07/18/2007
Rev. Reggie Longcrier: Why Should Religion Justify Prejudice?
Via AmericaBlog comes this brief but powerful video.
Rev. Reggie Longcrier, pastor of Exodus Missionary Outreach Church in Hickory, North Carolina, has posted a message online responding to presidential candidate John Edwards, who claims his opposition to gay marriage is influenced by his Southern Baptist background.
Says Longcrier on his YouTube page: "We know religion was once used to justify slavery, segregation and women not being allowed to vote, all of which today are recognized as unconstitutional and socially and morally wrong. So why is it still acceptable to use religion to justify denying gay and lesbian American their full and equal rights."
Amen.
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 12:00 PM EST by Andy in Election 2008, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, John Edwards, News, North Carolina, Religion | Permalink
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why do those that oppose gay marriage base their opinions strickly on their reaction to gay sex... hetro marriage never gets confused with sex.
marriage is absolutely a contract of love.
Posted by: A.J. | Jul 18, 2007 12:16:07 PM
Who would have thought a voice of reason and acceptance would come from a Reverend? Amen indeed.
I find it interesting that the late great Martin Luther King, Jr and his wife Coretta Scott King (rest their souls) both fought not only for African-American rights but homosexual rights as well. A close friend of Martin Luther King Jr happened to be an open homosexual male, and Coretta Scott King spoke openly that the next big civil rights movement is the homosexual civil rights movement.
For those who say the African-American community is more homophobic than most, I would challenge that by stating there seems to be more open support from our African-American allies, such as Reverend Reggie Longcrier. Ann Coulter, Mitt Romney, Pres. Bush, Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson - the list goes on, are caucasians who are used their biases and twisted religious ideology to take away the rights of others. Perhaps we should acknowledge who our allies truly are.
=)
Posted by: Cory | Jul 18, 2007 12:33:27 PM
I don't think his upbringing is a justification so much as an explanation. It's not like he's going around saying "well I'm Southern Baptist, this is wrong, end of discussion." More like, "this is what I've been taught my entire life, and it's taking me awhile to undo these prejudices, but I'm working on it."
Posted by: Rafi | Jul 18, 2007 12:34:15 PM
religion is the poison in our country's blood.
Posted by: JLS | Jul 18, 2007 1:09:20 PM
See, problem is, having democratic presidential candidates who openly state their support for gay marriage greatly increases our chances of having another republic candidate. Like it or not, most americans simply aren't ready to embrace gay marriage.
Posted by: scientitian | Jul 18, 2007 1:43:33 PM
That is, another republican PRESIDENT, not candidate.
Posted by: scientitian | Jul 18, 2007 1:44:19 PM
Sorry, Cory, but Martin Luther King, Jr., never made any public pro [or anti] gay statements, let alone "fought for homosexual rights." When you refer to his "close friend," we assume you’re talking about Bayard Rustin, from whom the preceding facts come [he was asked about it in interviews]. I also believe you are confusing Rustin's remarks about the movement for gay equality's place in history with Mrs. King, but, in any case, she was a great woman, solidly and courageously behind our equality, including marriage. While I believe homophobia among the Black community is disproportionately high, her movement compatriot NAACP Chairman Julian Bond is another strong Black voice for uncompromised gay equality, and the NAACP in California is an active partner in the effort to legalize gay marriage.
Rustin was an incredible man, and too few gays of all colors, as well as too few nongay Blacks, know enough about him. Among many accomplishments, he essentially taught Rev. King the tenets and techniques of non-violent resistance, wrote speeches for him, and organized the Great March on Washington where King delivered his timeless "I Have A Dream" speech. The complex story of Rustin's life generally and how attitudes about his gayness often created problems [and the primary reason he remains so relatively unknown today] is best told, among several biographies, in "Lost Prophet"
by John D'Emilio [though I think he makes errors about Rustin's time in prison], as well as the documentary, "Brother Outsider." Information about the latter, as well as a biographical summary can be found at the site below run by his surviving partner Walter Naegle
http://www.rustin.org/about.html
As for Rev. Longcrier, his point is perfectly taken and his support is appreciated but I believe brother Obama needs this sermon just as much.
