Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJuly 10th, 2009
Rev. Eric Lee, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has been a valuable ally for marriage equality. He is a principled man (religiously conservative) who opposes discrimination where he sees it.
But Lee’s opposition to bigotry and bias has now gotten him in trouble with a group that was founded on the principles of equality for all. (NY Times)
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the 50-year-old civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, is seeking to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter in response to his support of same-sex marriage in California.
But those in the national organization may not be able to insist on endorsing discrimination in Southern California.
Because chapters of the leadership conference operate autonomously and presidents are picked by local boards, it is not clear that the national organization has the authority to remove Mr. Lee from his post, which he has held for two years.
“It\’s been our position that the local board hired him,” said Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, chairman of the local board and secretary of the California Democratic Party. “And, in fact, we are also the ones that approved his stance on the position of marriage equality. We have asked the national board if we have violated any procedures, and we have not gotten an answer.”
Rev. Lee is sacrificing and taking the tough road and facing hardship and standing up to opposition in order to speak the difficult and unwanted message that “any time you deny one group of people the same right that other groups have that is a clear violation of civil rights”.
Dr. King would be proud.
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Regan DuCasse
July 10th, 2009
I LOVE this man! I LOVE him. He has been an inspiration to me. He and Lt. Daniel Choi are the most powerful speakers who come from experience, grace and most of all courage.
He will stand his ground with us. Bet on it.
Even if the SCLC on the national level tries to threaten him.
It’s a shame that a group venerated for it’s anti discrimination accords, found a group even they can discriminate against and use the very tactics of segregationists to do it.
Plus ca change, plus le meme chose…
Burr
July 10th, 2009
Don’t they realize one of the organizers of the march on Washington was gay and an activist on that front as well? MLK worked with him and stood up for him. His wife and daughters campaigned for marriage equality.
Way to spit on his legacy.
a. mcewen
July 10th, 2009
SCLC has been dying since the late 60s. It has not regained the stature it had when King was leading it.
Also, didn’t Bayard Rustin, a gay black man, help to start the group?
Richard Wood
July 10th, 2009
“Daughters”? Incorrect. Dr. King’s daughter Bernice, the only one of his children to become a minister, rejects homosexual marriage and has frequently spoken against it. But I’m sure she’s a horrible monster who is defiling her father’s legacy, right? I mean, you are the one who determines such things, n’est-ce pas?
----
July 10th, 2009
MLK was a liberal theologian (he rejected the virgin birth, miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus). If her anti-gay daughter literally believes in those things, isn’t that defiling her father’s legacy either?
Christopher Waldrop
July 11th, 2009
But I’m sure she’s a horrible monster who is defiling her father’s legacy, right? I mean, you are the one who determines such things, n’est-ce pas?
Richard, what you’re doing is called “projection”.
Burr
July 11th, 2009
Did I say horrible monster?
Projection indeed.
I hope you atone for your sins one day, Richard. I love you, but hate your sin. :)
Burr
July 11th, 2009
BTW you lied again Richard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolanda_King
“, a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a sponsor of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Human Rights Campaign, and held a lifetime membership in the NAACP.”
Thanks for playing!
Ben
July 11th, 2009
I think it’s horrible what they are trying to do to Rev. Lee. Yolanda King was a member of the SCLC and also supported HRC prior to her death.
Bayard Rustin helped found the SCLC, but was forced out in 1960 by Rep Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Marlene
July 11th, 2009
First: It’s Dr. King’s *niece* who’s the bigot, not Yolanda!
Second: Many members of the SCLC tried to force Bayard Rustin out of his role in organizing the 1962 March on Washington, but A. Philip Randolph told them if Bayard was forced out, he would leave in protest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin
Richard Wood
July 11th, 2009
What a crowd. Skilled researchers.
The relevant daughter of MLK (and she is his daughter, not his niece) is Bernice King.
If the gang of you cannot even google effectively, how can you be expected to reason effectively about more complex things?
Regan DuCasse
July 11th, 2009
Berniece King wasn’t always that way. In fact, she was part of a book on black clergy and their gay congregants.
All of these black ministers expressed support of gay equality, gay people as members of a class of people deserving of justice and the common threads of discrimination we share.
