It's been a relatively good and historic week for Black and LGBT people in America. After all this was the week that President Obama signed an expansion of the hate crimes law named after Mathew Shepard and James Byrd....
Shepard the young gay man brutalized and left to die by two homophobic neanderthals tied to a fence..James Byrd the black man tied alive to the back of a pick up truck by racist white men and dragged until his body was strewn in pieces all along the roadway..
The expansion, which was opposed by every Republican in Congress added gender and sexual orientation to the protected status for Americans. In other words, you can't attack someone who you believe is gay or lesbian just because you feel like it.
Gay bashing is no longer a sport in America...
Obama also signaled his intention to repeal the bigoted travel ban on HIV/AIDS positive people, that prevented them from coming into this country....
And Health and Human Services is creating a resource center designed to help elderly gay and lesbian people...this announced by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius...
This was the good stuff....However there was a not so good thing that happened this week as well..
I will tell you upfront that I'm making a judgment call based on past actions...Bernice King...the youngest daughter of MartinLuther and Coretta Scott King has become the first woman elected to preside over the Southern Christian Leadership Conference...her father's historic organization..
While her election is a history making event for women...it is not a good thing for the Black LGBT community.
King has been very outspoken in her hatred of the gay community all the while cloaking her bigotry in religion.. She has been very outspoken against LGBT equality, leading marches and protests against same sex marriage.
“I know in my sanctified soul that he (Dr. King) did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage.”
-Bernice King
Talking about her father and same sex marriage....When both Dr. King and her mother Coretta Scott King were known for their support of the LGBT community...contrary to the words of their daughter.
In a time when Black civil rights organizations and the Black church need to step forward and lead the fight against the problems within the Black community...I fear she will feed the fires of hatred, further alienating Black gays and lesbians sending them deeper into the closet...
And this is not the time to be in the closet considering how many within the Black community are infected with and dying as a result of the HIV virus. AIDS is killing straight Black people..not just lesbians and gays....
Black women are the most victimized...by men sleeping with other men and refusing to acknowledge their sexuality and by an uncaring system of neglect from the government, from the Black church, and from Black civil rights organizations, which remain silent....
I take no joy in seeing Bernice King ascend to the presidency of the SCLC because I believe that based on her past words and actions the Southern Christian Leadship Conference is about to become a cudgel wielded against the Black gay and lesbian community by another homophobic bigot this one of magnificent lineage and a bigger than life name... who routinely wraps her hatred in religion in order to make it more palatable to the masses..
I, too, celebrate the signing into law of the Shepard/Byrd Amendment; however, I am waiting anxiously to see what effect it will have.
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as Rev. King the younger goes, I am disappointed at the stance she has taken. At some point, religious leaders must come out, no pun intended, against the persecution of lgbt members of the community. Religious leaders must acknowledge their presence and contributions within the church.
I'll repeat my position: you cannot tear down someone and call it a program of uplift. The two positions do no commensurate.