Posted by: Leland | Jul 18, 2007 1:54:55 PM
While I will, of course, vote for the Democtatic nominee for president (even if I have to hold my nose while doing it) I will not provide any financial support to any candidate in the primaries or the general election that does not believe that I, a gay man, am equal to them under the law. I don't want to see a Republican in the White House again (ever!) but I won't set aside my own humanity and provide materiel support for bigots.
I could care less if "most Americans aren't ready to embrace gay marriage". This isn't about them. This is about us. The opinions of "Middle America" in this case are irrelevant. We have Consitutional and "god-given" rights as US citizens and as human beings. My own personal rights trump what someone else may think of my choice of spouse.
If African-Americans had waited "until the country is ready" then they would still be in chains, Jim Crow would be the law of the land and no white child would ever have had a black child as a classmate. The civil rights movement of the 1960's changed America. America wasn't ready for change, but it was pushed on them anyway.
Assuming the standard 10% metric, there are at least 2.5 million gay people in the United States. Why should the lives of 2.5 million people be controlled by the narrowminded views of others? Why should we be singled out for less-than-equal treatment when in every other aspect of public life we're expected to do what everyone else does: pay taxes, obey the law, etc.
The time is long past for there to be an end to discrimination based on immutable genetic and/or physical characteristics. Religion is a choice, but it is protected. Being gay or lesbian isn't a choice, yet we're treated as second-class.
Too many lives hang in the balance for us to patiently wait for the rest of America to catch up with us.
Posted by: Jonathon | Jul 18, 2007 2:06:14 PM
Bayard Rustin was a great man, and his important contribution to the civil rights movement has for too long been ignored because of his homosexuality. When you say that Dr. King "never made any public pro [or anti] gay statements, let alone 'fought for homosexual rights,'" however, you are incorrect. Rustin planned the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, and then King deliberately chose to bring him back to plan the 1963 March on Washington despite tremendous pressure on King from both white opponents of civil rights AND black leaders of the movement for King to drop Rustin entirely because he was gay. As for Mrs. King, she spoke out against homophobia many times, explicitly comparing it to racism and anti-semitism.
Posted by: Thomasina | Jul 18, 2007 2:08:54 PM
Leland: Sorry, I agree with you on most things, but the facts are you are mistaken.
Read this article on Martin Luther King, Jr.:
http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/2005jan/1501.htm
...and as for Coretta Scott King:
In November 2003 in a speech at the opening session of the 13th annual Creating Change conference, organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Mrs. King made her now famous appeal linking the Civil Rights Movement to the LGBT agenda: "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people. ... But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people."
Sorry Leland, but you're way off on this one =)
Posted by: Cory | Jul 18, 2007 2:28:38 PM
Jonathon, 10% of 250 million is 25 million, not 2.5 million.
Of course, I think that the 10% idea is exaggerated, but anyway...
Posted by: Charles | Jul 18, 2007 3:04:37 PM
Now that I think about it, the fact that I basically never had a black classmate probably contributed to my general lack of prejudice. The issue never came up in home, church or school (home is probably the worst environment for these things)--race just wasn't an issue. The only black people I saw were on TV comedies or the mega-series Roots. TV may be the best environment in general for race relations. This, I think, corresponds to the so-called middle-distance theory of social organization, where people you have the worst relations with are those neither particularly close or particularly far from you, where misunderstanding reaches its peak. The breakdown of the theory is when there is a lot of sermonizing and opinion making on an issue from people you care about, even if you never meet the "others" so ostracized. However, it works in general. Of course, adults should be rational enough on their own to avoid prejudice.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Jul 18, 2007 3:14:35 PM
Sorry, Cory, with all due respect, in the link you gave to Rev. Gilbert Caldwell's essay, he repeatedly makes clear that he is only SPECULATING about what Rev. King's position might have been had he lived: "I have no doubt that Martin King WOULD HAVE BEEN an outspoken advocate of gay rights." Emphasis mine. Not, WAS an outspoken advocate of gay rights. You originally wrote that that was a fait accompli. It was not, and, again, Bayard Rustin was in a position to know better than you or I about what actually occured, though he seemed to believe that King would have eventually come to the conclusions that Caldwell imagines.
Similarly, your quote from Mrs. King does not support your assertion that she "spoke openly that the next big civil rights movement is the homosexual civil rights movement." The quote is eloquent and, as I stated, her repeated endorsement of gay equality is to be applauded, but I trust that she would not want credit for something she did NOT say however much she might have agreed with it.
