Gene Demby of the Huffington Post reports:
An organization of black clergy members traveled to the NAACP's annual convention in Houston to protest the civil rights group's recent decision to endorse same-sex marriage.
The Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP), headed by Rev. William Owens of Memphis, Tenn., said that the NAACP had abandoned its core mission by supporting same-sex marriage.
"This is supposed to be an organization for black people who were beaten, who were mistreated and who were enslaved," Owens told The Huffington Post. "You're advocating for something that's not normal, that's not natural. It's still out of line, it's against moral law."
"Gay marriage is leading us down a bad path," Owens added. "Our young people are already hurt. They're already damaged."
Owens said that the NAACP should focus on issues like unemployment and education, and added that CAAP's online petition in support of "traditional marriage" had garnered at least 5,000 signatures since the group held an initial press conference about its effort last week. He said that he doubted the civil rights group's membership would have backed the resolution.
"If they have taken an issue where they asked members, they would have lost," Owens said. "They had to do it under cloak of darkness."
36 Comments
Sad to see such hateful talk from people who should understand something about oppression and hatred.
There is a difference between family values and racism, Greg.
Of course the NAACP membership as a whole does not support redefining marriage. It's always done by a few corrupt folks in power under a cloak of darkness.
editing for clarity the words of this modern day freedom rider . . .
"this is supposed to be an organization for black people who were beaten, who were mistreated and who were enslaved," Owens told The Huffington Post. "I have yet to learn of a gay person who was beaten, mistreated and inslaved. The NAACP should focus on issues like unemployment and education like we are doing".
Well thank you Barb Chamberline for your insite into the inner workings of the NAACP!
For those local chapter leaders and the national board member who resigned, I hope you will join me in wishing the door not to hit them on the way out.
I guess you could say that to what ever extent the NAACP "general membership" did or did not support marriage equality, there was a definite shift towards support for equality upon their departure.
""I have yet to learn of a gay person who was beaten, mistreated and inslaved. " NEVER heard of a gay person being beaten or mistreated, Rev?? Really,now. Just where HAVE you been hiding?
And "Son of," I don't confuse "family values" with racism or anything else. I just know that gay people are also creating families and succeeding (with or without full marriage equality). They have "family values" too--maybe not your brand of family values, but believe it or not neither you nor your religion are the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes a family.
African Americam approval of gay marriage moved from 41% to 59% in ABC News polls taken before and after President Obama's embrace of marriage equality.
Gay people don't have children, Greg. They have other people's children - all the while pretending to be something that they are not. Now they are recruiting the government to pressure people into pretending that they are something they are not.
Black people never demanded that they be called white people. Women never demanded that they be called men. Yet homosexual couples demand that they be called married couples capable of having children - and then have the gall to compare their cause to the civil and women's rights movements. All under the guise of "equality."
It STILL takes heterosexuality to make a kid.
Gay people don't have children, Greg. They have other people's children - all the while pretending to be something that they are not. "
Do you actually know any gay people who are raising children? I doubt you have a clue as to whether they are "pretending to be something that they are not" or simply living their lives.
You pretty much malign ANYONE raising "other people's children" in your statement above--although I imagine you don't see it that way. (I'm sure you'll come up with some kind of "biological complementarity" argument in the case of heterosexual adoptive parents. Or something.
Really! Son of Adam.
Couples "asking" for marriage equality is "demand(ing) that they be called married couples capable of having children." Get real?
In your first sentence you conceed that they "have other people's children". So, unless you are implying that they stole them or had them through some sort of immaculate conception . . .
Some who comment here (some who recite NOM's talking points without any decernment or comprehension whatsoever) might not notice how you conflated "have" with "procreation".
Marriage equality advocates are far to sensible to attempt to demand that people believe them to be capable of "procreating" children. But nice Try!
Mr. Incredible, in Jesus' Name.
I would immagine that everyone old enough to comment here has long ago stopped believing that babies are delivered hanging from the beak of a stork.
A male and a female may be the minimum requirements to "make a kid", but something more is required to raise it.
It STILL takes relevance to make an valid point.
Reformed wrote:
"Well thank you Barb Chamberline for your insite into the inner workings of the NAACP!"
You're welcome.
