The NAACP did a great thing this week when they formally endorsed marriage equality.
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The resolution itself reads as:
The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the “political, educational, social and economic equality” of all people. Therefore, the NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens. We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Further, we strongly affirm the religious freedoms of all people as protected by the First Amendment.
In other words, if you churches want to continue shading the gays, so be it, but as it pertains to state matters, the LGBT community ought to have the same rights and privileges as you straight couples. And right on schedule comes the church folk hurling fire, brimstone, and gross exaggerations to soil the moment (and the concept of separation of church and state).
Indeed, in the eyes of the self-appointed moral police, a civil rights group acknowledging that one of the biggest civil rights issue of our time is on par with spitting in the face of Jesus and stealing his wallet when he reaches for a towel to wipe himself off.
One of the first members of the regressive sect of the religious community is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, Alveda King (pictured right), who bemoans the NAACP’s position and uses it to lend credence to the idea that the organization has lost its way.
“Neither my great-grandfather, an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda. In the 21st century, the anti-traditional marriage community is in league with the anti-life community, and together with the NAACP and other sympathizers, they are seeking a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free.”
Ah. Hello, delusional bigotry. It’s nice to see you dressed up in your usual garments. You know, “the homosexual agenda” talking point along with the premise that gay people and pro-choice folks are destroying all of humanity.
I guess Alveda really is a traditionalist.
First of all, it’s quite rich to see someone who can speak at a Glenn Beck rally assail someone else for deviating from Dr. King’s message. Second, I’m not kin to Dr. King, but I do know he never publicly bashed the gay community the way his niece routinely does. I also don’t conveniently forget that a gay man by the name of Bayard Rustin assisted King in organizing the very efforts that have afforded Alveda the luxury of having a platform to mouth off all this lunacy so openly.
Not to mention, there’s no way of knowing how Dr. King — who has been suggested to not be a Biblical literalist ala Alveda — would have felt about the issue of marriage equality in 2012. However, if you wanted a hint, Alveda, you could look to King’s own wife and your aunt, Coretta Scott King, who said the following about the proposed constitutional amendment on gay marriage:
“Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union. A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages.”
Homophobia is not a King family pastime, Alveda. Stop pretending otherwise.
Alveda King is free to feel however she chooses to about gay marriage; however, for much of her adult life, she’s used her last name to lend credence to her conservative viewpoints. Viewpoints that often are bastardized accounts of her Dr. King’s political ideology. Will she ever learn to stop invoking her uncle’s name to support her prejudices?
Tell us!
Michael Arceneaux is a Houston-bred, Howard-educated writer and blogger. You can read more of his work on his site, The Cynical Ones. Follow him on Twitter: @youngsinick
