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03/25/2010
Civil marriage, faith-based opposition: Same old script being written in Penn
Reverend Derek McCoy wants to have his exclusionary wedding cake and eat it too. In the video we're about to ask you to go watch, be sure to note a few things:
- McCoy's agreement with Philadelphia Gays News' Mark Segal that rights should be protected, yet decided refusal to say that he supports civil unions.
- His desire to use President Obama's failure to fully support marriage equality against gays, yet refusal to acknowledge that the president (a) opposes constitutional bans like the ones that McCoy is seeking, and (b) believes, unlike McCoy, that the gay rights struggle is a civil rights struggle.
- His obvious support for some of the caller's more eye-opening thoughts (he nods his head during an "ex-gay" claim, for instance, and doesn't challenge another's assertion that marrriage equality will take us to hell), yet not coming right out and saying that his motivations are steeped in evangelical social conservatism.
- His constant catty comments about how the flow of the debate itself, which he then follows up with some kind of laugh or smile.
- And perhaps the biggest: His admission, at the pressing of Mark Segal, that he is not a resident of Pennsylvania and that his organization is not even a resident of the state, even though that's the state he's trying to alter with marriage discrimination
Okay, now go watch. It's long, but worth it:
Call-in Program: Same-sex Marriage [PCN]
Your thoughts
My husband is from near Wilkes-Barre. He says that they call anything outside of Philadelphia or Pittsburgh is referred to as Pennsyltucky with all that connotes (i.e., uneducated, redneck, religious bigots). I am not surprised at the anachronistic attitudes of the backward religious folks, but I am surprised that the black church has taken on our issue and can't seem to see past their bibles to see that our struggle is a minority rights fight. These black churches have become our oppressor and we need to call them out on it every chance we get.
Posted by: Mykelb | Mar 25, 2010 11:57:16 PM
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