Dear Alveda King, your lie about Bayard Rustin will NOT go unanswered!

Now Alveda King is lying about Bayard Rustin.

Dear Ms. Alveda King,

Bayard Rustin

I have watched your "career" as an "activist" and a "leader" over the years with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. I was amused as to how you were suddenly anointed as a voice for the black community simply because you are Martin Luther King, Jr's niece.

And I was a bit annoyed at your nasty attack on Coretta Scott King two years ago when you implied that you knew MLK's heart better than her because you "had his DNA and she didn't."

However, your recent comments have led me to a state that goes beyond annoyance. Comments you made about the late Bayard Rustin make it necessary that I call you out for your blatant dishonesty.

You said:

"The 21st century homosexual lobby likes to point to the professional relationship between my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bayard Rustin, his openly homosexual staffer who left the movement at the height of the campaign. Rustin attempted to convince Uncle M. L. that homosexual rights were equal with civil rights. Uncle M. L. did not agree, and would not attach the homosexual agenda to the 20th century civil rights struggles. So Mr. Rustin resigned.

I would like to know where you received your information concerning this claim and until you show this information, I feel safe in calling you out as a boldfaced liar.

According to several sources, most specifically the excellent book Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emilio, Rustin resigned because prominent black leaders, specifically the late Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, had gotten jealous of King's influence and were going to accuse him and the openly gay Rustin of being lovers.

It was some of these same leaders who did not want Rustin to have anything to do with the 1963 March on Washington, but labor leader A. Philip Randolph insisted that Rustin be involved. And as you SHOULD know, this was a good move because Rustin was the architect of that successful march.

Furthermore Rustin began speaking about gay issues in the 1980s at the behest of his partner, Walter Naegle. This was over two decades after MLK's death.

Ms. King, you like to talk about the so-called sin of homosexuality, but let me remind you that the Bible also says something against bearing false witness.

And between me and you, from one African-American to another, I would personally like to know just what constitutes you as a genuine leader in the black community?

To my knowledge, no one has taken the initiative to ask you that question, so I would like to. Do you really think that your relationship to one of the greatest American leaders of the 20th century makes you a leader?

I don't think so. On my father's side of my family, I am a distant cousin to the rapper Lil Bow Wow, but at no time have I rushed to a record company demanding a contract.

Ms. King, it takes more than familial connections to make one a leader. Allow me to school you on the qualities.

A leader sacrifices for others.

A leader does not seek the spotlight.

A leader works his or her fingers to the bone for a cause.

A leader inspires others.

A leader puts him or herself on the line more than once even though success of the cause may not be assured.

Bayard Rustin had all of these qualities. You have none of them. Ever since you have shown your face in the public arena, the only person you seemed to have cared about is yourself. You inspire no one. You do the least amount of work. And worst of all, none of your fame comes from anything you have done, but only due to the fact that you had the good fortune to be related to Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you didn't have this familial relation, no one would care about anything you say.

So please stop lying to yourself as to your status and your impact. You have neither.

And while I detest how you are reaping the benefits of your uncle's hard work, I have nothing to do with it.

BUT I will be damned if I say nothing while you besmirch the name of a man whose hard work put you in your pseudo-prominent situation.

Bayard Rustin was a leader in every sense of the word.

You aren't. And while you may have King's DNA, you are sorely lacking in his integrity or love.

You go and make your money, now.

Consider yourself checked and dismissed.

'40 Faces of Homophobia' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

40 Faces Of Homophobia Around The World - This is a disgusting but necessary photo essay.  People need to see this to get an understanding of what our community has to deal with. If this gets you angry, good. Do something positive with your anger. And the following two examples from the photo essay should give you incentive:

In other news  

Pastor "Beat Gay Kids" Denounces Pastor "Put Them In Concentration Camps" - One bigot denounces another. Would spontaneous combustion be something to wish for here?

 POLL: African American Support For Marriage Equality Is Higher Than General Population - Well that's one myth (black folks are more homophobic than the general population) shot to pieces.

Miranda Salman: Transgender Soccer Player Defies Prejudice Against LGBT Community (VIDEO) - Good for her! 

 American Family Association, Family Research Council Attack Target for Selling 'Pride' T-Shirts - Come on guys! Surely there is a school with a gay/straight alliance you can demonize. This is just ridiculous. 

Gay community - pay attention to Fox News

I've mentioned this slightly and now I am making a full post about it because I feel that it is an important issue.

The gay community needs to keep an eye out for Fox News.

