The Coalition of African American Pastors wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama to request a meeting with the president, as they argued that he is wrong to support gay marriage.
“Let us speak with you and President Barack Obama about the issue of same sex marriage,” the Rev. William Owens, founder of CAAP, said in the letter. “If President Obama changed his mind, let him consider changing it again.”
Owens added that “President Obama is the fulfillment of our dreams for our sons–and he has broken our hearts by using his power and position to endorse as a civil right something that is simply wrong.”
Obama came out in favor of gay marriage, at least on a personal level, in early May. “I’ve been going through an evolution on this issue. I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” he told ABC. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
He argued that Martin Luther King would oppose gay marriage. Here is the quotation from King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail that Owens cited, in which King denounced Jim Crow laws and articulated his understanding of civil rights:
How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made
code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that isout of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
Owens asked Holder and Obama to show “residual respect” for the black pastors who supported King and now oppose gay marriage by meeting with CAAP officials.
Gay marriage is broadly-opposed in the black community, which Democrats rely upon in every election to support their party overwhelmingly. “If black voter participation can be diminished even by ten percent it will make that critical difference all across the country,” Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., told a group of black pastorsearlier this week.
