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Bishop Harry Jackson, who spent the last few months meddling in DC politics to stop same-sex marriage recognition in the District with his homo-hating dog and pony show with Marion Barry (big FAIL on that one), has teamed up with a couple of equally homophobic token blacks of the fringe to write an open letter to the President about their fear for the fate of the institution of marriage.
What has motivated he and Niger Innis of the Congress on Racial Equality, Dr. William Owens, Sr. of Concerned African-American Pastors, Bishop Dale Bronner of Word of Faith Family Worship Center in Atlanta, GA, and Pastor Terry Millender of Victorious Life Church in Alexandria, VA to write the missive are two events that weirded them out:
1. The President’s cocktail party with A-Gays to mark the Stonewall Riot 40th anniversary celebration at the White House. Jackson is angry that Obama has not met with he and his homophobic black clergy friends to date. (I’m sure the invitation is coming, Harry).
2. The legal cases contesting the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)that are piling up, particularly the one out of Massachusetts last week.
You have to read the letter to believe it; it isn’t even good enough to be fish wrap, as they use hoary stereotypes and misleading frantic drivel about saving the roles in traditional marriage to “confirm” that marriage equality is not a civil right because homosexuality is a behavior and shouldn’t be protected by law. Of course religious beliefs and going to church is a behavior, so even if their premise held true, what’s the point? Oh, that’s right, one would need to be tethered to reality. Never mind. It’s below the fold.
Click the image on the right for a good read about Bishop Jackson’s role as a tool for the white evangelical homophobes in People for the American Way’s report, “Point Man for the Wedge Strategy: Harry Jackson is the face of the Religious Right’s outreach to African American Christians.”
And now, the letter (cover your keyboards):
Dear President Obama,“…Although you have voiced support for marriage as defined as a union between one man and one woman, we are concerned that that your campaign promise to changing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will work at cross purposes with your pro-marriage stance.
“We believe that the central domestic problem we face is the disintegration of marriage. One of the organizations we support called Marriage Savers points out that the marriage crisis is comprised of four elements:
1. A lowering of the marriage rate
• The marriage rate has plunged 50% since 19702. An increase in divorce
• Half of all new marriages end in divorce3. A rise in heterosexual cohabitation
• The number of unmarried couples living together has soared 12-fold since 19604. A multiplication of unwed births
• Out-of wedlock births jumped from 5.3% to 39.6% from 1960-2007“These statistics show the fragile nature of the institution of marriage today. Changing the definition of marriage will have many unintended consequences, which will hurt generations to come. If one redefines marriage, then the family is redefined. If the family is redefined then the nature of parenting must also be redefined.
“We are concerned that an attempt to recognize and adjust to one group’s sense of alienation may actually confuse future generations of children about their sexuality and blur lines of responsibility in our families. The very definitions of motherhood and fatherhood may be unnecessarily challenged in years to come.
“Same-sex marriage is not a civil right. The laws enacted by Congress during a century of struggle for equal rights for African Americans were intended to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, not on the basis of an individual’s sexual preferences or personal behavior.
“Advocates of same-sex marriage want people to think that it can peacefully coexist alongside traditional marriage. But it will create a conflict between people of faith who fervently believe in traditional marriage and the law, which says marriage includes those of the same-sex variety. Those conflicts will always be resolved in favor of same-sex marriage because there can be no ‘conscientious objectors’ to the law.
“Mr. President, you say you desire to unify the nation and to change the politics-as-usual status of Washington. We want to believe this statement. As we have looked at both your policies and recent public affirmations, each of us has asked ourselves one question, ‘Is there room enough for people like us in President Obama’s America?’