I forget the name of the book, but it included Rev. Cecil Murray of First AME Church here in Los Angeles. Maybe it can be found if you Google his name.
B. King was unequivocal before in siding with her mother and sister on this issue.
She changed up, and in such a quiet way, no one had a chance to really challenge her on why she did. I don’t know if it had anything to do with attaching herself to a megachurch in Atlanta, whose pastor is very homophobic.
She took the side where the butter is spread as far as I’m concerned.
There is nothing that could make me do that. Absolutely nothing. I think switching up is especially gutless when it’s lives and freedom at stake, not chosen ideology and the commercialization of God.
Richard Wood
July 11th, 2009
“Lives at stake.” Right, there’ll be a spate of homosexual deaths if they’re not permitted to marry.
RDM
July 11th, 2009
Richard:
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before snarking on the internet.
RDM
July 11th, 2009
Richard:
Perhaps you weren’t aware that homophobia kills.
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before snarking on the internet.
Richard Wood
July 12th, 2009
Not a response, RDM. Demonstrate that denying homosexual marriage kills homosexuals. This site claims to be so much about ‘facts.’ Where is the evidence that Bernice King opposing homosexual marriage leads to the loss of “lives,” as the original claim from Burr has it? There is none, and you know it.
This kind of thing is why most people don’t take the claims of the extreme homosexual activist community seriously. For you, principled, reasoned, and legal opposition to the normalization of homosexuality in American culture and law is equal to the actions of thugs on the street who beat up homosexuals. That’s a position that cannot be taken seriously by serious people.
I find it amusing that there’s so much verbiage here about the need to distinguish the ‘respectable’ homosexuals posting here from the people running about dressed as women (and worse) at gay pride parades who inevitably get a negative reaction from mainstream America, yet at the same time there’s a constant effort to reduce everyone on the other side to Nazi thugs punching people and shooting them dead. Not very consistent, and not very honest.
Richard Wood
July 12th, 2009
Since my last post to this issue has apparently been censored, let me repeat that Burr and Marlene are incorrect. Bernice King is MLK’s *daughter* (not his niece) and she opposes homosexual marriage.
Richard Wood
July 12th, 2009
Is “switching up gutless” when it’s a matter of leaving a spouse and children in the lurch? Don’t newly converted homosexuals do this all the time?
Funny how their choices are to be respected, but Bernice King’s decision to change her position on homosexual marriage is not. Oh, we’ll hear, but the first is not a choice; they were always homosexual and merely asserted the original truth. Well, maybe Dr. King’s daughter was always really aware of the moral disaster of homosexual marriage and merely expressed that original truth in taking her current stance.
----
July 12th, 2009
“Principled, reasoned, and legal” opposition to the integration of blacks in American culture and law might not have been the same as beating them up, but that didn’t make it any less bigoted or unjust.
Richard Wood
July 12th, 2009
I’d bet my last paycheck that you’re not black, —-. You might be homosexual, but contrary to what some of you apparently believe, those two things are not the same, nor can they even be remotely equated.
And let me inform you of a few things you might not know:
No homosexuals are being systematically prevented from voting in whole regions of the country, so far as I can tell from the news.
Nor are they being systematically prevented from going to schools with heterosexuals, or from being judged on their job-related merits when they apply for positions and advancements.
Nor are they being systematically prevented from holding political office.
Nor are they being kept in impoverished ghettos by prejudiced social structures that ensure they will never achieve to their individual merits.
When homosexuals are facing all of those situations, let’s revisit the comparison. In the meantime, you’d do well to get off this desire to be the civil rights movement of the 1960s the second time around, because the facts don’t even REMOTELY support that claim.
David Scott
July 12th, 2009
Although, I personally am so far to the left that even the democrats appear to me to be “right-wing,” I consider myself to be a strict constitutionalist. It is my opinion that since its inception there has been an organized and systematic assault by the conservatives in the United States on the civil liberties written into the US Constitution. The “War on Drugsâ€; “War on Terrorâ€; “War on Communism†and a host of other wars waged by the right wing are really nothing more than a War on People–an excuse to erode civil rights to the point of non-existence. I invite you to my website devoted to raising awareness on this puritan attack on freedom: http://pltcldscsn.blogspot.com/
Jason D
July 12th, 2009
Richard, don’t give us such an easy pitch
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2008/02/25/1476
So yes, people’s very lives are at stake.
