Black pastors in the South say gay ‘marriage’ not a civil rights issue

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Rev. Charles Reese, a Charlotte, N.C., pastor, remembers what it was like to be a young black man in the segregated South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. By many accounts, it wasn’t pleasant.

Reese remembers going to a segregated school, sitting on the back of the bus, and not being allowed into many restaurants and stores in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. In fact, he says, downtown Dallas was so segregated in those days most black people didn’t bother going there at all.

But Reese’s recollection of the South in the 1960s goes beyond the injustices of segregation. He also remembers the violence. Reese’s childhood memories include police coming into his neighborhood to arrest, brutalize— and even kill—black men without cause. He said many of the men the police took away never returned to their homes.

When Reese moved to Charlotte—the largest city in North Carolina—several years ago, he said he was on the “cutting edge of the civil rights movement.” Today he is the president of the city’s chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization devoted to equality and civil rights.

Reese’s personal dedication to civil rights was born out of a lifetime of struggling—and suffering—to achieve those rights for himself and other people of color. It’s a dedication rooted in the biblical principle of the equality of all races and nations before God.

Because of his past, Reese is troubled—and offended—at some groups’ attempts to tie the concept of homosexual marriage to the civil rights movement. And according to Reese—as well as several other black pastors across the country—that is exactly what homosexual activists are doing when they claim homosexual marriage” is a civil right.

Justifying an immoral cause
The idea is not new. Homosexual activists have been asserting their right to be married for decades. But the push toward homosexual marriage has gained alarming momentum in recent months. The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ordered its state to begin issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples in May. And more than 4,000 homosexual couples in San Francisco were recently issued marriage licenses— in defiance of state law—by Gavin Newsome, a young mayor claiming an act of civil disobedience.

But a growing number of African Americans appear to resent the comparison of homosexuality and race. In Massachusetts last month, the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston, a group of African American ministers, refuted homosexuals’ attempts to frame the issue of homosexual marriage as the next civil rights movement in America. The group signed a statement asserting that “homosexual marriage is not a civil right.”

The Boston pastors are not alone. Many of the black pastors have gone on record saying that homosexuality is wrong and the behavior one chooses should not be compared to a color one is born with. In Detroit, some prominent African American Pastors went public with their condemnation of the concept of gay marriage.

And in Atlanta, Powerful Change, a coalition of 13 multinational Christian ministries who promote the power of choice in changing from homosexuality, has announced its intention of sending 1,000 letters to black pastors across the country asking them to denounce the practice.

Pastor Darryl L. Foster, executive director of the organization, also denounced the National Black Justice Coalition for its support of gay rights.

“We are standing firm in our conviction that the original intent for marriage whether civil or religious, was between one man and one woman for life,” Foster said.

In Los Angeles, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, made a similar plea to black ministers across the country asking them to oppose same-sex marriage and to support the proposed federal marriage amendment, the Washington Times reported.

The foundation for their objections is Scripture. Reese, pastor of Faith Liberation Community Christian Church in Charlotte, said homosexuality is a direct violation of God’s Word.

“I do not and cannot undergird same-sex marriage or the homosexual lifestyle because it is antithetical to the biblical message and undermines the society that the Judeo-Christian community has always uplifted,” he said.

And as a Christian—and a civil rights activist—Reese said he is disturbed when homosexuals compare their attempts to legalize immoral behavior to African Americans’ struggle for equality.

“I do take offense at that particular community paralleling its movement with the civil rights movement in America, because they are trying to put a moral issue over against a human issue,” he said. “And they really are two completely different entities.”

The Rev. Phil Davis, who has pastored Nations Ford Community Church in Charlotte for 15 years, also said homosexuality is wrong, and takes serious offense at the civil rights comparison. In fact, he said making such comparisons are an “atrocity.”

“That line of reasoning denigrates and throws dirt on the blood of blacks who have suffered through slavery, Jim Crow and bigotry, and have died because of the color of their skin,” Davis said. “That the homosexual radical agenda would use the blood of our ancestors to justify their immoral cause and bring guilt and manipulation upon others is an atrocity.”

Destructive guilt tactics
According to Reese, bringing guilt and manipulation on others is what homosexuals are trying to do by claiming their agenda is a civil rights issue.

“Though American culture has certainly not completely embraced the civil rights movement, there is a great deal of respect for it,” he said. “So what better way, what more convenient vehicle to advance the homosexual agenda than civil rights?”

The Rev. Ronnie Wallace, a retired African American pastor who was born and raised in the South, agrees that homosexuals’ use of civil-rights-language is insidious.

“Anyone can look at what was happening during the civil rights movement—the brutality that men were willing to inflict on other men because of their color—anyone can look at that and see that it was wrong,” he said.

And it’s that sentiment, according to Wallace, which homosexuals are trying to align themselves with.

But Wallace said that’s an impossible alignment. “I am black,” Wallace said. “I was born black. And I can get up and declare that I’m not black, but it won’t make one bit of difference.”

Homosexuals, on the other hand, consciously choose their lifestyle, he said.

“And to make this a civil rights issue is trying to say that this is something they cannot control, and that’s not true,” the retired pastor said.

EP News
Christian Examiner staff contributed to this report.
Published, April 2004

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