Many of the people we speak for felt that your disparaging statements during the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot were directed at them. Some of the people with ‘worn out arguments and old attitudes’ are not bigots or homophobes; they are our cultural elders, who are rightfully saying, ‘Don’t tear down a fence until you understand why it’s there.’ Recent studies show that there is a resurgence of hope about marriage among the young people of this generation. Mr. President, let’s keep hope alive…”
We also stated that the California Proposition 8 votes amending the state’s constitution to protect marriage marked the beginning of a new era in American politics. For the first time in recent history, black and Hispanic voters (predominately Christians) voted for President Obama and simultaneously voted against the Democratic power structure on this social issue. In light of this phenomenon occurring simultaneously within the black and Hispanic communities, we respectfully warned the president that hooking his political wagon too closely to the gay marriage bandwagon could precipitously erode public confidence in his administration.
If you agree with our concern about marriage, it’s time for you to start contacting both Republican and Democratic congressmen. Congress is where the battle concerning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will likely be fought. Importantly, many Republicans are shying away from this important social issue. Conversely, the Democratic Party (generally speaking) seems to be beholding to the gay marriage movement for its financial support in the last election.
Therefore, we must let each congressman know that he can be voted out of office if he moves the wrong way on this issue. Set aside Mondays to email, write or call saying, “We want you to support marriage and to protect DOMA.” Let’s make “Marriage Monday” a national movement.
The letter outlined above was signed by
Niger Innis of the Congress on Racial Equality
Dr. William Owens, Sr. of Concerned African-American Pastors
Bishop Dale Bronner of Word of Faith Family Worship Center in Atlanta, Georgia
Pastor Terry Millender of Victorious Life Church in Alexandria, Virginia, and myself.
If you would like to read the letter in its entirety, go to our website thetruthinblackandwhite.com.
20 Comments
I doubtgarbage like this ever actually gets on Obama’s desk; there has to be a small army of folks assigned to filter his “fan mail”.
Seems to me what his letter boils down to is “We broke it, so you can’t let them have it. Hell, they might fix it and THEN what would we look like?”
these tired arguments don’t even get me angry anymoreHas anybody traced the funding for these individuals? I am fairly positive some right-wing group is paying them.
Civil MarriageI always find it interesting during these conversations about religious marriage that one never cites the number of civil marriages vs. religious marriages in this country. Why? because the statistics will more than likely show that more marriages occur civilly in this country than those that are conducted and signed by religious officiants. Many states stopped collecting and publishing that information. I wish HRC and others would FOIA that information from states and publish the information. If, as many of us suspect, the “sanctity” of marriage is in fact already a predominantly civil, legal contract, it supports our argument that we are being denied civil rights to enter into those contracts and receive the legal and financial benefits that come with a civil marriage. Even under most Christian wedding rites, religious marriage exists only “until death do you part” (LDS aside!). One would think that the good pastors would support anyone that wants to continue to prop up the institution. The Catholic Church hasn’t been made to marry divorced persons – or any of a host of other categories they deem to exclude – nor will they ever be required by the State to marry GLBT couples. If the Bishop Harry doesnt want to marry us or have us in his church – then don’t!
Just add thisto the same category as the woman that had to be hauled off of the tarmac near AF1.
Whats interesting is that half the LGBT community swears up and down that Obama IS just like these people. Yet every time you actually hear from them you see that they are TERRIFIED that he is not (and does not even take their calls).
Of course they have every right to be afraid because he quite obviously is NOT one of them (and to be perfectly honest is not really all that religious).
That’s funny…The 4 numbered items that he’s worried about all have to do with straight relationships. He seems to be arguing that heterosexual marriage should be banned, since it’s so damaging to society.
I’m wondering if the honorable Bishop Jackson would agree that interracial marriage is ALSO not a civil right. You don’t really HAVE to marry someone of a different race do you?
Are these gentlemen really serious?Let’s see, the problems with heterosexual marriage would be adversely (!!!) affected by government recognition of civil marriage on a gender-neutral basis, exactly how?
Here are six (6) ways to “strengthen” heterosexual marriage:
1. require parties to pass a test after taking a class on the nature, duties and obligations of heterosexual marriage, including the proper care of children, and to prove their medical capacity to reproduce.
