Unity Fellowship Church Movement Speaks on Prop 8

UFCM NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ALERT

CONTACT: Elder Kevin E Taylor, President
UFCM National Office of Communications 732-214-0390


The House of Bishops of UFCM, Inc. Speak Out
Against CA Supreme Court Decision Upholding Prop 8



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Los Angeles – National UFCM Headquarters
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Earlier today, the California Supreme Court voted to uphold Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state, after a referendum vote in November 2008. The Court also elected to make a statement about the 18,000 same-sex couples who were able to marry in the interim period between their original May 2008 decision and the November vote, allowing those who were married prior to the referendum, to remain legally married. The decision threw out an argument by activists that Prop 8 unjustly modified California's equal protection clause within its Constitution, and would need legislature approval.

The announcement of the decision caused strong reaction from around the country and from the House of Bishops of the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, a denomination that includes many Lesbian, Gay, Transgender
and Bisexual members, though affirming to all people.

Founder and Presiding Prelate Archbishop Carl Bean and other clergy in the Western Jurisdiction have been actively engaged in the fight against Prop 8 in California. He noted that “this (issue) is the last hold-out of the regime of people who want to control people’s lives. The church has always had the right to determine whom they will marry in their own church, but the marriage contract is in the civil arena. Everyone ought to be able to partake in that civil practice. We need to stand firm on that right and not budge. We are a democracy. We are not a Theocracy! We as Black people surely should not shut up and be quiet after the experiences that we have had in this country around civil rights. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE!”

Bishop Jacquelyn Holland, Prelate of The Mid-Atlantic Jurisdiction, voiced encouragement and determination as her own home State of New Jersey grapples with marriage equality, which may go to a legislative vote later this year. “The decision, though disheartening, reminds us that the fight for equal rights must continue. It is imperative that we also remember the power of visibility. We are encouraged by the 18,000 couples that are able to stand, but this is really about lives. I am proud that we have churches (throughout the country) that are very much involved in this issue. This is social justice at its best.”

Bishop Zachary G. Jones, Prelate of The Northern Jurisdiction, which includes the State of New York, where Governor David Patterson has vowed his support of marriage for all, questioned, “How does America continue to live with this duality? How can we have couples in the same state who are able to be married, while others are left without legal protection? A divided house cannot stand. Eventually we will have to acknowledge that our civil rights, and the necessity of America to deal with the truth of this country, are the issues for the ages. We, as a country, as its people who love life and liberty, must struggle with what it really means to have equality!”

Bishop Tonyia Rawls, Prelate of The Southern Jurisdiction, which includes Washington, D.C., where marriage equality was supported by the City Council with a 12-1 vote. She serves on the Faith Advisory Council of the National Black Justice Coalition and added, “While I commend the (CA) Supreme Court for not denying 36,000 gay and lesbian American citizens who were married in CA the right to all of the privileges and protections that accompany said institution, we should, as a country, stand more resolute than ever to extend those privileges and protections to all. Marriage is the foundation upon which so many of the founding principles of this nation are built. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are for all. I beseech the citizens of CA and of this great nation of ours to fight for the right of all Americans to have legal marriage.”


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The primary work of the UFCM is to proclaim the “SACREDNESS OF ALL LIFE,” thus focusing on empowering those who have been oppressed and made to feel shame. Through an emerging international network, the UFCM works to facilitate social change and improve the life chances for those who have been rejected by society’s institutions and systems. The scope of its work is inclusive and has significance for all people.

Al Sharpton's Views on Anti-Gay Mega Church's

Al Sharpton Denounces Anti-Gay Black Mega-Church Pastors
http://www.nationalactionnetwork.net

When Rev. Al Sharpton is right the truth cuts like a knife. The reverend once again slams black mega-churches and major denominations for ignoring poverty and justice to focus on gays and marriage.

Sharpton delivered the keynote at the Human Rights Ecumenical Service at Atlanta's Tabernacle Baptist Church, probably the city's largest gay-friendly and inclusive black church. The good reverend used the opportunity to question the role of the Mormon Church—whichheavily bankrolled the Yes on 8 campaign—and the black mega-church pastors who mobilized congregations against gay marriage.

"There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you."

"It amazes me when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relega
ted] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life
partners."

"I am tired," he went on, "of seeing ministers who will preach homophobia by day, and then after they're preaching, when the lights are off they go cruising for trade...We know you're not preaching the Bible, because if you were preaching the Bible we would have heard from you. We would have heard from you when people were starving in California-- when they deregulated the economy and crashed Wall Street you had nothing to say. When Bush took us to war chasing weapons of mass destruction that weren't there you had nothing to say. But all of a sudden, when Proposition 8 came out, you had so much to say, but since you stepped in the rain, we're going to step in the rain with you."

This is not new for Sharpton. When the reverend ran for president in 2004, he was one of only two candidates to support full marriage equality. In June 2006 he told CNN, "There are no gay people coming to our churches asking to get married. But there are plenty of people coming with problems voting or their sons in jail."

The civil rights activist has never really gotten his due from the mainstream LGBT community or much of the black LGBT community outside the Tri-State. But how fierce is it to have a pastor speaking the truth we know oh-so-well about those anti-gay pastors who rant from the pulpit and "cruise for trade" at night? You'd better work it out, Rev. Al.