The claim that Fox News is "fair and balanced" is the biggest joke out there, period. The network pushes conservative propaganda even to the point that reporters show their bias by arguing with guests they don't agree with and conducting one-sided interviews with folks whose issues they do agree with.

How Fox News has tried to consistently undermine President Obama will be a widely discussed issue in classrooms for years to come

But the gay community should be forewarned that Fox News also has a negative eye cast upon us.

The blog Equality Matters casts a spotlight on Fox News by how its resident "doctor," Keith Ablow, has demonized the gay community:

Ablow is notorious for peddling the false idea that children might decide to identify as transgender if they see a happy transgender person – like Dancing with the Stars’ Chaz Bono – on television. He’s also suggested that using pink nail polish and having same-sex parents might similarly cause children to abandon their gender identity. He’s been open about his belief that transgender people are suffering from "psychotic delusions" and should be encouraged, through therapy, to identify as their biological sex.

Ablow has also voiced his support for the claim that homosexuality is a product of environmental factors and, as a result, can be changed or reversed. In the past year alone, Ablow has argued that:

• Homosexuality can be caused by environmental factors, including a lack of access to women
• Homosexuality can be caused by "unresolved issues" with important females in adolescence
• Homosexuality is a “lifestyle choice”

And last week, Ablow condemned the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for declassifying Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality (EDH) as a mental illness in 1987. EDH, which was the diagnosis given to people who were distressed by their same-sex attractions, continues to play an important role in the pseudoscientific research produced by modern “ex-gay” groups today.

Ablow has also attacked same-sex parenting by falsely claiming that there is no data to determine the psychological effects to children. Equality Matters points out just how wrong he is.

I might point out that Ablow was a member of Truth4Time, the secret anti-gay Facebook group whose plans to disrupt the gay community was made public earlier this year.

But Ablow is just one problem that the gay community could potentially see with Fox News. As I said before, reporters on the network sometimes conduct extremely soft interviews with media figures.

Imagine Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage or Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council being allowed to spout lies about the gay community, not only unchallenged but also helped along by a person who is supposed to ask them questions designed to get to the bottom of the issue, but instead elects to aid and abet their propaganda.

It's a scary thought indeed. And we need to ask ourselves how close it is to becoming a reality.

Church members support pastor's call to imprison gays behind electrified fence

By now, we all know about Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church, NC and his sermon advocating imprisoning gays within an electrified fence so that we may die out.

But here is another sad part of the story. Members of his congregation support him:



Mark my words. Gays and lesbians are not the destroyers of Christianity. Some of these folks are doing an excellent job of it themselves and if those Christians who are shocked by this just simply stand aside and say nothing, then they are cowards.

It's easy to get angry at this madness but just remember one thing. The more ignorant people talk about destroying others, the more they destroy themselves. Hang tight brothers and sisters!

Hat tip to Towleroad

NAACP attacked by 'The Vultures' for its support of marriage equality

Alveda King is a sad woman living off her uncle's name.

When the NAACP passed a resolution support marriage equality, I knew that THEY were coming.

By "THEY," I am talking about a group of wannabe black leaders who I like to refer to colloquially as "The Vultures."

These folks claim to lead "big time" organizations with important sounding names. Something like "The High Impact Leadership Coalition" or "Brotherhood for a New Destiny" or "Center for Urban Renewal and Education."

I should tell you right now that these organizations are astroturfed. They don't speak for the black community because a vast majority of us have never heard of them. And why should we? Whenever there needs to be a true voice in the black community addressing issues such as poverty or socio-economic equality, these groups are never around.

They exist only as convenient black faces to be trotted out by conservatives or the religious right when it comes to issues of race. These so-called black leaders don't care about the black community because they are too busy telling some whites what they want to hear about the black community.

That's all they do. That's the only reason why they exist.

And in the case of the NAACP accepting marriage equality, these folks are in rare form. Religious Right Watch covers what several of them had to say:

Stephen Broden, a Republican politician who has said that the violent overthrow of the government should be “on the table,” dubbed the NAACP “irrelevant”:

Stephen Broden, pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, notes that the black community is suffering from soaring unemployment, an extraordinarily high rate of abortions, a high school drop out rate among black teenagers that is breathtaking, an exploding rate of single parent households and the decimation of black families.

Yet, Broden says, the NAACP is making statements about same-sex marriage. “The NAACP has proven again to be an irrelevant organization as it relates to issues of survival for the black community,” says Broden who co-authored Life at All Costs with King and Gardner. The book addresses issues such as abortion and homosexuality.

