Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would support LGBT Civil Rights
by Sylvia Rhue, Ph.D
Recently I spent an hour talking to Rev. Eric Lee, the President and CEO of the Los Angeles Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I told him how I met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964, my friends and I going door to door to raise money for the cause, how we saw Dr. King every time he came to Los Angeles. We talked about how the organizers of the King Day Parade in Atlanta invited Keith Boykin (one of the
founders of the National Black Justice Coalition) and I to walk at the front of the March to represent LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. I had just
been interviewed for an article on Black clergy responses to equal marriage rights for same-sex couples and I was asked how I felt about Black clergy who work against LGBT rights.
I told the journalist that if he had been around in the 60's during the Civil Rights
Movement he would know that many, many Black ministers didn't sign on to the Civil Rights Movement. In fact Dr. King was kicked out of the National Baptist Convention for his civil rights actions.
My conversation with Rev. Eric Lee was so important to me because Rev. Lee is a champion of universal rights for all people and he puts his heart, passion for justice, and credentials out there for LGBT people in a consistently dynamic way. He was front and center in the battle against Proposition 8 and he wrote a book entitled, "Prop 8 and the California Divide", and is about to embark on a book tour. Rev. Lee said, "I cannot side with religious persecution and the injustice of discrimination. It amazes me how quickly we side with the former oppressors to oppress others. It is a violation to deny someone the same rights that you have.
Scripture does not call people of God to pass laws to judge or condemn. People quote John 3:16, but they forget John 3:17 "'For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved'". (KJV)
Rev. Lee spoke recently with the man Rev. Jesse Jackson called "the teacher of the Civil Rights Movement". Dr. King called him "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world". We know him as Rev. James Lawson, the lionized and profoundly respected Civil Rights leader who taught nonviolent direct action to
the Freedom Riders, the student sit-ins and the Southern Campaigns. Rev. Lawson, a United Methodist minister, told Rev. Lee that King would stand with us if he were here. Yes, Dr. King would stand with us for LGBT rights.
Recently I spent an hour talking to Rev. Eric Lee, the President and CEO of the Los Angeles Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I told him how I met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964, my friends and I going door to door to raise money for the cause, how we saw Dr. King every time he came to Los Angeles. We talked about how the organizers of the King Day Parade in Atlanta invited Keith Boykin (one of the
founders of the National Black Justice Coalition) and I to walk at the front of the March to represent LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. I had just
been interviewed for an article on Black clergy responses to equal marriage rights for same-sex couples and I was asked how I felt about Black clergy who work against LGBT rights.
I told the journalist that if he had been around in the 60's during the Civil Rights
Movement he would know that many, many Black ministers didn't sign on to the Civil Rights Movement. In fact Dr. King was kicked out of the National Baptist Convention for his civil rights actions.
My conversation with Rev. Eric Lee was so important to me because Rev. Lee is a champion of universal rights for all people and he puts his heart, passion for justice, and credentials out there for LGBT people in a consistently dynamic way. He was front and center in the battle against Proposition 8 and he wrote a book entitled, "Prop 8 and the California Divide", and is about to embark on a book tour. Rev. Lee said, "I cannot side with religious persecution and the injustice of discrimination. It amazes me how quickly we side with the former oppressors to oppress others. It is a violation to deny someone the same rights that you have.
Scripture does not call people of God to pass laws to judge or condemn. People quote John 3:16, but they forget John 3:17 "'For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved'". (KJV)
Rev. Lee spoke recently with the man Rev. Jesse Jackson called "the teacher of the Civil Rights Movement". Dr. King called him "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world". We know him as Rev. James Lawson, the lionized and profoundly respected Civil Rights leader who taught nonviolent direct action to
the Freedom Riders, the student sit-ins and the Southern Campaigns. Rev. Lawson, a United Methodist minister, told Rev. Lee that King would stand with us if he were here. Yes, Dr. King would stand with us for LGBT rights.
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