Greg wrote:
"NEVER heard of a gay person being beaten or mistreated, Rev??"
Greg, you're responding to a statement Reformed made up.
Doug wrote:
"African Americam approval of gay marriage moved from 41% to 59% in ABC News polls taken before and after President Obama's embrace of marriage equality."
Doug, if you're referring to the recent WaPo-ABC News poll, they had this to say about their own data: The result is "tentative" due to the small sample of black voters in the poll."
And once again, Son of Adam is correct:
"Gay people don't have children, Greg. They have other people's children"
"Marriage equality advocates are far to sensible to attempt to demand that people believe them to be capable of "procreating" children. But nice Try!"
All the more reason they shouldn't be demanding that marriage be redefined for their sexual preference, because marriage had been established in the first place to provide an appropriate family setting for the children that ARE procreated so that they can be raised by their natural parents, their mother and their father.
Adoptive parents also have "other people's children", oftentimes children who have been abandoned by their biological ones. As Reformed said, "it takes relevance to make a valid point". Your statement is correct, but it's doesn't apply to the argument at hand, because it applies to heterosexual adoptive parents who I'm sure you would concede do not deserve to have their rights infringed or their families invalidated.
@Son of Adam
"Black people never demanded..." etc.
No, they did not; and we're not demanding to be recognized as a heterosexual married couple, because that would be ludicrous and mean that we were "husband and wife", when no husband or no wife is around. It would, as you imply, be ridiculous.
However, in the arena of marriage, blacks (and whites) did fight for their right to marry irrespective of what the government and church declared morally sound. Women did fight to be treated as equals in society, and had to fight for -safety- in their own marriages (remember, it wasn't too long ago that married woman was incapable of charging her spouse with rape). And homosexuals are fighting to have their relationships recognized legally and culturally, so they and their children can live their lives without being discriminated against by those who are spooked by anything new.
My larger point is that every civil rights battle you mention has had an impact on marriage. You're complaining about this one as those before you complained about the last, but you'll live to see the day when normal society finds your opinions as abhorrent as those who would wish to return to the days when a wife was incapable of seeking protection from her abusive husband.
Women's Lib strengthened marriage. The Black Civil Rights movement strengthened marriage. Marriage will only grow stronger from the inclusion of SSM.
@Greg
When America was founded, White men no matter their sexuality were considered human beings with full constitutional rights. By contrast,
my ancestors had to literally fight for 200 years to
convince society that we were human, not property. Homosexuals have never endured oppression like slavery or Jim Crow due to their sexual behavior. Read more below:
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2008/10/30/race-and-lifestyle-choice-a-blood-boilingly-bad-comparison/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/18/a-marriage-mandate/
http://pfox.org/african_americans.html
So, a homosexual shouting "I'm oppressed because I can't "marry'" sounds as silly to a Black Christian-or any Black person-as Bill Gates complaining "I'm poor!"
Another problem with the "gay rights = civil rights" argument is that "gay marriage" activists tolerate racism in their ranks, especially against Black people who disagree with them. One notorious example was when "tolerant" White gay marriage activists began hurling racial slurs among other things Black Californians (homosexual, heterosexual, etc.) after Prop. 8 passed:
http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2008/11/n.html .
Amazingly, only ONE "gay marriage" group, Truth Wins Out, denounce these racists.
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2008/11/974/
So, why should a Black Christian-or any Black voter-support those who mock our religious beliefs, hijack our history for their selfish ends, and trample our basic rights like voting and peaceful assembly?
@ Andy
You need a husband and a wife in order to have a marriage. Without the two, there is no marriage and those who pretend otherwise are only fooling themselves.
For thousands of years, marriage has always been about putting men and women together, not setting the races apart. So you are comparing apples to oranges...again!
The REAL civil rights struggles involved recognizing individuals as being equally under the law, not forcing people to treat different behaviors and relationships as though they were the same - and they are not. And the government has no right to force people to pretend that they are. Marriage laws apply equaly to every individual in that every person can marry a member of the opposite sex. There is no discrimination in that whatsoever.
I'm all for women's rights, but a negative aspect of the Women's Liberation movement was that it allowed men to use women as objects to be used sexually and then discarded. This has led to the massive rise in out of wedlock births and an increase in poverty levels. Don't tell me that THAT has "strengthened marriage".
