I frequently vent my frustration with black pastors who willingly act as water carriers for those who, if they could have their way, would reinstate segregation. To me it is mind boggling, but we see it here in Virginia all the time as The Family Foundation orchestrates black pastors as if they were performing circus dogs. Now, on the national level Rev. William Owens, Tennessee minister and self-proclaimed leader of the civil rights movement, who is prostituting himself to the forces of hate and bigotry and helping to promote the disingenuous meme that Barack Obama's support for CIVIL marriage rights for same sex couples. Owens might just as well be Jewish and supporting the Nazi party. I truly don't understand this kind of batshitery. Fortunately, most blacks seem to understand who is really behind this messaging and aren't falling for the Christianist/white supremacist ploy. A piece in the Washington Post looks at this sick effort. Here are highlights:
The performance by the Rev. William Owens at the National Press Club last week was enough to make a cynic blush. In a nearly empty room, as the C-SPAN cameras rolled, Owens, a Tennessee minister and self-proclaimed leader of the civil rights movement called out the president for his changed position on same sex marriage.
Claiming to speak for thousands, he connected the prevalence of same-sex marriage to the collapse of the African-American family. And he threatened the president with a widespread revolt by black voters on Election Day. “He has not done a smart thing,” Owens said. Then, perhaps to clinch a spot in the news cycle, Owens weighed in on the Chick-fil-A scandal, the story that launched a million clicks. He aligned himself (and by implication all civil rights activists) with Dan Cathy, the company’s president, who has declared his opposition to same sex marriage.
CNN, Fox News, NBC, the New York Post, the Daily Caller and the Christian Post, among others, followed the story. Headlines underscored the potential threat: “Obama’s support for gay marriage ‘might cost him the election,’” wrote NBC.com.
In reality, though, Owens isn’t a story. He’s a figurehead in what political operatives call an “Astroturf” campaign. It looks like a grass-roots movement, but it’s really a political stunt. And his threat is not a threat. “I would place the odds of African Americans defecting the president as about the same as the odds of an asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out all human life,” says David Bositis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “It’s not going to happen.”
Owens has been, for years, a religious liaison for the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative lobbying group whose aim is to block or roll back same-sex marriage legislation wherever it occurs. Though he told me in a phone call that he receives no compensation from NOM, his new campaign called Mandate for Marriage, aimed at urging African Americans to withdraw their support for the president, is made possible in part by individuals affiliated with NOM. “We have asked a few people for contributions – some of them from the National Organization for Marriage,” he told me.
In every craven political maneuver, there is a glimmer of honesty, however, and this case is no exception. The African American community has been slower than the American majority to accept same-sex marriage.
But if Owens expects large numbers of African Americans to stay home on Election Day on account of the president’s gay-marriage views, he’s mistaken. And in our conversation, he articulates one of the main reasons why: African Americans like Obama; they like health care reform, and they continue to see his presidency as historic.
“I know the sacrifices we made — the price we paid so that blacks would be able to vote,” Owens concedes. The pastor struggled with his conscience, he said, before deciding not to vote on Nov. 6. That position puts him in a stubborn, and short-sighted, minority.
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