Homophobe Black Pastors Brand Obama Judas

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Proving that there’s no fool like a God-fearing fool, William Owens, founder of the Coalition of African American Pastors, recently announced the launch of a national campaign against President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage.  Speaking at a press conference Owens condemned Obama’s “Judas” like ways for “bowing to homosexual money,” blustering that he didn’t march “one foot or one yard” in the civil rights movement “for a man to marry a man.” Owens’ posse brings to mind a similar campaign waged against gay rights advocate Reverend Eric Lee in 2009 at the height of the Prop 8 debate.  During Lee’s tenure as head of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference he was threatened with removal because of his outspoken support of same sex marriage.   Then as now, conservative black pastors argued that support for same sex marriage was contrary to civil rights.  But Owens has ramped up the invective with the suggestion that same sex marriage breeds child molestation.  According to Owens, “If you watch the men who have been caught having sex with little boys, you will note that all of them will say that they were molested as a child.”

Straights are always fond of playing the gay predator card, ignoring evidence that most child molesters are heterosexual men.  Heterosexist fixation on gay “pedophiles” (the term pedophilia refers to attraction to children and not to behaviors of sexual abuse) further marginalizes the epidemic of sexual violence against women and girls; violence that is often perpetuated within the sanctity of straight marriage in all the good straight Christian families that Owens wants to save. The tired debate over whether LGBT liberation is a civil rights issue hinges on proprietary claims to a legacy of struggle that presumably only straight black folk are entitled to. Thus, not only do Deuteronomy and Leviticus say gays are aberrant—but white gays speciously ride on the coattails of self-proclaimed “movement” blacks like Owens.  According to this logic, equality for gays and lesbians isn’t a civil right because there were no state sanctioned segregation laws barring gays and lesbians from employment, schools or housing—an argument which is just as absurd as asserting that gender equity is not a civil rights issue because there were no poll taxes, grandfather clauses, or literacy tests for white women at the voting booth before 1920.  In this reductive universe all women are white and all gays are white. The notion that systematized oppression, as well as systematized privilege and entitlement, intersect via multiple identities is unheard of.  Yet black gay and lesbian slaves worked the plantation alongside straights while having their lives, identities and right to love tacitly if not violently suppressed by a regime that brutally exploited black bodies and black reproduction.  Black gay and lesbian youth sit in classrooms where they are ritualistically called out of their names, dehumanized and rendered invisible by cultural norms that equate attractiveness, social acceptance and authentic masculinity and femininity with being heterosexual.  And black gay and lesbian partners live in segregated neighborhoods, struggle with inequitable access to health care, jobs, and housing while being denied the privilege of marital benefits that provide straight families economic stability.

Owens is a consultant to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an outfit that has schemed to make same-sex marriage a “wedge issue” between gays and African Americans.  The pastors’ campaign is timed to undermine black support for Obama in the 2012 election.  By fingering Obama as a Judas to black religious interests Owens will find plenty of common ground with fellow Christian fascists in the Tea Party.  They have a nice ropes course to guide him through.  In the meantime let’s keep the family safe for hetero predators—the one’s protected and sanctioned by the Bible.

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Homophobe Black Pastors Brand Obama Judas
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10 thoughts on “Homophobe Black Pastors Brand Obama Judas

  1. vel
    1

    I do wonder, would this Mr. Owens have been just as offended by inter-racial marriage as he is about gay marriage? It’s sad to see someone who can’t realize that he’s as hateful as those who hate him for his skin color.

  2. 2

    Was this the press conference where Jamila Bey asked Owens about God’s views on polygamy?

    *checks*

    Yes–http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/01/at-a-press-conference-to-oppose-gay-marriage-brave-reporter-asks-about-polygamy-in-the-bible/

    1. 2.1

      *Clap clap clap (while standing)*

      That was awesome, as well as the guy that follows with the question about child molesting. I wish more journalists would call these wackos on their shit.

  3. 3

    “Straights are always fond of playing the gay predator card”

    I’ve always been puzzled by that. All they need to do is talk to a few actual gay men. A gay male friend once said to me, when the subject came up, “Eww! Who wants to make it with a snot-nosed little kid!?”

  4. 4

    I posted this in the biblical marriage thread over at pharyngula, but it’s as relevant here.
    A couple of months ago there was this episode of real time with Bill Maher. Al Sharpton was one of his guests and gay marriage was discussed. All guests (and Bill) were pro gay marriage btw.
    Now I don’t (didn’t) like Al that much. But in this episode when discussing if state referendums should be used to advance gay rights he launched into a great rant with as the most impotant line:
    Rights are not decided by majority rule!

    So it’s good to note that not all black christian leaders are like the people mentioned here.

    (yes, I’m aware I’m a decidedly white dutchman 😉 )

    1. F
      4.2

      Reminds me of a hand-made sign that hung in the gov/history/civics teacher’s classroom in my high school:
      Majority Rule. Minority Rights.

  5. 6

    Great post, Ms Hutchinson. I too come from a background where people claim that homophobia is somehow part of our culture. Even if that were true, culture and traditions change, often for the better. And thanks for pointing out that LGBTQI people of colour are hurt by homophobic attitudes as well as racism. This is something that straight people of colour sometimes forget.

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