JEREMY REDMON | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Monday, January 19, 2009

Dozens of gay activists protested the Rev. Rick Warren’s speech Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative services outside Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Gathering at the corner of Jackson Street and Auburn Avenue, they hoisted signs declaring: “We still have a dream: Equality.” And they chanted: “Gay, straight, black or white, we demand our civil rights.”

Warren, a best-selling author and the pastor of an evangelical mega church in California, helped rally support in California to outlaw same-sex marriage.

“Rick Warren is not a voice of unity or equality,” said Jeff Schade, director of GLBTATL, which stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans gender Atlanta.

The gay community, meanwhile, is also angry with President-elect Barack Obama for choosing Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration on Tuesday.

Kristin Cole, a spokes woman for Warren, said the pastor would not comment before the inauguration. Cole, however, confirmed Warrens church believes “homosexuality is a sin” and that he urged his parishioners to support Proposition 8 in California, which amended the state constitution to ban gay marriage. At the same time, Cole pointed to Warrens work helping HI patients in the United ...   more »

Barack Obama invited Bishop Gene Robinson to give the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial concert on Sunday. This was supposed to ease the hurt of inviting anti-civil rights activist Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration.

Unfortunately, Obama doesn’t honor his commitments and excluded Bishop Robinson from the television coverage of the Lincoln Memorial concert. This betrayal puts the lie to the entire theme of the concert, “We Are One”. A more appropriate name for Obama’s concert would be, “We Are One, Except for the Fags”

This video is Bishop Gene Robinson’s invocation at the Lincoln Memorial. It was excluded from the televised program, so watch it at your own risk. Mr. Obama doesn’t want you to see this video.

I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Mildred Loving | Prepared for Delivery on June 12, 2007

The 40th Anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia Announcement

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom.

When Richard ...   more »

To me, a Black Gay man who has endured both racism and heterosexism, and who sees no difference in the kind of discrimination they generate, this debate has always sounded silly. — Stuffed Animal

Parts One & Two | Stuffed Animal | Dec 31, 2008

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s April 1963 Letter From A Birmingham Jail is one of the defining documents of the American anti-segregation movement. Just about anybody who was alive in the early 1960s has heard of it. Dr. King wrote the Letter during a period of incarceration in Birmingham, Alabama. This was one of numerous occasions when civil disobedience on behalf of racial equality landed him behind bars. If the work MLK put into his Birmingham Jail essay is any indication, he certainly used his time in lock-up constructively. It was written in response to a public statement by eight White Alabama clergymen who opposed the confrontational tactics he used. They’d denounced him for leading street demonstrations, and argued that other, less disruptive means should be used to combat institutionalized racism.

It should come as no surprise that Dr. King’s oratory was no less powerful on paper than it was in the pulpit. After publication in the 12 June ...   more »