I learn from John Aravosis on AMERICAblog that MLK's civil rights group threatens to fire local leader for opposing Prop 8, supporting marriage equality.
He cites an L.A. Times article, Civil rights group threatens to fire local leader for gay marriage endorsement: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has targeted the Rev. Eric P. Lee, president of the Los Angeles chapter, for his outspoken advocacy:
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights group partly founded by Martin Luther King Jr., has threatened to fire the president of its Los Angeles chapter because he supports same-sex marriage.
The Rev. Eric P. Lee, president of the local SCLC chapter for two years, became an outspoken advocate of same-sex marriage during the recent campaign against Proposition 8, an amendment to the state Constitution that banned such unions.
The SCLC national board notified Lee on May 27 that he would have to attend a hearing at its Atlanta headquarters on June 4 to explain his stance on same-sex marriage. If he did not show up, they said, they would suspend and fire him.
...
"That was an extremely courageous thing for an ordained minister, African American, straight man to do," said Courage Campaign leader Rick Jacobs. The local SCLC chapter's board voted to support Lee's advocacy of same-sex marriage. But Lee knew he faced opposition within the black community. An Edison/Mitofsky exit poll in California found that 70% of black voters backed Proposition 8, which passed with 52% of the vote. Friends at SCLC headquarters in Atlanta warned Lee that they were fielding complaints from conservative pastors upset about his work.
Note that the L.A. Times continues to regard those exit poll results as valid.
AMERICAblog also cites a piece on this disgraceful matter from the Nation, SCLC and Marriage Equality:
Simply put a national civil rights organization that takes a "neutral position" on an issue of basic civil rights does not deserve to exist. Whatever the personal beliefs and prejudices of individual leaders of the SCLC, the organization's mission as a "nonprofit, non-sectarian, inter-faith, advocacy organization that is committed to non-violent action to achieve social, economic, and political justice" requires that it stand forcefully against efforts to impose second class citizenship on an entire group simply because of identity.
In my view, the failure of the SCLC as a national organization to defend the dignity and equality of LGBT families disqualifies it as a civil rights organization.
The SCLC cloaks its support for inequality in religious rhetoric. I often hear the argument that religious African Americans are somehow required to be homophobic and to oppose marriage equality because of their deep commitment to Christian doctrine, practice, and belief. But this ignores that the primary distinguishing characteristic of African American Christianity is its rejection of oppressive biblical interpretation in favor of embracing a liberating and loving God. White enslavers used substantial biblical evidence to assert that God condoned slavery and required their meek submission to it.
I can think of nothing to add to that.