Then there’s this case.
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/tag/hospital-visitation
One thing not noted in the boxturtle article, when hospitals ignore a spouse, they loose out on valuable health information that can literally kill the patient if the doctors are not aware, such as allergies and any medications they may be on.
Richard Wood
July 12th, 2009
An easy pitch? Then why’d you swing and miss, Jason?
Those cases don’t prove that denying homosexual marriage kills people. They prove that hospital care is imperfect and sometimes medical professionals make mistakes. The reason those two people died have nothing to do with the fact that they weren’t “married” to their homosexual partners; indeed, there is absolutely no reason to believe either of them would have fared better if they HAD been so “married.” Do you really think the hospital in the second case gave the wrong meds simply b/c they wanted to spite the homosexual partner? They gave the meds they did b/c this is a stock response to such cases. That’s how medical professionals FREQUENTLY respond–via direct access to whatever abstract rules they know to apply, not to concrete data coming from non-medical professionals, married to the sick person or not.
Totally unconvincing.
Next I’m sure you’ll claim global warming is contributed to by the fact that homosexuals cannot marry.
Richard Wood
July 12th, 2009
Doesn’t appear likely I’m going to be allowed to post anything else (unless perhaps I experience a sudden conversion and start mouthing the party line around here). Numerous responses have been “awaiting moderation” all day.
Right on, then. Enjoy your echo chamber.
[Few persons who comment are on moderation. Those who are (usually due to previous violations of comment policy) have to wait until their comments have been reviewed. This is done at the convenience of the moderators and may not meet the desires of those on moderation – which is a good reason not to be a troll in the first place.]
Timothy Kincaid
July 13th, 2009
Perhaps you should be less amused, Richard. You won’t find any of those observations at this site. There is no verbage about ‘respectable homosexuals’ here nor any reduction of others to Nazi thugs.
Comments that are obviously false, such as these, do not lend credibility to your arguments. Frankly, they make you seem like a ranting loon.
Priya Lynn
July 13th, 2009
Richard, you claim to be an atheist, on what basis do you consider equal marriage to be a moral disaster?
Jason D
July 13th, 2009
“Those cases don’t prove that denying homosexual marriage kills people.”
It proves their lives are at stake, which is what the original comment was in regards to. Lives at stake.
“They prove that hospital care is imperfect and sometimes medical professionals make mistakes.”
Like denying legal partners visitations rights? I doubt married couples routinely have this complaint. And that’s the point. Faxing over medical legal documents is cumbersome, and apparently didn’t make any difference. Which is part of our argument: Nothing short of marriage is good enough.
“The reason those two people died have nothing to do with the fact that they weren’t “married†to their homosexual partners; indeed, there is absolutely no reason to believe either of them would have fared better if they HAD been so “married.†”
Wow, you can’t even be bothered to read what’s presented to you before you fire back. Only one person died, but the other could’ve.
“Do you really think the hospital in the second case gave the wrong meds simply b/c they wanted to spite the homosexual partner?”
No, Dick, they did so because they refused to listen to her partner or allow visitation — which could’ve been deadly under the circumstances, and that was part of my point. By refusing the allow visitation, and refusing to listen to our partners — medical professionals put our lives at risk. Just like the docs who gave the wrong medication, even after being told NOT to give her that medication, put her life at risk. If that woman had been the legally married spouse, she could’ve sued the doctor quite easily at the very least.
“They gave the meds they did b/c this is a stock response to such cases.”
NO. They gave the meds they did because they refused to acknowledge the patient’s partner, you are now LYING:
“But the hospital wouldn’t let me see Kristen and ignored my advice about her treatment. They ended up giving her the exact medication I repeatedly asked them not to give her.â€
Would they have second guessed a straight spouse? Unlikely, not with medical malpractice and wrongful death suits hanging over their heads. With this case, because they’re not required to recognize the relationship, they’re allowed to ignore the only person who knows the patient’s medical history, and yes, Richard, that puts people’s lives at risk.
Jason D
July 13th, 2009
and just as a side note, a married spouse is legal next of kin. Doctors are REQUIRED to obey their wishes.
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