Join Black LGBT of LA in a Peaceful March

Organized by "Love at Work - The Exchange"

Join the Black LGBT of Los Angeles in a peaceful march to protest the passage of

Proposition 8!

WHEN: Sunday, November 23, at 11:00am, march beings at 11:30am
WHERE: AT Leimert Park Fountain (Corner of Vernon and Crenshaw). The march route is north on Crenshaw Blvd. to King Blvdl and then back to Leimer Park. A

All gay, lesbian, queer, same-gender loving, bi-sexual, transgender, their families, friends and supporters are invited to come out and participate.

Please feel free to bring your own signs and bring your own drinking water.

PLEASE DO NOT WEAR RED OR BLUE.

*There will not be a rally at leimert park afterward*

For further information, please contact Rev. Freda Lanoix at revfreda@aol.Com or at myspace.Com/revfreda.

"How Getting Married Made Me An Activist"

An interesting essay, "How Getting Married Made Me An Activist" by David J. Jefferson, out in this week's Newsweek, reminded me of the rich history of the fight for gay rights. It's also reminded me, and made me sad to think, that it took a stripping away of a right granted to us (a right that is and should've been inherent) to wake us up from our complacency.

I hope this complacency never returns. I hope that this fire burning in us, urging us to not let something like Prop 8, and the violation of gay rights in Arkansas and Florida and elsewhere, happen again nor let us stop fighting to repeal these injustices. I hope that we don't let a majority continue to shame us so that we hide our faces from the masses, like we did in our ads against Prop 8. I hope that we remember that we DO have a long history of gay marriages (the Romans performed gay marriages before Christianity stepped in! Again! Or should I say, for the first time!), and that this isn't a new "special right" we're asking for, but a guaranteed right as tax-paying citizens. And I hope we remember, first and foremost, that this isn't just about our rights, but we're fighting to keep the core principles of our Founding Fathers from being manipulated and changed - we're fighting to keep those principles alive. Without these self-evident truths, without the declaration that "all men are created equal," we wouldn't have the right to fight in the first place, or to claim our "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

California Is Not Alone

Time.com presents a video about the fall out of the gay marriage ban in Florida, focusing on the African American community. It offers a great insight to both sides of the issue.

Time.com does not allow embedding of their videos, so here is the link.

Time.com - In Florida, Fall Out From a Gay Marriage Ban

California Supreme Court WILL Hear Cases on Prop 8

Read the Los Angeles Times article.

It also reports that Prop 8 supporters will immediately campaign to oust any judge who votes to overturn Prop 8. We as community CANNOT let that happen. We need to prepare NOW, in advance, to act against such manipulation of the judicial system.

Keep posted here.

UPDATE: The court HAS decided to rule on the Prop 8 case, but not until early next year. Which gives us more time develop strategies on the grassroots level, and, of course, to protest.

The STAY on Prop 8 was denied however, meaning, no same-sex marriages in the interim.

CNN Article Here

Los Angeles Times article here

New York's Fight for Same-Sex Marriage

Another amazing blog full of information, Queers United, has reported that New York's fight for same-sex marriage is looking rather grim. Check out their report here to see what you can do to support the fight.

Andrew Sullivan says we lost . . .

. . . and to let Prop 8 stand. He says that it was a fair fight (I think some of us beg to differ) and we didn't win. Read his post on the Daily Dish.

Our guest poster, Brad Parr, who did a great job informing us yesterday, in layman's terms, about the legal fight against Prop 8, (read his post here) responded and was posted on the Daily Dish as one of the "dissents of the day." It's a great read. Highly recommend it. It's the blunt one.

Proposition 8 is NOT about Black Homophobia

This is was issued from:



Written by: BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not-So-Everyday Moments. As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com


"I have learned as both a pastor and also as a member belonging to several minority groups - African-American, women and lesbian - that a popular opinion on a civil rights issue does not always reflect the right choice. Too often the right choice and the moral high ground on an issue derive from small struggling groups trying both to be seen and heard among the cacophony of dissenting voices and opposing votes. And it is with these groups that we see democracy's tenacity working, where those relegated to the fringes of society can begin to sample what those in society take for granted as their inalienable right like the right for all of its citizens to marry.

"Last week we saw democracy work with the election of Barack Obama as our country's first African American president. My enslaved ancestors who built the White House could have never imagined that one of their progenies would one day occupy it. But we also saw last week, on the same day, how democracy didn't work for its LGBTQ citizens with the passing of Proposition 8, an amendment to the California Constitution eliminating marriage equality for same-sex couples, after the California Supreme Court ruled in May that a "separate and unequal" system of domestic partnership for same-sex couples is not only blatantly discriminatory but it is also unconstitutional.

"While California's gay community places blame on African Americans for the passing of Proposition 8, we were one of many interest groups backing the amendment. And although we are just 6.2 percent of the state's overall population we can't wash our hands clean by saying other interest groups are just as culpable.

"Seven out of ten of us pulled a lever to deny another minority groups their civil rights. And while the pollsters and pundits say that religion was our reason, as African American we have always discarded damning and damaging statements and scriptures about us in the name of religion like biblical passages that either cursed all people of African ancestry (The Curse of Ham, Genesis 9:18-27) or advocated slavery (Ephesians 6:5-8).

"Many Proposition 8 supporters voted yes believing the future traditional family was at stake. But when society narrowly defines marriage as solely the union between a man and a woman, it ignores the constantly changing configuration of today's family units. And the African American community knows this best. While African American ministers will argue for the traditional nuclear family, the stresses and strains of racism has and continues to thwart the possibility. So we created our own family structures.

"Therefore, multiple family structures presented by same-sex marriages should not pose a threat to the African-American community because they are what have sustained, saved and are still saving African-American families. A grandmother or an aunt and uncle - straight or gay - raising us in their loving home have anchored our families through the centuries. And these multiple family structures, which we have had to devise as a model of resistance and liberation, have always, by example, shown the rest of society what really constitutes family- its spiritual content and not is physical composition.

"Unfortunately, civil rights struggles in this country have primarily been understood, reported on and advocated within the context of African American struggles.

"The present-day contentious debate between black and queer communities, concerning what constitutes a legitimate civil rights issue and which group owns the right to use the term, is both fueled and ignored by systemic efforts by our government that deliberately pit both groups against each other rather than upholding the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that afford each of these marginal groups their inalienable rights.

"While it is true that the white LGBTQ community needs to work on its racism, white privilege, and single-issue platform that thwart all efforts for coalition building with both straight and queer communities of color, the African-American community needs to work on its homophobia.

"The blame of the passing of Proposition 8 should not be placed on the shoulders of blacks, Latinos or even religion, but rather the blame should rightly be placed on the shoulders of our government.

"To have framed our civil rights as a ballot question for a popular vote was both wrong-hearted and wrong-headed. If my enslaved ancestors had waited for their slaveholders to free them, predicated on a ballot vote we all wouldn't be living in the America we know today. And Barack Obama would not be our president-elect."