Domestic violence perpetrator turned “pro-family” activist Timothy Johnson called on African Americans to ditch the NAACP and join his own group, the Frederick Douglass Foundation:

"When you recognize that the black community is strongly a Christian-based group of people, conservative in most of the things they believe, the NAACP has gone diabolically the opposite direction of tradition of the black community," he states. "[The NAACP] really is doing this in order to stay relevant and in order to build up their revenues as it relates to what they can get from the gay community."


"... I think those individuals who call themselves Christian or call themselves Jewish who are members of the NAACP should denounce the organization, should cancel their membership, and really look for something else or another organization such as the Frederick Douglas Foundation to be affiliated with," he states.

Religious Right Watch also mentions comments by the "Queen Mother" of the group, Alveda King, Martin Luther King, Jr's niece:

Alveda King, as always, tied the topic to the question of abortion rights and claimed to speak for her uncle and other relatives in claiming that the King family has always opposed the “homosexual agenda”:

"Neither my great-grandfather an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda," says King, founder of King for America and Pastoral Associate for Priests for Life.

"In the 21st Century, the anti-traditional marriage community is in league with the anti-life community, and together with the NAACP and other sympathizers, they are seeking a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free.”

Alveda King is a sad fraud. Practically her entire career has been reaping off of her famous uncle, a man who lived and died when she was a child. I doubt she knew anything about King. I doubt very much that she is aware that one of King's advisers, Bayard Rustin, was an openly gay man. It was Rustin who not only coordinated the March on Washington, but also introduced King to the idea of non-violent resistance.

 I also seriously doubt she knew what was in King's heart when it came to the gay community. However, we do know what she thought of Coretta Scott King, MLK's wife and the person who did know his heart and was also a very vocal ally of the gay community.

Two years ago, when she was asked about Coretta Scott King's support of the gay community, she made a highly inappropriate comment:

"She (Coretta) was married to him (Martin Luther King, Jr.). I've got his DNA. She doesn't. She didn't. She's passed away."

That comment alone gives a great indication of Alveda King's mindset and lack of integrity.

But generally speaking, anyone using Alveda King or any of these other spokespeople or groups as proof that the black community has turned on the NAACP for the organization's support of marriage equality is lying to their readers.

Neither these groups nor their spokespeople never really cared for the NAACP in the first place.

Because to them, it's all about the spotlight.
 

'Astroturfed group of black pastors attacking Obama over marriage equality' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Happy Harvey Milk Day everyone!

North Carolina Anti-Gay ‘Electrified Fence’ Pastor Faces National Backlash - Awwww the poor baby. SOCK IT TO HIM!!!!!!!! And I DARE anyone from the religious right to defend this man.


  Harry Jackson: God punishes marriage supporters, NAACP next; you're not taping this, are you? - Harry Jackson, it seems to me that if your words are Godly, you shouldn't worry about whether or not you are being taped.  

Commentary: Pastor Invokes Bible to Attack Obama - Some may call me racist for this but I don't give a crap. Seems to me that if you are taking a picture of a group of black pastors who are supposed to be standing against President's Obama support for marriage equality, then shouldn't the majority of folks be black pastors rather than two blacks pastors already affiliated with the religious right and NOM (William Owens  and Harry Jackson) and people like Tony Perkins? Can you say fraud? BET socks it to them. Not for that point, but still, it's an excellent commentary.

Justice for Maverick! Student Wins Right to Wear Shirt - Score one for the First Amendment!

Home Depot stands up to the American Family Association during shareholders meeting

Sometimes a simple declaration is all one needs to turn aside a bigoted statement.

Home Depot has been on the "shit list" (so to speak) of the religious right, particularly of the American Family Association because of its participation in gay pride parades and its donations to GLAAD, The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

AFA is presently boycotting the company, demanding that Home Depot "stay neutral" in the so-called culture wars. Of course the irony is that if Home Depot was on AFA's side in the argument, the organization would be defending "it's right to participate."

Recently, AFA spokesman Randy Sharp made a statement to Home Depot chairman Frank Blake, Home Depot's board of directors, and its shareholders during the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Blake's answer to Sharp was neither long nor was it drawn out, but it made things clear how Home Depot stands on the matter. Blake's response to Sharp starts at 3:18 and also hear the voice of support of Blake's statement from a self-identified "married lesbian from Massachusetts:"