If there is there any doubt that liberalizing marriage laws impacts society for the worse, you need look no further than the last forty years of no-fault divorce laws in the United States (family disintegration destroys lives and now costs tax payers $112 billion per year). No-fault divorce laws began in one state, California, and then spread to rest of the country. Those liberalized divorce laws helped change our attitudes and behaviors about the permanence of marriage. There is no question that liberalized marriage laws will change our attitudes and behaviors about the purpose of marriage.
And who made you the Nostradamus of the 21st century, anyway? Who are you to say that everyone's moral coherence will one day degrade to the point where the values that support the natural family is equated with domestic abuse? It is just as absurd as the predictions that abortioin rights will become a non issue and that Communism will take over the world by the year 2000. Well guess what? They didn't! And neither will your assertions regardless of all your false analogies.
Son of Adam,
Me: "Marriage equality advocates are far to sensible to attempt to demand that people believe them to be capable of "procreating" children. But nice Try!"
You: "All the more reason . . . " . . . blah . . .
Deconstructing your circular arguments is a little like a game of whack-a-mole.
Let me put this another way. Marriage equality advocates are far to sensible to permit small minded bigots to demand that people believe them to be incapable of "having" and unfit to "have" children.
Another nice try! Whack!
@Andy King
When America was founded, White men no matter their sexuality were considered human beings with full constitutional rights. By contrast, Blacks had to literally fight for 200 years to convince society that we were human, not property. Unlike my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, homosexuals never endured oppression like slavery or Jim Crow due to their sexual behavior. Read more below:
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2008/10/30/race-and-lifestyle-choice-a-blood-boilingly-bad-comparison/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/18/a-marriage-mandate/
http://pfox.org/african_americans.html
Hence, a homosexual shouting "I'm oppressed because I can't "marry" sounds as silly to the average Black person as Bill Gates complaining "I'm poor!"
So, I'm not shocked that the NAACP's endorsement of sinful "gay marriage" is viewed by many Blacks as not courageous, but selling out.
"Let me put this another way. Marriage equality advocates are far to sensible to permit small minded bigots to demand that people believe them to be incapable of "having" and unfit to "have" children."
If you have to resort to name calling, Reformed, then you've already lost the argument. No wonder you can't win a referendum.
Yeah, that didn't really help my case did it? I fell right into that one I did.
I forgot that "those who oppose marriage equality" automatically win by default if the opposition can be provoked to deounce them as bigots. I'll bet you play a mean game of taboo!
Is that all you've got? How about a coherant argument that address the issue.
Reformed, what don't you understand? Do you think its morally right for SS"m" extremists to rip other peoples children from their biological mother and father?
M. Jones,
No, I don't "think it (would be) morally right for SS"m" marriage extremists to rip other people's children from their biological mother and father."
M. Jones,
No, I do not "think it (would be) morally right for SS"m" extreamists to rip other people's children from their biological mother and father.
M. Jones, what kind of argument is that? Morally right for extremists... to kidnap children?
You are aware that it's impossible to conceive children through In Vitro Fertilization without the prior consent of all parties. Whether that consent is maintained is another matter, but that is by no means an issue related only to homosexuals. No children are being "ripped" from anyone.
12
It's relevant to say that heterosexuality is STILL required legitimately to reproduce. It's ironic, in the context of a discussion on homosexuality.
The rearing of a child is another thing. The best scenario is father AND mother who bring different perspectives to the rearing of the child.
Children deserve to be raised by their own mother and father, and not by deliberate design deny them of their birthright or rip them from the opportunity of a mom and a dad.
Artificial means of reproduction in which children are created with the intent of taking them away from their parents fails to take into consideration what the child would want. What child would elect to be taken away from its mommy and daddy and be given to two strangers?
its one thing to adopt a child who has been taken away from his/her parents; it is quite another to create a child with the intent of taking him/her from his/her parents.
