Anti-Gay Bigotry at Values Voter Summit

The more reports come in about last weekend's Values Voter Summit, the worse it gets (which is not a surprise, of course). Here's Bishop Wellington Boone:

But I want to tell you something is, they don't know, we're driven by God to deal with this stuff, and I want to say to you that, in this regard, I'm not playing with you. That when it comes to the matter of this gay stuff, I know that a family is not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. It's a man and a woman. That's the creative order, and I'm not backing down. I'm standing flat-footed on that right there. [Applause]

Everywhere I get to speak, I am guarded by the grace of God, being strong on it. Now they're fussing on it, they're saying a few things, but they don't have me, you know, in their, you know, on their web sites. They're not coming at me strong, and I would say this. Back in the days when I was a kid, and we see guys that don't stand strong on principle, we call them "faggots." A punk is -- and our people, I'm from the ghetto, so sometimes it does come out a little bit. I got another one I'm gonna say in a minute -- [laughter] -- that don't stand up for what's right, we say, "You're sissified out!" "You're a sissy!"

And here's Dwight McKissic:

McKissic denounced as "insulting, offensive, demeaning, and racist" the gay right's movement trying to "hitch itself" to civil rights. Gays, he said, can't "compare their sin to my skin." He repeated the classic charge that gays "can't reproduce so they have to recruit."

But he was just warming up. The civil rights movement, he said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired "from the pit of hell itself," and has a "satanic anointment." The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ.

The sight of black ministers jumping on the religious right bandwagon on this is appalling and absurd. Contrast that with what Coretta Scott King said so many times before she died.

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."...

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," she said, quoting her husband. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy."...

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."...

For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law...I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." On another occasion he said, "I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible." Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

That is a civil rights leader, as opposed to someone who is just out to get theirs and to hell with anyone else. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It sounds remarkably like, "Whatever you do to the least of these, my brethren, you do unto me as well." That's a moral lesson the bigots have never learned.

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This is part of the Karl Rove strategy for peeling of some black votes for Republican candidates.

The sight of black ministers jumping on the religious right bandwagon on this is appalling and absurd. Contrast that with what Coretta Scott King said so many times before she died.

The problem is that many African Americans ignore or just plain missed that idea. Very few of them realize that gays were a part of the civil rights movement - instead they are often very vocal in their distaste for homosexuality and would fail to see the irony of their position in you smacked them upside the head with it. A gay, black friend of mine who grew up in the ghetto once got his ass kicked for "claiming" that was King's position on the gay civil rights movement - "how dare you sully his memory, faggot." Sad, very sad.

Eh, sounds like Memphis. One of our prominent local black pols (a Democrat, natch) panned our Democratic nominee for TN-9 for supporting gay marriage.

By MJ Memphis (not verified) on 28 Sep 2006 #permalink

I would like to say that this suprises, disgusts and angers me.
Unfortunately it does not suprise me at all.

By Anuminous (not verified) on 28 Sep 2006 #permalink

McKissic denounced as "insulting, offensive, demeaning, and racist" the gay right's movement trying to "hitch itself" to civil rights. Gays, he said, can't "compare their sin to my skin." He repeated the classic charge that gays "can't reproduce so they have to recruit."

Talk about the pot and kettle:

Benjamin Bull, Chief Counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, was interviewed at the Values Voters Summit by the (rabidly religious) Point of View radio show last Friday.

Bull was talking about the recent Antioch case where the ADF filed a law suit against a library for banning religious services from their meeting rooms. Railing against what he saw as discrimination against Christians he was the one invoking the civil rights movement.

He said that "Christians have been ordered to the back of the bus" and just like "in the 1940s in the deep South... no equal treatment, we have separate water fountains (almost), we have separate meeting rooms... Before you know it, you'll have to get Judge Karlton's permission to get up and go to work in the morning."

As we see above, right-wingers go crazy when the gay community compares their efforts to the civil rights struggles of African Americans last century. So this sort of talk from Bull is sheer hypocrisy, not to mention a ridiculous distortion of reality.

The mp3 is available here (the clip starts about 28 minutes in):

http://audio.ncfr.net/download/09222006.mp3

Heh - I said the same thing on the Hovind thread. It might be fun to sling Bible verses back and forth all day, but it never makes a lick of difference to these guys. They believe what they want to believe, not what a passage in the Bible says they should.

Gay is the new black. You would have thought their experiences would have fostered some thought of empathy.

"You would have thought their experiences would have fostered some thought of empathy."

You would be amazed. I remember some time back dating a black, bisexual, Mormon girl- talk about your unique creatures. You should have heard her when she got on the subject of Jews. People seem to be extremely adept at compartmentalizing their empathy.

By MJ Memphis (not verified) on 28 Sep 2006 #permalink

It's a sad verite of unenlightened human nature that no matter how oppressed one and one's group is or has been, there's still a strong urge to find someone else to feel hate for and to feel superior towards. If I may paraphrase and update Dr. King: I look forward to the day when people are judged, not on the societal, racial or cultural subdivision of which they're a part, but on the content of their character.

By gary l. day (not verified) on 28 Sep 2006 #permalink

Bayard Rustin or Samuel R. Delany.The inability to connect the particular to the general or to imagine that one might be caught up in someone elses misfortune underlies a good deal of what's currently wrong in this country, and IMO stands as yet another rebuke to the supposed intelligence of that alleged designer.

By donquixoteshorse (not verified) on 28 Sep 2006 #permalink

According to People for the American Way, this so-called Voters Values Conference also endorsed torture in pursuit of the War on Terror.

Scary.

Craig Y
Wellington, New Zealand