NOM's Brian Brown tried to steal Bayard Rustin's legacy during recent debate

Bayard Rustin

One thing said during the debate between NOM's Brian Brown and Freedom to Marry Evan Wolfson last week got my blood boiling.

And this morning, I am still pissed.

More to the point, I'm pissed off to the highest levels of "pissivity."

The reason for this is a claim Brown made during the debate. It happened at 6:20 when he was attempting to refute a point Wolfson made regarding on the unfairness of voting on people's rights. During his point, Wolfson brought up Congressman and civil rights legend John Lewis. This is what Brown said:

And while Evan brings up Congressman Lewis, Dr. Walter Fauntroy who organized Dr. King's March on Washington . . . actually supports the notion that people should vote on this."

Brown then goes on a tangent about how African-Americans supposedly oppose marriage equality at a high number. Of course Wolfson refutes this notion, but let's just analyze Brown's above statement.

 How dare he.

Walter Fauntroy is a former Congressman and a civil rights legend. He was one of the coordinators of the March on Washington. He was the D.C. Coordinator. But he did not organize the march.

That designation belongs to Bayard Rustin, an openly gay African-American who, until recently, never got his due.

It was Rustin who was the chief organizer. He was the planner. According to The Washington Post, Rustin was "the man widely viewed as the only civil rights activist capable of pulling off a protest of such unprecedented scale."

I know it is in the game plan of NOM to play the gay and black communities against one another, but to yank proper credit from Bayard Rustin for his role in the March on Washington and assign it to another black leader supporting NOM's position goes beyond the pale. It's insulting to me as a gay man and an African-American.

Regardless of whether this gaffe by Brian was intentional or not,  it says a lot about what he and NOM actually thinks about the black community.

And that's not much.

If the gaffe was intentional, it demonstrates how Brown and NOM are willing to exploit the African-American community, even at the point of altering our history to suit their agenda.

And if Brown's comments was not intentional, then the implications are worse. It demonstrates that NOM and Brown doesn't care enough about black people to get our history correct. All that matters to them is the success of manipulating the black community against the gay community.

I sincerely hope those black leaders who are kissing up to NOM are paying attention.

But who am I kidding? Even if they were, I doubt it would make a difference.

Who needs integrity when publicity (and most likely money) calls?