California: Attorney General Speaks Out Against on Prop. 8

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081220/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_lawsuits

The Prop 8 Blame Game

By Kai Wright | TheRoot.com


Why white gays and black homophobes both need a reality check.
Nov. 12, 2008--Somebody forgot to tell gay people that race wars are no longer in vogue.

While the rest of the country has spent the last week reveling in the afterglow of Grant Park, gay America has devolved into a Sarah Palin rally.

The issue is a particularly nasty California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which passed last Tuesday with just over half the vote. Prop 8 repealed a historic state Supreme Court ruling that gave gays the right to wed—and it appears to have won massive black support. That's a fact that ought to shame black folks everywhere.

But it also ought to finally convince the white-led gay rights movement to take people of color seriously, a case black gay activists have been trying to make for the better part of the past 30 years. Addressing the destructive reactions of too many of my white gay compatriots in recent days would be a good place to begin.

It started when a CNN exit poll declared that 70 percent of black voters supported the initiative. That finding led many in Cali's white gay community to conclude they lost their rights because of black homophobia. Things went downhill fast from there. Much of the ensuing outcry has been nasty, even hateful. As one college student wrote to the black gay blog Rod 2.0 in describing a Los Angeles protest, "It was like being at a Klan rally, except the Klansmen were wearing Abercrombie Polos and Birkenstocks. "


I wish his remark could be easily dismissed as hyperbole. The comment sections of blogs ranging from progressive standard-bearer DailyKos to black lesbian rabble rouser Jasmyne Cannick have been swarmed with racist rants and reports of slurs hurled at African Americans. Big-name gay scribes have piled on. By 10 a.m. the day after the election, popular columnist Dan Savage had shot off at the mouth, declaring himself "done pretending" that "the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans" aren't a bigger threat to gays than racist gays are to blacks. Whatever that means.


There is no question that homophobia runs deep in black America—or that it wreaks far more acute damage than denying marriage rights, frankly. Just ask the families of Sakia Gunn or Rashawn Brazell or any one of the scores of black queers whose murders have been met with a collective shrug in black communities. Or all the families destroyed by a raging AIDS epidemic we go on ignoring, in large part because of our uneasiness with sexuality of any sort, let alone the homo and bi and transgender kind. It's long past time black people have a conversation about this ugly reality.

But first, as with all things involving race and sex, there's a whole mess of facts about the California marriage fight that must be straightened out.

Not least of these is the shaky assertion that black voters made the difference. DailyKos diarist Shanikka has gained small celebrity for her post debunking it. The fact that blacks are densely clumped in just nine out of 58 California counties makes any race-based claim in CNN's geographically random sample muddy at best. Further, the poll excludes all of the state's 3 million early votes and counts blacks as 10 percent of voters when they're less than 7 percent of the population.
Of course, you don't have to get into such devilish details to notice something weird about this blame-the-blacks narrative.

Even if 70 percent truly did support the marriage ban, why single them out? So did six out of 10 people over 65. Ditto white Protestants and people with children under 18. Look at the electorate through any of these lenses and you identify a far larger share of the vote than when viewing it by race.
"The reason why people are so fascinated with the 70 percent number is Obama and this kumbaya moment that we were having," says Ron Buckmire, a leader in L.A.'s Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black gay group. "To discover that not everyone was in the same place was really shocking and surprising for some people."
It should have been a no-brainer.

The Mormon-funded, anti-gay side aggressively targeted every racial and ethnic group in California—often dishonestly. Anti-gay operatives launched a robo-call scheme directed at black voters that falsely claimed Barack Obama supported their initiative. Obama does not support gay marriage, but neither did he support Prop 8. (Not that Obama did a hell of a lot to counter the lie.) The underfunded, pro-gay side responded with too little, too late.


These shenanigans explain why many black voters supported the marriage ban. Still, that's no excuse. "I am far less concerned with a white gay backlash than I am with the need for us to have a dialogue within the African-American community about what it means to have equality," says H. Alexander Robinson, who heads the National Black Justice Coalition, a black gay rights group.

Here, here.

Let's be clear, these hateful repudiations of gay relationships hurt black people. According to the U.S. Census, 10.5 percent of same-sex households are black, and they are at least twice as likely to be raising kids as their white counterparts.

Denying these families access to civil marriage bars them from hundreds of rights and responsibilities.

Many black folks wince when they hear gay rights compared to the black civil rights movement. And when it comes from white gays whose only interest in black people is appropriating our history, I do too.

But here's what Coretta Scott King had to say, in an address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "Homophobia is as morally wrong and as unacceptable as racism," she declared. "We ought to extend to gay and lesbian people the same respect and dignity we claim for ourselves. Every person is a child of God, and every human being is entitled to full human rights."

The whole community faces consequences when those human rights are denied. Look no further than AIDS for proof. Black people were overrepresented from the epidemic's outset, but fear and hate of the gay men who bore its first burn paralyzed the community as the virus spread. Now black people account for half of all new infections.

At some point, we all must ask difficult, self-critical questions. No, as black people, we're not any more or less homophobic than anybody else. And yes, the white gay community needs to look at its own failures before casting blame on others.

But so what? Too many of us are homophobes, and we need to talk about it. Last Tuesday's vote should remove any doubt about the urgency of the discussion.

http://www.theroot. com/id/48845/ page/1


"I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Dr. King Feb. 28, 1954