2. eliminate laws that require child support for children born “out of wedlock.” (Marriage started “going downhill” in the early 1950′s when states eliminated voluntary filiation and made it mandatory – until then, women had a reason to have the ring on the finger before having sex – they could ahve a child that they would have to take care of themselves).
3. make divorce much more difficult to obtain – perhaps limit it to cases of adultery or spousal abuse, and only in the event the adulterer or abuser is convicted of a felony and is sentenced to at least ten years. (Yes, adultery and spousal abuse as felonies with a 10 year sentence seems sufficient to me.) This would prevent parties from colluding and perhaps pretending that one spouse was cheating, just to get a divorce. (As divorce became easier to obtain, marriage became less imporant for people)
4. Provide for legal penalties for heterosexual couples who cohabit without the benefit of marriage – these could include fines and imprisonment, or merely include a much steeper tax rate.
5. Require that any marriages that are performed under religious auspices must be terminated by the religious authorities (only after conviction of one of the parties for adultery or spousal abuse as provided in #1 above) prior to the obtaining of a civil divorce.
6. Punish heterosexual fornication outside marriage with lengthy prison terms. Juvenile heterosexual fornicators would be incarcerated in a juvenile facility until old enough to get married, but only if they have passed the marriage course and arranged for a marriage to take place, otherwise until age 21.
Now, the above ideas would certainly “strengthen” heterosexual marriage. On the other hand, making marriage gender-neutral would have zero impact on the problems encountered in heterosexual marriages.
Of course, one would not expect these augst gentlemen to understand these ideas – their myopia on issues involving equal treatment under the law is only to be expected. After all, people who have experienced discrimination themselves just as often have a strong desire to oppress someone else once they have the freedom and ability to do so, as they would see that all unjust discrimination is wrong, regardless.
redefine marriage?He makes a pretty good case that marriage ought to be redefined. It sure isn’t working as it’s currently defined.
He’ll get tossed asideLet’s take a look at what white Evangelicals really want:
School vouchers – Money from the government to send their kids to private schools. Private school can take anyone they want. Whites earn more than blacks. Whites will get more tax money back and send their kids to better private schools. Blacks won’t be able to afford to send their kids to the better schools. They will either attend sub-par private schools or drastically de-funded public schools.
Welfare reform – Health care dollars and money for other necessities for many in the African-American community, such as food stamps and job training, will be cut.
Repeal affirmative action – Affirmative action really HURTS African-Americans dontcha know. And it’s racist. Dr. King would be opposed to it.
Once Bishop (or should I saw Pawn) Jackson and his flock help the white Evangelicals achieve their political goals, they will be tossed aside.
It just kills me when I see Tony Perkins and Jackson smiling together for photo ops. You can almost read Perkins’ thoughts – “Now Harry, you be a good boy and don’t cause any trouble and I PROMISE I’ll take care of you, oh will I take care of you.”
Not onlyis going to church a choice–or “a behavior”–but so is spreading bigotry. Doesn’t that mean we should deny Jackson & Co. the right to do this kind of thing?
He is ‘Bishop’ (self consecrated) of a ‘church’ that is 30 years old.Thus, this is just a tax front for his/their activities, otherwise if it pertained to true faith they should belong to a formal denomination. Presumably President Obama understands the black community well enogh to see through the facade of all this verbiage to see the true BIGOTRY underlying it.
Self proclaimed Bishop ?According to his Bio on his webpage, there is nothing about a religious org ordaining him as a Bishop or a graduate from a Divinity School. Although I was surprised he attended Harvard Business School. Wonder if our President knew him as a student?.
School vouchers – etc.Let’s see – if “school vouchers” were set at the exact same amount for each child, would that eliminate your objection?
The primary problem with this approach is that there are some things that do not get to be “equal” – the cost of building or maintaining a school building in, say New York City could be drastically different from the cost in Buffalo. Also, school buildings tend to be the same size from year to year, and while the cost to heat and maintain will fluctuate from year to year, it does not necessarily fluctuate on the basis of the rise and fall of student population.
