Fellow Twitter user @OneMoreLesbian sent me a link to a recent opinion piece authored by Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., senior pastor of The New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, NJ. Her note read: “Thought you may have some opinions about this…”
The perpetual slide down the slippery slope of irrelevancy for the NAACP was never more clearly seen then when Julian Bond testified before the New Jersey State Legislature on the behalf of Same-Sex Marriage rights. If LoJack could be installed on the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, the alarm would have surely sounded December 7th, 2009, and you would have found the engine running at that state’s judicial hearing. It should be quite evident to all that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community, and its supporters, will go to no end to hijack the legacy of the Civil Rights movement to further their agenda. Such prostitution of those representing this legacy should outrage its members, and the demand for accountability of such, should now be at the forefront of discussion.
Of course I have an opinion about this; but, I don’t think anyone from either side (pro-gay or anti-gay) will like it.
I agree with Dr. Childress: the LGBT community is definitely trying to hijack the Civil Rights Movement. Pro-gay web site The New Civil Rights Movement has made no qualms about it, even going as far as calling the struggle for gay marriage rights the “new” movement – which basically implies (purposefully or not) that the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s is old, outdated and . . . over.
Those of us who are Black and gay and still struggling with racism – even within the LGBT community – know better. But, we’ll let the white gay guys have their “new” Civil Rights Movement because they have every right to it. Every tax-paying US citizen has a set of basic civil rights that are owed to them us.
Childress goes on to state that Bond misrepresented Dr. King’s opinion on homosexuality:
Mr. Bond testified erroneously that, Bayard Rustin and Dr. Martin Luther King, philosophically and morally agreed on the issue of homosexual rights and nothing could be further from the truth. Bayard Rustin, a practicing homosexual, was the chief organizer of the March on Washington, DC. When confronting Dr. Martin Luther King with the demand that he include homosexual rights in the platform, Dr. Martin Luther King vehemently refused and it was suggested that Bayard Rustin leave the movement.
Childress carefully avoided stating that Dr. King suggested that Rustin leave the 60s movement; instead, Childress says “it was suggested that Bayard Rustin leave the movement.” Yes, it was suggested – by Rustin himself. Rustin stepped away from the movement because Adam Clayton Powell – in an attempt to derail the movement – threatened to tell the world that Dr. King was having an affair with Bayard Rustin (scroll to minute 2:30 in this YouTube video for clarification). When Rustin suggested he should leave the movement in order to save the movement, King didn’t stop him. Later, King asked Rustin to return to the movement because his skills were necessary to push the movement forward.
Childress neglected to mention that Powell was later removed from office following allegations of corruption. But then again, those good Christian folks only tell ya what they want you to know.
I find it ironic that Childress would quote this part of Dr. King’s speech:
“The urgency of the hour calls for leaders of wise judgment and sound integrity — leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice; leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity; leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause!”
Not once does Dr. King suggest that religious leaders should bulldoze anyone; instead, Dr. King called for justice. It’s my opinion that treating all tax-paying US citizens as equals in the eyes of the law is justice.
