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Rev. Irene Monroe made this observation about in her column yesterday about the prospective leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention’s first African American president Rev. Fred Luter, and where the church will stand on LGBT rights.
As a huge denomination comprising the Christian Right and its anti-gay agenda, Luter may also be unaware of how the Southern Baptist Convention may actively recruit him, during this election period, to reach African American voters to unseat Obama by exploiting black homophobia….While we don’t know what Luter will do in his post, there is enough data to predict with certainty how African Americans will vote in this 2012 election as it was predicted in 2008- irrespective of the President’s views on marriage equality or right wing anti-gay agendas.
Well, now we know exactly where SBC stands:
A day after electing their first African-American president in a historic move that strives to erase its legacy of racism, Southern Baptists passed a resolution opposing the idea that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue. Thousands of delegates at the denomination’s annual meeting in New Orleans on Wednesday were nearly unanimous in their support for the resolution that affirms their belief that marriage is “the exclusive union of one man and one woman” and that “all sexual behavior outside of marriage is sinful.”
…The resolution acknowledges that gays and lesbians sometimes experience “unique struggles” but declares that they lack the “distinguishing features of classes entitled to special protections.”
Um, what would that be? LGBTs face employment discrimination all the time, and gay and lesbian couples/families do not have the same legal protections as heterosexual couples in most states — this is morally acceptable? The mental gymnastics of the term “distinguishing features” here is incredible. Religion is not a “feature” is is a chosen faith or belief, but it is protected under the law. They always let that one slide.
“It is regrettable that homosexual rights activists and those who are promoting the recognition of ‘same-sex marriage’ have misappropriated the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement,” the resolution states.
Another resolution passed on Wednesday is intended to protect religious liberty. It includes a call for the U.S. Justice Department to cease efforts to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and for the Obama administration to ensure that military personnel and chaplains can freely express their religious convictions about homosexuality.
The SBC also ignores the many denominations that actually acknowledge the separation of church and state — and the rights of LGBTs to be free of discrimination by the state when it comes to civil equality.
…The resolution includes a statement that the SBC stands against “any form or gay-bashing, whether disrespectful attitudes, hateful rhetoric, or hate-incited actions.”
But state-sponsored discrimination when it comes to civil marriage is A-OK. Way to go for an organization that believed that blacks couldn’t even marry one another at one time; slaves had to jump the broom.
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“The resolution includes a statement that the SBC stands against ‘any form or gay-bashing, whether disrespectful attitudes, hateful rhetoric, or hate-incited actions.’”
…except, of course, their own.
What distinguishing features does the class identified as “religion” have? Can you tell what someone’s religion is or if they even have a religion just by looking at them?
You’re talking about people who simply are incapable of admitting that there are points of view other than their own — they “know” certain things because (god, the Bible, their preacher, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc.) told them so, and if you disagree, you’re working for the devil. I can’t really call them liars (except for Tony Perkins, who gives every indication of being a deliberate and conscious liar), but they are walking around with severely limited perceptions of the world, because if they admit that other points of view might be valid, their whole universe crumbles.
I think he means dark skin. Like he has. And probably the indelible mark of Baptism (which I have never seen, but which gets a lot of mileage in my former religion, anyway). I do not think he means anything as esoteric as female genitalia, and certainly not sexual preference/orientation.
Why is this happening? What went wrong?