So there still needs to be a base public school budget not tied to vouchers, that deals with building and grounds issues.
A secondary problem with this approach is “cost of living.” A teacher in Buffalo can enjoy a better cost-of-living on the same salary that would not allow a teacher in Manhattan to even afford a place to live. Rents (or cost of homeownership), cost of food and other goods is not uniform nationwide or even statewide.
So perhaps there might need to be adjustments based on local conditions such as cost of living.
The idea of school vouchers allows parents a choice of where to send their children, but that still depends on available choices.
Another issue would be oversight and regulation applicable to the education and working conditions for teachers and students in private schools.
Still other issues might be that of supplemental tuitions that some schools might charge in excess of voucher amounts – that would be one way the well-off would be able to maintain “better schools” for their own children. Should supplemental tuition be banned?
Yet another issue would be how schools accept students. A great school with a capacity to educate 30 students per grade in its facility could not handle a situation swamping its physical plant and staffing levels, if 120 students per grade were to want to attend – how would schools be allowed to choose which students get to attend?
What happens with mid-year transfers?
There are lots of questions unanswered about school vouchers. But one might see that the main opposition comes from public school teacher unions that would like to keep their monopoly on public education, rather than seeing non-unionized private schools cropping up and undercutting costs by paying teachers substantially less (allowing for a profit incentive).
From a philosophical point of view, “educational choice” might be a reasonable approach compared to “socialized education.” (Then again, we can eliminate “socialized government” at all levels, and rely on privatized security guards instead of police, pay-as-you-go fire protection (ala Crassus in ancient Rome), private carting, paid mediators/adjudicators instead of public courts (or eliminate courts altogether and rely on people settling disputes with their constitutionally-protected firearms . . .
Sorry.
Welfare is not just for African Americans – there are more white people on welfare than you might think.
Affirmative Action seems to be on its way out with the current control of the Supreme Court – four justices are ready to return the nation to the 1870′s, with drastic adverse consequences for civil rights.
Of course, these folks are being lulled by the “gay marriage” issue into ignoring the larger picture of how everyone’s rights are gradually going to disappear.
Jackson is a liar and a thiefJackson claimed to have DC residency when he tried to get a referendum put to the people of DC on marriage equality. He is now being investigated by the DC Ethics and Elections Board for lying on the application and claiming he (falsely) was a DC resident. Let’s hope he is convicted and has to serve the 5 years in jail. He was also trying to steal DCs LGBT rights by claiming that marriage is the exclusive domain of straights (which is a false claim since the DC Human Rights Act is gender neutral).
If Civil Marriage is not a Civil RightI think it should be taxed as luxury.
It would break my heart if we found out they get funds via Obama’s Faith Based Initiatives program.
If the President accepts Bishop Jackson’s viewpoint as a valid opinionwith equal weight to the “born gay” position held by the APA and supported by scientific studies, the president might as well start listening to the creationists for science advice.
How come no other branch of medicine has it’s diagnostics reduced to opinions by religion?
“Science must be wrong, ’cause God says gays are sinners”
Bishop Jackson and his cohorts prove that evangelicals are scientifically ignorantand if the President grants them an audience, he is legitimising their attempts to drag science and humanity back to the beliefs of the last period of theocratic rule, the Dark Ages…
Why would you assume they don’t?Obama’s actually spending more money to grease the palms of right-wing ministers than Bush did. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that NOM itself is getting faith-based money, if only through some roundabout, backdoor route.
“Concerned” African American PastorsUsing “Concerned” reminds me of the Religious Reich monopolizing Family and Values.
As if we don’t have Families, and we don’t have Values. I’d think progressive African American Pastors might be rubbed the wrong way when these clods declare they are the CONCERNED pastors, what are the others…chopped liver?
Pam, You are so mean to Bishop H…If you weren’t a lesbian and I a gay man I think I might marry you.