According to the IndyStar:
Leaders from a dozen African-American churches held a prayer vigil today in the City-Council building in advance of an upcoming vote on a proposal to protect gays from discrimination — a proposal the church leaders firmly oppose.
Taking turns praying by name for each of the 29 members of the City-County Council, the church leaders asked God to help the elected leaders see the danger in the proposal, which they said threatens the very concept of a family unit.
Calling homosexuality a perverse “lifestyle choice” and an “abomination to God” that demands repentence, the church leaders also voiced anger that gay rights activists have likened their struggle to the civil rights movement.
“It is an offense to black people to be used – that the blood of our fathers and our own blood that was spilled on the pathways to civil rights should be used as a lever to get legal license to make their own choices law,” the Rev. Melvin Jackson, pastor at Christian Love Missionary Baptist Church and a participant in the civil rights marches of the 1960s, said after the vigil.
“I lived in it and it’s a lie. We are the sons and daughters of slaves who were held in chains physically and by the laws so that we could not exercise our will. These are people who can exercise their will, but they must not do it under the guise of civil rights.”
The proposal that would ban discrimination against gays in the workplace and the housing market is scheduled for a vote in mid-December.
Wow. I’m so stunned by the blatant homophobia and bigotry that I can’t even collect my thoughts. Unbelieveable that something so filled with hatred could come from the black community.
Let me repeat it so everyone can hear: YOUR RELIGION IS A CHOICE. It’s protected by the HRO, and it’s a choice — if you choose to be Buddhist, or Hindu, or Muslim, or Christian, or Jewish, it’s protected under the law, but it’s something you choose. I personally worship a giant monkey. And I can, because my choice is protected by the HRO.
My homosexuality on the other hand, is NOT A CHOICE. I didn’t pick it. I wouldn’t change it if I could, any more than any black person would deliberately go out and change the color of their skin. It’s a part of me. But I certainly didn’t choose it, any more than the color of my hair, my height, or any other part of me.
I’ve written this a billion times, and I’m writing it again. What makes me gay isn’t my behavior, it’s my feelings. Homosexuality isn’t about behavior, it’s about who you fall in love with and are attracted to. Choice has nothing to do with it.
Of course I could choose to marry a man and have a monogamous relationship with him for the rest of my life. But that wouldn’t make me heterosexual. That would make me a gay woman in a relationship with a man. A miserable relationship that I hated, he hated, and any children we had hated. It would be a destructive mess to everyone concerned. Want proof of that? If you’re heterosexual, picture yourself in a relationship with someone of your own sex. Think you could make it work? Think you would be happy? I thought not. Thousands of gay people have entered into relationships with someone of the opposite sex and can attest to the destruction and misery it causes.
I’m not even going to go into the “Abomination before God” bullshit, because, as I mentioned, I worship a giant monkey, and I don’t care what they hell these ministers are on about. They certainly shouldn’t be allowed to put their religious bullshit into law. I wonder why they got to have access to the city-county building. Can we get access to hold a prayer vigil in favor of Prop. 622? I want to pray to Hanuman about it.
