A group of black pastors has launched a campaign to challenge black voters to rethink their support for President Barack Obama, saying that his endorsement of same-sex "marriage" places him at odds with America’s Judeo-Christian foundations and with the values embraced by a majority of black Americans.
“The time has come for a broad-based assault against the powers that be that want to change our culture to one of men marrying men and women marrying women,” said the Rev. Williams Owens, Sr., founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP), during a July 31 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “I am ashamed that the first black president chose this road, a disgraceful road.”
Owens, who said that he voted for Obama in 2008, said his group would launch a “nationwide campaign rallying black pastors and African Americans to voice their opposition to the president’s position on same-sex marriage, and withdraw their support from him. We will see that the black community is informed that the president is taking them for granted while pandering to the gay community.”
In mid-July the CAAP announced its opposition to the NAACP’s endorsement of same-sex "marriage," a move the civil rights group made in response to Obama’s own announcement in May that he had finally reconciled his own “struggle” over homosexual marriage and would work for its legalization.
Owens recalled that upon hearing of Obama’s embrace of same-sex "marriage," his group sent a letter to the president and Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a meeting to discuss the issue. “We wrote the president and Mr. Holder on May the second, requesting an audience with him to discuss this very issue,” Owens said. “He has not given us the courtesy of any reply.”
Owens, who was joined by a handful of other black pastors, said that as many as 3,700 black clergy were joining the campaign to derail Obama’s reelection. The effort includes a campaign to gather ten thousand signatures from black pastors, voters, and “allies of the black community,” pledging support for traditional marriage.
The written pledge proclaims that “the institution of marriage was established and ordained by God (Genesis 2:24),” and that “since the beginning of recorded history … marriage has been defined as the lawful union of one man and one woman.” It goes on to declare that homosexual unions “are sinful and in direct violation of the law of God,” and “to legalize such unions will signal social approval of homosexuality and sexual deviancy as legitimate lifestyles equal with God’s design of heterosexual normalcy.”
The pledge concludes: “We therefore declare our opposition to any deviation from traditional marriages of male and female, notwithstanding the rulings of the court systems of the land or acts of legislative bodies in support of same-sex ‘marriage’ and/or civil unions. And to call on Pres. Obama to repudiate his assertion that gay marriage is a civil right.”
Owens accused Obama of taking the black voting bloc for granted and ridiculed the idea that the effort to normalize homosexual behavior and legalize “gay marriage” was similar to the black civil rights movement of the 1960s. “We are really tired of the homosexual community hijacking the civil rights movement,” Owens said in mid-July as the NAACP endorsed same-sex "marriage." “I did not choose to be black and you did not choose to be white — and homosexuals make a choice to be homosexual. So why compare what we went through with your situation? It’s not the same thing. There’s no comparison.”
In the press conference Owens compared Obama’s support for homosexual marriage to tolerance for child molestation. “If you watch the men who have been caught [abusing boys,] you will note that all of them will say that they were molested as a child,” Owens said. “For the president to condone this type of thing is irresponsible."
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •- Spam
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •- Spam
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8 • Wack Feelings Nosign 6Cosign Ether GOAT 2LOL •- Spam
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1 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT 1LOL •just cause a black man is in charge of it
but this is actually pretty dumb...............cause where is this coalition of black pastors leaders
whenever the real problems in the black community are highlighted
don't nobody give a fuck about gay marriage.............why are we not focusing on real issues
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6 • Wack Feelings Nosign 6Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •- Spam
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •- Spam
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3 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT 3LOL •So they're gonna vote for the Mormon instead?
LMAO
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2 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign 1Ether GOAT 1LOL •- Spam
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •Its too stupid for words I know. These are probably some niggas taking "donations" from Republicans or are Republicans. When Obama first endorsed it the right wingers were talking about how religious blacks were going to take it but there was little uproar, so I guess niggas decided to manufacture some.
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •Legitimate question though to the African Americans on the IC though, just because of I'm curious, do you guys identify yourselves with your race or religion first?
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •why does the article hightlight the race of the ppl in it???
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •that's a pretty loaded concept considering the history of slavery and Christianity
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •the man in question is an african american as well as a christian.
Also, contrary to popular belief, negroes aren't mindless automatons that only do things based on crude societal constructs.
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1 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT 1LOL •LOL have you listened to what pass for music these days? That litmus test alone will tell you people will eat garbage to fill a hole in their belly.
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •- Spam
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •i'm not sure how what white people choose to market to urban tweens over the airwaves has to do with anything.
my only point is that the media likes to acknowledge black people not as individuals but as a group; a voting block or a statistic or whatever and then certain people like to eat it up...
It's this type of thinking that I was responding to. In the context of this argument it seems that Azad believes that black people will have this internal struggle with what they will blindly and mindlessly follow since not laid out all nice and neat.
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •We have way more important issues to work on and those are far more destructive in morality than same sex marriage, but Christians shouldn't support though since it's against Christianity, but all of this seems pointless and seems they are trying to gain some media attention. But who are we going for Mitt Romney? Yea, that seems worst to me.
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0 • Wack Feelings Nosign Cosign Ether GOAT LOL •