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| Bill Owens (top) and Alveda King (bottom) are both two anti-LGBTQ so-called black leaders trying to grab the spotlight by defending Trump's racist attacks on Baltimore and Congressman Elijah Cummings. |
So now Trump has started a new controversy with his racist comments against the city of Baltimore in an attempt to smear Congressman Elijah Cummings. He has been just about universally condemned, except for by a few - Republicans who either support or need him to fulfill their goals. And other folks who see it as an opportunity for spotlight. This latter category includes so-called black leaders who can always be counted on to publicly defend defend the racist excesses or the extreme agenda of the GOP. Recently, Trump met with a few of them in an attempt to blunt the firestorm he caused. What's interesting is that the LGBTQ community should recognize a few of these folks, and not in a good way.
From Mediate:
CNN’s Don Lemon confronted Reverend Bill Owens on meeting with President Donald Trump following his widely condemned attack on Baltimore and its Congressman, Elijah Cummings. Owens, the president of the coalition of African-American pastors, on Monday attended a meeting between Trump and a group of inner-city pastors
Lemon kicked off the interview by asking if any of the faith leaders raised concerns about the president’s attacks on “leaders of color.”
“I think something was said in passing,” Owens replied, though he tried to avoid addressing Trump’s remarks.
Lemon pressed, asking his question again. When Owens again dodged.
“So the president tweeted today he was looking forward to his meeting with wonderful inner-city pastors. Any concern for you that the president used this meeting with black leaders to insulate himself from the criticism?” Lemon asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think that at all because I have been to the White House four times in five months,” Owens said. “There was nothing about insulating from anything. He wanted to hear from us, what our concerns were and what he could do to help us.”
Lemon noted that Owens has “said some controversial things before” including in 2012 when he compared President Barack Obama’s support for same sex marriage to condoning child molestation (comments Owens walked back).
Unfortunately, the Mediaite article omitted a few things. Owens is the head of a group called the Coalition of African-American Pastors. It sounds legitimate, but it actually serves as a way for Owens to provide a black voice to conservatives for a price, particularly when it comes to anti-LGBTQ issues:
The National Organization for Marriage used CAAP in a failed attempt to sabotage President Obama's African-American support during the 2012 election.
Owens has admitted to being paid by organizations like NOM ($20,000), the Family Research Council, and the American Family Association to be a shill.
And to make matters worse, there have been serious questions - which Owens has never answered - as to whether or not he actually marched or participated at all in the Civil Rights Movement.
Not to be outdone, Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., added her two cents to the controversy. According to Newsweek:
Alveda King, the niece of iconic Civil Rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told Fox News on Tuesday that claims by Democrats, pundits and activists that President Donald Trump is a racist are inaccurate.
During a Tuesday morning segment of Fox & Friends, King appeared for an interview with the morning show's co-host Steve Doocy to discuss a meeting she and other African American pastors had with Trump at the White House and to comment on the president's recent attacks on Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings and his city, Baltimore. After Doocy played a clip of politicians and analysts criticizing the president and arguing that he is racist, King disagreed strongly.
"All of that news is absolutely fake," King, who formerly served as a representative in Georgia's State House, insisted. She told Doocy that the president told her and the others in their meeting this week that "he cares about all Americans."
The only thing fake about this situation is King. She is infamous for trading off her uncle's good name to grab the spotlight in a poor attempt cast herself as his heir apparent. And mostly at the expense of the LGBTQ community.
She has:
once said marriage equality was a facet of "reproductive genocide,"
claimed that marriage equality will ultimately harm children,
insulted Dr. King's late wife, Coretta, in 2010 by claiming that she knew Dr. King's heart better than Coretta because she possessed MLK's DNA while Coretta didn't.
And then there was that fiendish lie she told in 2012 about Bayard Rustin, the openly gay black man who coordinated the 1963 March on Washington. She claimed that Rustin tried to manipulate Dr. King into supporting gay rights. When I pressed her to provide evidence during a phone interview, she presented a flimsy explanation and then hung up.
Both Bill Owens and Alveda King once exploited the divisions in the African-American and the LGBTQ community to make a name for themselves. Now they seem to be intent on playing defense for Trump's racism for the same goal. It's something both the LGBTQ and African-American communities should take a note of before another silly argument of "who is oppressed the most" begins. It's always helpful to note that both communities have the same enemies.
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