Further, Rustin did not plan the bus boycott in 1955 but joined it in 1956 after it was already in progress, though his advice, as I referenced, was crucial to its success. And to suggest that King was "[fighting] for homosexual rights" when he finally accepted Rustin as organizer of the march also misstates the facts. You might as well have said he was fighting for Quaker rights or the rights of tenors, both of which Rustin also was. The fact is that King was ready to give into those who opposed Rustin, just as he had in the previous decade when Rustin was driven out of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference [which he founded] because of others' fears his sexuality would hurt the movement. Only after an ultimatum to King and others from movement patriarch [and Rustin mentor who had originally proposed such a march in 1941]] A. Philip Randolph was Rustin allowed to participate. In fact, Randolph was the "official" organizer but he made clear to them that Rustin would do the work. They appeared together on the cover of "Life" magazine:
http://www.2neatmagazines.com/covers/1963cover/1963-Sept-6.jpg
And, no, Randolph's action, however admirable, was no overt support of Rustin being gay per se. In fact, when asked, Rustin explicitly replied that they never discussed it. Randolph was above such judgments, and another lost hero of the movement for Black civil rights.
Posted by: Leland | Jul 18, 2007 3:24:17 PM
Charles, thanks for correcting my math. I'm a bit braindead today for numbers.
25 million makes my point even stronger. For example, there are less than 8 million people who live in the State of Georgia (where I live). Would anyone be happy with saying, "Well, people who live in the other 49 states can get married, but we don't want anyone from Georgia to have that right."
The 10% number is a bit controversial. My recollection is that it came from Kinsey's work on sexual behavior. Without doing some sort of census, it's really impossible to know for sure, but 10% sounds reasonable to me.
Let's assume that it is only 5%. That is still a whole lot of people.
The whole point is that no one should take for themselves the right to decide what rights another person will have. Either our human and civil rights are inviolable and absolute or they are not.
Posted by: Jonathon | Jul 18, 2007 3:28:54 PM
Well Leland, in the face of all this, I guess there's no arguing with you. Even speculation, based on King's past, and even his close openly gay African-American comrades, aren't enough for you to admit that perhaps they were accepting of homosexuals. Coretta Scott King said and did a lot for both the African-American and Homosexual liberation movements, even as far as making public appearances at LBGT functions, which is more than most Democrats (and certainly any Republican) has done for any movement lately.
They were good people, who paved the way for us to have this discussion, to hold hands in the street, for African-Americans to have the same rights and freedoms that every American is entitled to. I just don't understand why you systematically attacked my very nice and positive comment, and tore Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King apart for arguments sake. Sometimes it's nice to just let the memory of them rest in peace by acknowledging the fact that they did do much good for mankind.
Posted by: Cory | Jul 18, 2007 3:39:25 PM
Oh, and Leland, that quote you claim Coretta Scott King did not say, is wrong. In fact, Andy Towel had a blog on her support of LGBT issues last January when she passed on. She did make that speech and she did say that quote, I don't know why you believe she didn't.
Posted by: Cory | Jul 18, 2007 3:41:49 PM
Leland, I think we found your conscious and logic, they were in lost and found, I think you might want to put them to good use again... as well as your heart.
Posted by: Leland Conscious | Jul 18, 2007 3:44:16 PM
NOTHING I wrote remotely tears apart Rev. and Mrs. King. I repeatedly acknowledged Mrs. King's support for gay equality, e.g., "she was a great woman, solidly and courageously behind our equality, including marriage," and accept the premise that her husband would have grown into being a gay rights advocate had he not been killed.
Nor did I attack you. I only disputed your specific misstatements, however "nice," of historical fact, while, again, taking nothing away from the good that Rev. & Mrs. King DID do. I consider both of them among the greatest of all Americans, and am confidant that they would not wish to be misrepresented however unintentionally and benignly.
Posted by: Leland | Jul 18, 2007 3:51:54 PM
Great post Cory - I'd say you and Leland are both right in assuming that had he lived, Dr. King would have been a champion of gay rights as well - his love and respect for Rustin (who really should be a national hero - gay , black and otherwise) a good indicator of that as well his shifting of the movement towards the end of his life to include poverty and rural white america in the greater struggle for civil rights.
