I'm hoping a blogger who posts infrequently will air an exchange of emails he's had with a Black law student from Harvard. His (the blogger) arguments are the perfect response to bigots that should know better. I've been a little quiet lately, but shit like this is going to make me blow my top:
Black Clergy Brush Off Gay Marriage Link
More than two dozen black pastors added their voice to the critics of same-sex marriage, attempting to distance the civil rights struggle from the gay rights movement and defending marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
"When the homosexual compares himself to the black community, he doesn't know what suffering is," said the Rev. Clarence James, an African-American studies professor at Temple University.
James and 29 pastors rallied late Monday with their supporters at an Atlanta-area church where they signed a declaration outlining their beliefs on marriage and religion.
The declaration is meant to pressure state representatives to approve a constitutional ban on gay marriages, which will be considered again by the Georgia House as soon as this week.
Later on in the news item, more discouraging news:
Elsewhere Monday:
In Oregon, the county that was poised to become the state's second to allow gay marriage backed off until courts intervene. Commissioners in Benton County, home to Oregon State University and the liberal city of Corvallis, decided to stop issuing all marriage licenses until there is a court ruling on whether gay marriage is legal in Oregon. Commissioner Linda Modrell said Tuesday that panel members were assured that the issue would be decided as quickly as possible and feared the high cost of litigation and the possibility that county employees could be arrested.
In St. Paul, Minn., supporters of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage gathered by the thousands in one of the largest Capitol rallies in memory, waving hundreds of signs on the Capitol steps and spilling over onto the lawn and parking lot. The House is expected to pass the bill Wednesday, with a Senate committee planning to take up the measure later in the week.
In New York, two Unitarian Universalist ministers facing criminal counts for officiating at same-sex weddings pleaded innocent. Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged after marrying 13 gay couples during a public ceremony in New Paltz, but the district attorney has said he does not expect to seek jail time.
In North Carolina's Durham County, a gay couple filed a lawsuit after being denied a marriage license. State law invalidates any claim of marriage between people of the same sex. Register of Deeds Willie Covington said the law gave him no choice.
Mac Diva has been posting her eyewitness accounts of the struggle for Marriage Equality in Oregon at her main blog (Silver Rights) and her general assignment blog, Mac-a-ro-nies.
Posted by ronn at March 23, 2004 08:03 PM