NOTE FROM JOHN: Perhaps if our groups were a little less skittish about the topic of “r-a-c-e and the gays,” they’d have embraced long ago Coretta Scott King’s comments – repeated comments – about how gay civil rights are part of the larger civil rights movement. Call me crazy, but what could be more helpful than the revered wife of America’s most revered civil rights leader? Yet, you never hear about Coretta’s comments, even when the religious right is using a relative of MLK in an effort to subvert the cause.
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It is tragic to me that this woman is tied to the King last name. In the interview below, Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., attempts to imply a position for her uncle based on shared DNA and simultaneously puts down the position of Coretta Scott King, who stood for marriage equality, based on a lack of common DNA.
Beyond all of the emotional undertones that this interview carries, what I find most striking is that even after having had her rights protected by a court despite public opinion, she is unable to recognize the fact that no minority should ever have their fundamental rights voted on by society. Joe wrote earlier on the pitiful attendance at this rally (despite the headliner), but I had to chime in on the interview below.
This interview was conducted by Arisha Hatch who is with the Courage Campaign’s NOM Tour Tracker. Hatch has done a fantastic job calmly interviewing NOM’s Brian Brown and Larry Adams (who suggested lynchings as a cure to homosexuals). But this one is beyond the pale. I respect Alveda King’s work in the civil rights movement of the ’60s, but the gaps in her logical, lack of empathy and unwillingness to look beyond her own experiences are truly disturbing.
