Black clergy battle NAACP over Flordia gay marriage amendment
”It would be an abomination in the Tampa area if someone was to say that [they oppose Amendment 2], especially a representative of the NAACP, because it does not represent the populous here. It certainly isn’t one that I would abide by and certainly if the Florida NAACP is taking those kinds of stands then I think they are going to end up losing a lot of members because it certainly would be against the church…. I am offended at the suggestion that the plight of people who engage in certain sexual behavior is anywhere near equivalent to the struggle of black men and women in this country who suffered and many died for simple equality. Gay people were never denied the right to vote or to drink out of a water fountain or to sit where they pleased on a public bus. Gay people have never been hosed down with water canons or beaten back by police officers because they were denied personhood. Gay people have never been spat upon for the color of their skin or lynched like animals in the field for trying to gain their freedom. How dare anyone and certainly the gay community for saying that their efforts to normalize their sexual desires are anything like the struggle that my people have faced and gone through. Homosexuality [has] the elements of choice and volition, being black is a God-given, inherent and unchangeable characteristic.”
W. James Favorite, of Beulah Baptist Institutional, speaking for a group of 40 African-American pastors in Tampa, Florida who are pushing for the passage of an anti-gay marriage measure there known as Amendment 2. According to the article, the president of the Florida NAACP, Adora obi Nweze, stated that the civil rights group is opposed to the amendment to the state’s constitutional that would ban same-sex marriage. (Florida Baptist Witness)
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