Not voting is one of the worst things that could happen in our community. You can vote for whoever you want to, but choosing not to vote spits in the face of our ancestors who fought for our right to vote.
It's very difficult for you to speak out against your child, someone that's in your family. You can have an argument with them, but you can't condemn them. You can't cast them out, because God has not done that to us. We cannot do that to anybody else.
I will fight to the death for one's right to be able to practice in their temple, their mosque, or in their church, even if they have a different belief than I do.
If you are really standing up for the family, you then have to say, how do we change our school system, how do we fix tax policy so that our families are supported?
There's some homophobia within black community, but there's some strong homophobia throughout the whole of American society as well, particularly throughout the South to a degree, whether white or black. And since many of us migrated from the South, that could be a strong connection along those lines.
It seems that people are more comfortable with the private outrage about gay marriage, because when you are outraged about this issue, it requires no work. There's no work that you have to do when you're outraged about a gay couple. There is work that you have to do if you want to see black fathers raise their children. There is work that you have to do if you want to see a school develop.
Ever since the civil rights movement, the black church has always encouraged people to utilize their voting right, which is a right that was fought for.
There is a different spelling between "rights" and "rites" - in other words, civic legislators and ecclesiastical councils have different responsibilities.
Most pastors railing against gay marriage have never cried out on racism, any type of injustice or police brutality. They've never once made a statement about health care. Many of them are silent on community issues. They are very silent, but they have become the leaders of this particular movement.
We should be supportive of the president and supportive of rights of all in a pluralistic democracy that we're called to love. And we live our faith; we don't legislate our faith.
That it is not same-gender relationships that are destroying marriage. What is actually destroying marriage is high unemployment, incarceration, a lack of education and ministers living in contradiction where they speak about holiness on one side but yet are living in adultery on the other.
Being outraged about two men or two women, it requires absolutely no work on the ground. So you can be outraged and you can be an armchair activist, engage in nothing and just simply get on the microphone and say, "I don't believe in X, Y, and Z, and it's terrible," and you can call them names.
