Xavier and Michael Boykin-Haggood, along with three of their five children, Dante, Emmanuel and Fatima, who live in LA’s Leimert Park neighborhood.
See it below the fold.
Michael (to the children): Has everyone said grace? Alright.Xavier and Michael (nodding): We have five — five children.
Xavier: You know Michael and I have been planning what our day was going to be like for eleven, twelve years. And now you tell me I can’t get married? I’m free to love who I love.
Michael: At its core level it’s just totally unfair to actually take away anyone’s right[s]. And so I have no doubt that this will inevitably be turned back the right way.
Related:
* What Would MLK Say? Pastor Faces Ousting from MLK’s Organization for Supporting Marriage Equality
The Rev. Lee stood up for us. He went to No on 8 rallies, he spoke to the media, he spoke at protests, he spoke to Unite the Fight! In the video below, Rev. Lee gave us an amazing interview after speaking at Meet in the Middle in Fresno, CA, detailing why believes denying LGBT the right to marry is not only wrong, but unethical. It’s a MUST SEE.
13 Comments
I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a momentIn the face of the incredibly loud vitriol spewing from leaders in many black churches and the not too infrequent assertion of many black voices expressing distaste that those equating the “gay” rights movement to the “civil rights movement”, how was the white anti-prop h8 crowd supposed to reach out to the black religious community en masse? There were many failings on the part of the leadership of the opposition movement but I do understand the may have felt themselves faced with a conundrum in how best to reach out to the black churches.
There’s no way to “reach out” to black homophobiaIt has crippled the African-American community in more ways than I can summarize. It must be fought — agressively — ever time it rears its ugly head.
read, listen, actSupport for LGBT equal rights is not a rare and infrequent stance among African Americans–it just seems that way sometimes if we’re not paying full attention, not using Google for all it’s worth, not thinking about all the possibilities–
http://scienceblogs.com/dispat…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
This is sad news.We have someone who has the courage to stand up for what is right. MLK and Coretta would be so proud of Mr. Lee, and it sickens me that the loony side of religion may be able to effect his future position in the church. We need to start having more dialogue with these churches.
I wonder where Soulforce is on this issue. Their outreach might help to start bridging this communication gap.
in a word…..BERNICE
It wasn’t like they didn’t have any warningJust because the proposition h8 crew confesses to the fact that they didn’t reach out to the black community enough doesn’t mean they are being any more sincere then they where prior to the vote. They didn’t just ignore the black community they assumed they had its support! The tide had been turning in the entire race a good month in advance.
Even now however, its a red herring. After all a large percentage of Hispanics also voted against h8. But the greatest impact was still age and religiosity. The real impact of African Americans was closer to 58% and that is only 1 percentage point above the level of African Americans that attend church on a weekly basis.
But reaching the African American community isn’t all that hard. Blacks more than anything want jobs. If gays want black support for rights then help support the most fundamental right of all. The “right” to work. In this case a minister stands to lose a job because he supports our community’s effort against prop 8. And we stand around flat footed talking about what a shame it is. “I’d like to buy a clue for my community for a hundred Alex?!”
correction “Even now however, its a red herring. After all a large percentage of Hispanics also voted for prop h8.”
You, or someone else such as Soulforce… walk in the FRONT DOOR..and take a seat.
black church leaders who decry homosexuality based on the biblereally don’t take kindly to Jewish white women noting that civil rights apply to everyone and that their use of their religious beliefs to support discrimination is the same thing as white Christians doing the same. This is something I do know from personal experience.
Not too long ago, on this very blog, I was essentially accused of waiving my privilege around because I, as an outsider, have no right to make any suggestions to people without privilege when it comes to their own advocacy/civil rights cause. Based on that, it would seem that religious homobigots of color are perfectly correct in telling me I had no right to liken their cause to another, let alone to suggest they support civil rights for all.
Both are true –There may have been a pro-h8 majority, but there was still a large no vote as well.
Yeah its easyIn our work to pass the ordinance and gain support, we worked hard to gain the support of the black community. But “hard” is not the best word. What we are doing is simple, we talked.
You have people go into these communities, either to group meetings, but more importantly one on one conversations. You begin by being honest and open about what you are doing.
You start by talking about discrimination, because by and large people don’t like discrimination. Than you start talking about how these laws discriminate. Focusing on your own personal story, of course, that is always the most powerful and honest way to go.
I had one mother get so angry at our opposition she called her sister, older sons and husband out of the house and made them all sign letters of support.
TrueBut then the Jews who supported Dr. King could’ve told the SCLC that since you weren’t rounded up in extermination camps and executed by the millions, your rights aren’t important, so we aren’t going to support you.
What a bunch of myopic moronic twits!
As I’ve always wanted to ask one of these self-righteous bastards what the difference is between a fa**ot and a ni**er…
yeah they could have and, thankfully, didn’tbut the relationship between blacks and jews wasn’t quite as stellar even during the civil rights movement as we’re sometimes lead to believe and, while the mistrust and bits of racism still seen from jews today is predominantly a remnant of older generations, I do still see an awful lot of mistrust of jews within the younger black generations. luckily, in my years working in N. Philly, I had a great working relationship with all my colleagues and patients regardless of race/ethnicity. i don’t know if some of that was because i pretty much pass for a lot of different groups (some of which i don’t understand) or if it was because it was obvious that i was a happy little jackass who very obviously didn’t care about racial/ethnic/religious/sexual orientation differences and treated people like they are people.