@OvercameSSA
"What child would elect"
So let me get this straight. Are you -also- against heterosexuals using in-vitro fertilization as a means of reproduction when the man or women is infertile? Because according to you, the biological parent is all that matters, EVEN THOUGH in the majority of cases, the donor of sperm or egg has no interest in being a parent. It's worth noting that in most cases of IVF used by gay couples, one of the couple IS the biological parent, so they are not "two strangers", only "one stranger", the same amount of "strangers" that would be present in a heterosexual union under the same circumstances. Do you support nullifying the unions of infertile couples, then, since they are only capable of raising "other people's children"? By your own words, that seems to be the most important thing: the children. And goodness knows that a child knows innately from birth that if they are not raised by both of their biological problem, all manner of psychological maladies are likely to befall them. Just ask Zach Wahls, Eagle Scout, public speaker, and son of a married lesbian couple.
"Are you -also- against heterosexuals using in-vitro fertilization as a means of reproduction when the man or women is infertile? "
Yes, I am. It think it's always wrong to intentionally deny a child his mom and/or dad.
"Do you support nullifying the unions of infertile couples, then, since they are only capable of raising "other people's children"?"
No, because heterosexual marriages encourage, through example, other heterosexual marriages that most likely have procreative capacity. Unmarried heterosexual couples encourage unmarried heterosexual coupling, a bad thing.
Children are not mere products composed of raw materials gathered from diverse sources. They are the creation of two individuals and are literally composed of those two individuals. By virtue of this relationship between parent and child, there is an inherent bond, a unique relationship whose value is immeasurable and which extends into the child's relationships and genetic bonds with extended family members. It is such a strong element of our existence that adopted children nearly always seek out the individuals who created them.
Research studies are unable to quantify and measure the unique value to a child of being brought up by both of its loving parents, but any child who was brought up in such a household will tell you how special and important it is to their lives.
@Overcame
"any child who was brought up in such a household will tell you how special and important it is to their lives."
And any children who were brought up by a loving gay couple wouldn't tell you the exact same thing? Or are you claiming to be able to quantify "joy of upbringing"? I don't think I need to tell you that I find myself amongst heterosexual peers with heterosexual parents (my own included), and get to hear their perspectives on their upbringing; some good, some bad.
I don't believe for a minute that you find yourself in the company of gay couples with their children with any comparable frequency. Otherwise, you'd know that it's pure nonsense to imply that they think their lives "less special" or "important" because they "lacked a parent": in quotation marks, because they have, in fact, never lacked a thing. My three cousins are being raised by a lesbian couple, and one is in college with the other two on track. Were I forced to name an error in their upbringing, it would be that the youngest is a fan of Twilight. That aside, they're just as balanced psychologically and mentally as any of their peers.
You seem to be analyzing the virtues of child creation more strongly than is practical. All a child cares about is that it's raised in a loving environment with parents that can care for their needs. Maybe you should find yourself in the company of happy kids of happy gay parents sometime, so you can be freed of the illusion that heterosexuality somehow makes parenting inherently superior.
Final note: "adopted children nearly always seek out the individuals who created them"
You can speak for yourself on that one, as I know two adopted children (both raised by heterosexual couples) who have no desire to meet their biological parents. They've got parents already.
AK:
""""And any children who were brought up by a loving gay couple wouldn't tell you the exact same thing?""""
No, children brought up by same-sex couples do not have a genetic link to them; they are strangers in the sense that they have no biological relationship to them, or, at least, to one of them. They, therefore, cannot have the same experience as children raised by their moms and dads with connections to extended family. What child doesn't look to his parents or extended family as to why he looks the way he does, where he gets the talents that he has, why his personality is the way it is, etc....? And what parents don't look at their child and make decisions for the best interest of that child based on traits that the child possesses that they recognize as coming from them? The genetic connections between a child and his family are invaluable and unmatchable by relationships to non-genetically-related caretakers and their families.
""""I don't believe for a minute that you find yourself in the company of gay couples with their children with any comparable frequency"""
I have a gay friend who adopted a child and is constantly asking for his mother. Mother's Day was particularly painful for the child this year. Fortunately, sort of, my friend did not arrange for the orphaning of the child, so having a single dad is better than living in an orphanage, I guess.
"""""That aside, they're just as balanced psychologically and mentally as any of their peers.""""
Says you. As if going to college is the ultimate variable that defines success and psychological well-being. What have these children been deprived of as a result of not being brought up by their parents and being brought up by lesbians? We'll never know, because they have been deprived of that experience. Time will tell as to whether these kids will be able to form long-term heterosexual relationships given that they were not brought up in a heterosexual household and thus lack an important example of how heterosexual couples interact.
