Opinion :: Guest Opinions
Will Rev. Bernice King’s bully pulpit bash gays? by Rev. Irene Monroe
Bay Windows ContributorThursday Nov 5, 2009 Rev. Bernice King has been bestowed the honor to be the eighth president and first women to head the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC was co-founded by her father, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Bernice King may be a legacy pick for SCLC, but she will not be carrying on Dr. King’s legacy.
Given the homophobic vitriol Rev. Bernice King has spewed out over the years, the LGBTQ community is braced to see what she’ll say next and do given the bully pulpit she now has.
Said plainly, Rev. Bernice King’s track record concerning LGBTQ civil rights has been less than humane and antithetical to the legacies of both her parents.
Rev. Bernice King’s most audacious sign of desecrating her father’s legacy was the December 2004 march titled "Stop the Silence," which promoted an anti-gay agenda. She began the protest march by lighting a torch at her father’s gravesite and then passing it on to her spiritual mentor and the march organizer, Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. He proudly carried the lit torch during a two-mile march through Atlanta with thousands of followers. Rev. Bernice King adamantly stated that the march was not against LGBTQ people. It’s a "need for God’s People to stop being silent" and to focus on "God’s business of speaking up for the Kingdom of God," King told the Associated Press.
Contrary to her claims, however, the very first goal of the march (which is listed on the church’s website) promoted a constitutional amendment to protect marriage "between one man and one woman."
Rev. Bernice King has speculated about her father’s viewpoint on marriage equality. One of her most sanctimonious moments of ranting and railing came when she stated, "I know in my sanctified soul that [Dr. King] did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage."
Bernice dishonored her mother’s civil rights legacy by holding Mrs. King’s funeral at Bishop Long’s church that Julian Bond, the national chairman of the NAACP, didn’t attend.
"Mrs. King was a strong supporter of gay and lesbian rights. Her husband was a strong believer in helping the poor and preached a theology of contempt for seekers of material goods-and lived his life that way. The pastor of the church where she was funeralized led an anti-gay march through Atlanta-sadly, Mrs. King’s youngest daughter, an elder in his church, accompanied him. We cannot know what Mrs. King’s wishes were for a funeral-she probably had no choice about church or minister-but I did have a choice, and while I have an abiding respect for my former neighbor and friend, I chose not to be in that church," Bond told the AP.
The SCLC has an outstanding legacy of championing the civil rights of African Americans. But it has not expanded its reach beyond racial discrimination, and attempts to do so have been admonished by SCLC’s national board.
Reverend Eric P. Lee, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the SCLC and the author of the book Marriage Equality: Proposition 8, The California Divide, was called on the carpet by the SCLC’s national board last year for his advocacy in favor of LGBTQ marriage equality during California’s heated Proposition 8 controversy.
Comprised mostly of conservative clergymen and some churchwomen, the SCLC remains in an intentional time warp. With its refusal to speak on present-day issues that plague not only plaguing the African American community but all Americans, the SCLC exists as a visiting museum tethered to the 1960’s civil rights era rather than existing as an organization faced toward the challenges of today. For example, King’s oldest son, Martin Luther King III, was president of the SCLC from 1997-2004. He failed to join the national fight against HIV/AIDS, ravaging African American communities, because he "felt uncomfortable talking about condoms," the Los Angeles Times reported in 2001.
The SCLC’s religious rhetoric against LGBTQ citizens chokes progress, hinders equality, and allows religion-based bigotry to flourish.
"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," Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor at Princeton, wrote on the blog "The Notion."
While many in the LGBTQ community now gasp at the reality of Rev. Bernice King being at the helm of the SCLC, I gasp at the SCLC’s audacity to still call itself a civil rights organization.
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