Black clergy's silence hurts gays

Black clergy's silence hurts gays
Commentary by Yolanda Young
Fri Mar 10, 7:00 AM ET

The Republican Party continues to use the issue of gay marriage as an inroad to garner the support of black ministers - and black voters.

President Bush's offering to Herbert Lusk, an African-American minister opposed to homosexuality, of appointment to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS is only the latest maneuver.

While a few black ministers have called for greater acceptance of gays and lesbians - such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was recently a speaker at the Black Church Summit organized by gay advocates - most reject both of these extremes, choosing instead to remain silent on this issue.

Consider a joint statement issued last year by four Baptist denomination leaders, representing close to 15 million members, offering positions on everything from the war in Iraq to support of a national living wage. But one issue that is arguably the most divisive within religious organizations went unaddressed: same-sex marriage.

In an attempt at unity, the Rev. William Shaw, who heads the 7 million-member National Baptist Convention USA, has shown a lukewarm tolerance for gay marriage, which he says is not the sole determinant on moral issues. Even so, he doesn't go far enough.

The church's tepid stance lends more credence to marginal groups bent on using the gay marriage issue to establish the Republican Party as the moral party:

• Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. travels the country enlisting signatures for his "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," which stresses that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

• African-American pastors making up the group Not On My Watch rallied in Arlington, Texas, in support of a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

• The Rev. William Owens heads the Coalition of African-American Pastors in Memphis, aimed at thwarting efforts to allow gays to marry.

With proposals to ban same-sex marriage on the ballots in at least six states - Alabama, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Idaho and Wisconsin - turning the black homosexual into the latest political boogeyman will undoubtedly prove valuable to the Republican Party, perhaps proving the tipping point in close midterm elections this November.

There is an oft-quoted scripture in Revelation 3:16: "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." This might well be the fate of the silent religious majority and the Democratic Party, unless black clergy are willing to deliver a message of acceptance as impassioned as that of their conservative counterparts.

Yolanda Young is author of On Our Way To Beautiful.

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