If you want to know more of Coretta Scott King's views on gays and equality you might want to google Lynn Cothren, Mrs King's openly gwm assistant for 23 years (I think he may have also ran the King center for a time) and a man she always referred to as her son.
We lost a powerful ally when Yolanda King died suddenly this past May - she shared her mothers views on gay equality and often gave speeches in that regard.
Unfortunately the baton is now left in the hands of the rabid fundamentalist and anti gay Reverend Bernice King - she is the only surviving King child whose oratory gifts carry a fraction of the weight of their father's and she is all too aware of her new found position as heir to the throne as her brothers , though loved by their Mother, have fallen far short of what has been expected of them. Things could get rough...
Posted by: Giovanni | Jul 18, 2007 5:34:23 PM
North Carolina creates the dopiest people, I swear. The only usable thing to come out of that state was flight (and the Wright Brothers were from Ohio).
Posted by: MJ | Jul 18, 2007 7:20:18 PM
Anon, you are in pretty bad shape if your perception of people is based on what you see on television, especially sitcoms. All sitcoms that aired when you were a kid were written by White men and some White women, what you saw was their skewed view of what they thought Black people were like. And like you, most of these people had zero intereaction with people who didn't look like them.
Prejudice and bigotry comes from ignorance. Unless you are willing to talk to a real live person who is different from you, you will never get rid of stupid preconceptions.
Posted by: Cadence | Jul 18, 2007 8:13:57 PM
Longcrier: "So why is it still acceptable to use religion to justify denying gay and lesbian American their full and equal rights."
Interesting that Rev Longcrier speaks only of full and equal rights, which I, too, support. Notice how he does not refer to marriage in lending his support to the cause.
Perhaps because he and others of a faith-based core believe marriage can ONLY be between one man and one woman.
Posted by: Stephen | Jul 18, 2007 9:21:17 PM
Cadence: thank you for knowing me better than I know myself. I'm sure you'll get that giant birthmark fixed one day, and I hear therapy is doing wonders for your depression over your mother's suicide. Best of luck.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Jul 19, 2007 12:35:43 AM
Hello Reverend...
For someone who calls himself Reverend, you would think that you (he) would show a little more reverence to his religion.
I don't know how anyone can call themselves 'Reverend' and can be completely clueless with regards to the Scriptures, as some are, that profess to be 'men of the cloth.'
Sir, do you ever read the Scriptures???
I can show you several places in that good ol' Bible, that sits on your dusty shelf at home, that says 'a man who lays with a man' is an abomination before God; and it isn't just in the Old Testament.
Please Read Romans.
Paul was a Disciple of Jesus Christ and he wrote Romans. He got his counsel from Jesus Christ.
One more thing - it also says in the New Testament that the 'effeminate man' will not inherit the kingdom of God.'
I don't think we can change the words here, for it to mean anything else than it does.
Either you believe all of the Word of God, or none of it...what's the point in following its precepts and just picking out what suits you and throwing the rest away?
If you are going to follow its moral teachings, follow it wholeheartedly.
As to the politics of the issue -
this is not a matter of color - black and white, being neither evil nor good - this is a matter of morality - what is sin and what isn't.
It's not a matter whether you are French or Spanish - being neither evil nor good.
Homosexuality is a sin...period...in the same boat with pedophilia, bestiality and anything that deviates from God's plan for man.
Sorry, I didn't write the Bible - God's disciples and prophets did.
Finally, as to Love - God created Love in the very beginning; and He said, that it can only exist, when found in the bonds of marriage and between a man and a woman.
Anything else is just plain 'Lust.'
Carnal man does not understand this.
Only the spiritual man or woman will understand God's motivation in this admonition and commandment.
Reverend, Sir, you need to repent...come to Christ and fully believe the Scriptures...otherwise, you don't have the right to call yourself 'Reverend.'
Thankyou,
L.Wilson,
Vancouver, Canada.
Posted by: Layna Jan Wilson | Jul 24, 2007 1:57:50 AM
Hello R.......
I did not know that the Kings advocated homosexuality.
I once admired them, but I have to say, I no longer do.
I also recently found out that Martin Luther King was a member of the Masonic Order.
I no longer support the views of the civil rights movement.
The only 'movement' that any one of us needs to support is movement closer to Christ.
L.
Vancouver, Canada.
Posted by: Layna Jan Wilson | Jul 24, 2007 2:07:31 AM