Showing posts with label Civil Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Civil Rights. Show all posts
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
One Congressman Hits The Gay Marriage Debate On The Head With A Powerful Statement
John Lewis is not just any U.S. politician. He's the only living member
of the "Big Six" leaders of the American civil rights movement. And he's
got a few important points to make about LGBTQQ rights as well.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Did MLK Have an LGBTQ Dream, Too?
Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2014 will mark its 28th anniversary since it was first observed on January 20, 1986.
If
he were alive today, King would be 85, and he would have seen that a
lot has changed in the U.S. since that dark day he was gunned down on
the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by an assassin's bullet on
April 4, 1968.
Since King's death, every struggling civil-rights group has affixed themselves to his passionate cause for justice.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities, in particular, have been reviled for not only naming our struggle as a civil-rights issue, but also for naming MLK as one of the civil-rights icons that would speak on our behalf.
But would King have spoken on our behalf?
As we celebrate MLK Day 2013, we no longer have to hold King up to a God-like standard. All the hagiographies written about King immediately following his assassination in the previous century have come under scrutiny as we come to understand all of King - his greatness as well as his flaws and human foibles.
As I comb through numerous books and essays learning more about King's philandering, sexist attitude about women at home and in the movement, and his relationship with [gay March on Washington organizer] Bayard Rustin, I am wondering would King be a public advocate for LGBTQ rights?
If
he were alive today, King would be 85, and he would have seen that a
lot has changed in the U.S. since that dark day he was gunned down on
the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by an assassin's bullet on
April 4, 1968. Since King's death, every struggling civil-rights group has affixed themselves to his passionate cause for justice.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities, in particular, have been reviled for not only naming our struggle as a civil-rights issue, but also for naming MLK as one of the civil-rights icons that would speak on our behalf.
But would King have spoken on our behalf?
As we celebrate MLK Day 2013, we no longer have to hold King up to a God-like standard. All the hagiographies written about King immediately following his assassination in the previous century have come under scrutiny as we come to understand all of King - his greatness as well as his flaws and human foibles.
As I comb through numerous books and essays learning more about King's philandering, sexist attitude about women at home and in the movement, and his relationship with [gay March on Washington organizer] Bayard Rustin, I am wondering would King be a public advocate for LGBTQ rights?
James
Cone, father of Black Liberation Theology and author of a book and
several articles on King, states that we must understand King within the
historical context of the black church. And in so doing, I find it
ironic that the public King we witnessed on a national stage talked
vociferously about social justice and civil rights for all people yet
his personal life did not reflect the same ethos concerning women and
gays. And would the public King have spoken out on LGBTQ justice,
risking his already-waning popularity with the African-American
community and President Lyndon Johnson?
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