Monday, January 21, 2008

Reminding King's Followers to Embrace Gays

A speaker at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. was once pastor made these comments yesterday:

For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.


And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.


We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.


The speaker was Barack Obama. I've said before he mentions gays to audiences he doesn't have to and has chided black ministers for the hostility that sometimes emanates from African-American pulpits towards gays. This is another example.

Sully has the whole speech.

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