It has been one week since President
Barack Obama offered his now famous opinion that he endorses marriage
equality. The groundbreaking news that an American President supports
the right for same-sex couples to join together in a legal union was
met with tremendous euphoria from pretty much half of the nation and
flat out anger and disdain from the other half. The type of fallout
that the President may have to concern himself with the most however
may be from a huge part of the base that got him elected in 2008, The
African-American community and in particular the black church.
Let me just state first of all that
black people aren't anymore religious than any other group in the
country. Catholics, Jews, and Muslims are deeply devout in their
religions, I'm willing to bet you however that within those groups
you will find more people who would describe themselves as
non-practicing than you would in the African-American community, as a
friend of mine once joked finding a black agnostic is like finding a
black Van Halen fan, if he exists you wouldn't know it.
The black experience in America since
the first slave ships arrived called for the belief in religion. The
notion that one day God himself would make life better was how slaves
got through long and arduous days of backbreaking work in 100 degree
weather. The modern day Civil Rights Movement led by the Reverends
Martin Luther King and Joseph Lowry was tied completely to the black
church, so it saddens me on a personal level to see the same black
church and black pastors with a thirst for the spotlight engaging in
bigotry.
Some idiot named Rev. Emmett Burns, a
pastor in Baltimore is on record as saying he and most of his
congregation, will not be voting for the President in November. Burns
who was quick to say he won't be casting a vote for the GOP nominee
Mitt Romney says that the President's stance on Marriage Equality is
a turnoff. “We would have preferred that he would not have weighed
in on this issue, People have come up to me and are saying they don't
support this, they don't like this and they are staying home”.
If Burns thinks he speaks for every
member of his congregation then he himself should be running for
president. The other thing is that if you are a black person publicly
advocating for people to stay home you might as well spit on the
grave of Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, Andy Goodman
and countless other people who died so everyone could take part in
the democratic process of voting.
Speaking for myself only, these things
among others are the reason why I am completely turned off by
organized religion. The black church in some segments are now vested
in asking us to vote against our interests. This ridiculous stance
against same-sex marriage being the latest example. There is also the
position that the church is only interested in abstinence only
teachings at a time when the nuclear black family is all but
non-existent and 70% of black babies are born to single black
mothers. To the church kids growing up in poverty is acceptable just
as long as they don't mention the word condom.
Personally I have a problem identifying
with a book that has talking snakes, torrential rains that last for
forty days and nights, and people living to be 900 hundred years old,
and even with that I could debate the most qualified expert on The
Bible about God himself mentioning homosexuality and whether or not
it's wrong. The fact is that it is irrelevant. We are supposed to be
living in a nation that recognizes a seperation between church and
state, yet that's not happening because some guy wrote a book 2,000
years ago.
As it relates to the black church, that
royal asshole himself Jerry Falwell once referred to the Civil Rights
Movement as the Civil Wrongs Movement. Imagine for a second if the
kind of mindset was still in play. It just so happens that it is.
It's the 1,000 laws that discriminate against the LGBT community. By
the way my favorite Van Halen song is “Why Can't This Be Love”.
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