""""All a child cares about is that it's raised in a loving environment with parents that can care for their needs.""""
Says you. I repeat that adopted children care about more than that; that's why they seek out their real parents: they recognize that something is lacking in their lives. We know that m/f couples who find out that they are unable to conceive are devastated by such news; they try to replace that inexplicable bond of parent-child with a substitute, but it is not the same. Similarly, children are brought up with parent substitutes, but this is not the same as being brought up by the people who created you, people who are literally a part of you.
""""They've got parents already.""""
No, they have caretakers. Perhaps the adopted children that you know have no desire to meet their biological parents, but you can be darn sure that they wonder where they came from and why they are who they are.
I have an adopted friend who did not seek out his parents, but has to live everyday with the fact that his kids are all red-headed and there are no red-heads in his wife's family. So he wonders - as do his kids - where did the red hair come from? And where did the other unusual characteristics that they possess come from? Add what surprises, such as health issues, might be coming up in their lives that he is unprepared for because he is disconnected from his extended family?
Being connected to one's real family is important; the country was built on these relationships.
According to SSMers, the prototypical husband-wife relationship entails both female sexual attraction and male sexual attraction. That is, the marital relationship is integrative by sexual attraction -- both male and female.
And, again according to SSMers, the prototypical SSM relationship would entail either male sexual attraction or female sexual attraction. That is, SSM is segregative by sexual attraction -- either male or female.
Likewise, marriage integrates man and woman whereas SSM is segregative by sex.
If gay identity is portrayed by SSMers as the moral equivalent of a racial identity, then, their gay pride parades, for example, are like white pride parades. And their demand that the marriage law be revised to elevate gay identity above the marriage idea itself, is analogous with the demand of white supremacists who entrenched white identity politics above marriage via the anti-miscegenation system.
And if the complaint of the gay identity group is that purity of identity matters very much, and that this is the basis for their complaint against society's preference for the integrative over the segregative, then, again, the gay complaint is the racist analogue.
Likewise, given the demand is to use marriage and marriage law to advance gay identity politics -- a decidedly non-marriage purpose -- the SSM campaign is the racist analogue.
SSMers cannot have it both ways. If their identity group is portrayed as a race-like group, then, the implications are clearly against their abuse of marriage and marriage law.
If their identity group is pushing to bring the segregative under the auspices of a social institution that has always been integrative (by both sex and by sexual attraction, even according to SSMers), then, "gay pride" is colored by a racist-like prioritization to use government to favor an identity group.
As for civil rights and equal treatment, well, why must society show favoritism for the gay identity group over and above the many types of relationships and many types of living arrangements that populate the nonmarriage category? Most of that category is two-sexed, not one-sexed, and even the one-sexed sub-category is non-gay. So why the favoritism demanded by the SSM campaign?
It has zilch to do with marriage and everything to do with using the SSM idea as a means by which to innoculate the gay identity group from criticism, opposition, and dissent -- on many levels including the intellectual, the legal, the political, and the moral.
Again see the racist analogue.
Typo correction:
"Most of that category is two-sexed, not one-sexed, and even the vast majority of the one-sexed sub-category is non-gay. So why the favoritism demanded by the SSM campaign?"
I'll add that even where available (under whatever guise, including the census phrase same-sex householding) participation rates within the adult homosexual population are very low and declining. SSM-as-marriage is a very poor vehicle for delivery of governmental benefits to the adult homosexual population of which about 90% do not partake of SSM -- entrenched in law or otherwise.
The purpose of SSM is the advanced of the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics. This is so even if one takes as the stated goals of the SSM campaign's leading voices at face value and count it as benign. The implications of the stated goals is at issue, clearly, especially when compared, as I have done above, with the racist comparison.
@17 - Go Fred Go! That was beyond awesome.
@18 - SoA - Really great comments. I think the SSMers really think that christianity is just going to dry up and blow away or suddenly decide that SSM is just a nifty path to self-actualization.....
@34 - Chairm - Loved your white supremacist vs. homosexual activist analogy. I bet their hair is on fire now!