NAACP Calls for Overturning of Proposition 8

The Advocate is reporting that the The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("NAACP") announced support on Monday for California's supreme court to invalidate Proposition 8. The announcement was made by NAACP CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous (pictured at left) in a letter to legislative leaders. This is a welcomed development and may help heal some of the fractures caused when exit polls purportedly showed that nearly 70% of California blacks voted in support of Proposition 8. I suspect that a number of extremely homophobic black ministers in this area will be none too pleased with the NAACP - even though these same ministers refuse to see that they are being cynically manipulated by anti-black Christianists like Tony Perkins and James Dobson to further the agenda of those who supported the Jim Crow laws. Here are some story highlights:

*

The civil-rights group not only wants the court to overturn Prop. 8 -- they want California's legislature to go on record against Prop. 8 as well.

*

"The NAACP's mission is to help create a society where all Americans have equal protection and opportunity under the law," wrote NAACP CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous (pictured) in a letter to legislative leaders. "Our mission statement calls for the 'quality of rights of all persons.' Prop. 8 strips same-sex couples of a fundamental freedom, as defined by the California state supreme court. In so doing, it poses a serious threat to all Americans. Prop. 8 is a discriminatory, unprecedented change to the California constitution that, if allowed to stand, would undermine the very purpose of a constitution and courts -- assuring equal protection and opportunity for all and safeguarding minorities from the tyranny of the majority."

*

The NAACP has long opposed any proposal that would alter the federal or state constitutions for the purpose of excluding any groups or individuals from guarantees of equal protections," said NAACP chairman Julian Bond in a press release. "We urge the legislature to declare that Proposition 8 did not follow the proper protective process and should be overturned as an invalid alteration that vitiated crucial constitutional safeguards and fundamental American values, threatening civil rights and all vulnerable minorities."

*

I can already hear the shrieking and wailing of the professional Christian set over this development. Hopefully, the black community is waking up to the fact that these demagogues are NOT friends to the black community or to equality for all.