Wednesday, March 04, 2009

huge: NAACP comes out against Prop 8

Go here to read the American Prospect piece on the NAACP national office's public stance against Prop 8.

From the piece:

With cover from the NAACP, black organizations moving toward support of LGBT rights won't have to go it alone anymore. At the same time, the NAACP still has to deal with opposition to gay rights from within its own ranks. "There is a lot of homophobia in the NAACP," says California Conference President Alice Huffman, who was also a paid consultant to the "No on 8" campaign. "There are a lot of Christians who feel threatened."

The NAACP still hasn't endorsed gay marriage -- but this is the strongest stance it has taken against laws that would prohibit the practice. The distinction is meant to alleviate tension between board members who are religiously opposed to same-sex marriage. But even so, several board members expressed displeasure with the letter Bond wrote to the California Legislature. In the letter, Bond writes, "Proposition 8 subverts … basic and necessary safeguards, unjustly putting all Americans, particularly vulnerable minorities, at risk of discrimination by a majority show of hands."

"There are people on the board … mainly clergy, they misunderstood," Huffman says. "They thought Julian was writing to support same-sex marriage when that is not the case at all."

"There are a lot of Christians who feel threatened." I've never understood this attitude from some religious folk. It's totally irrational. How does someone else's life/marriage 'threaten' (potentially cause harm) to me? Completely illogical and based in anti-gay hysteria.

If Christians are feeling under threat by the civil rights of others, I suggest perhaps they go and live in a country where there aren't any. Liiike, Darfur. China. Iran. Saudi Arabia. That little place over in South Asia that had the typhoon.

The fight for full civil rights for fellow American citizens is not going to end and, eventually, our side will win. I guarantee it.

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