We cannot miss this opportunity to do what is just. The gay marriage conversation is largely influence by people’s religious belief that gay people are an abomination to God and so it is ok to deny them of their civil rights. Well nothing God creates is abominable. And never is it acceptable to use our religion to deny people of their civil rights.

I just cannot understand how proudly some black legislators taunt their disdain for gay people during this month of remembrance. How can we not recall that we were once denied our civil rights because people called us abominable and cursed based on their biblical beliefs?

There is a dangerous president being set here. We cannot allow religious influence to overtake civil law. A person’s faith is just as personal as their sexuality. At what point does it end in a country whose very foundation is built on religious liberty. Let us not forget that many early settlers came to this young country to escape the religious tyranny of the Anglican Church. How can we justly allow religious tyranny, -even our own- to rob gay people of their civil rights. At whose religion does the decision to deny others of their civil rights stop.

I grew up in tough neighborhoods, and I have seen enough hate within the black community that has taken me too many young funerals. Most of those funerals were over words. Today we prepare to commit the human and civil rights of gay people to the grave over words. We are slaughtering human rights over words. We are using our personal faith to deny gay people of their pursuit to happiness.

Who am I to think that because I am an openly gay black Baptist preacher in the traditional Black church that other Christians have to accept me? But it is not about acceptance, it about my right to exist in a society that boast to the world it does not deny its citizens civil rights, and have a long history fighting for the human rights of others in other countries. Young American men and women were killed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and are still dying in Afghanistan fighting the human rights of others and yet we deny many of them their human rights in a country that sends them off to fight and die for the human rights of others.

We have been here once before in this nation and we made good. We need to make good for gay people. In World War I Black soldiers came home from the war and white racist hung them in their uniform from light post in the heart of some cities in this nation. We cannot publicly lynch gays human and civil rights in the name of our personal religious faith.

We cannot change what happen yesterday but we can change injustice today and we can influence justice tomorrow.

Our faith is our faith and no one can take that away. Justice is something we all deserve.

Rev. Kinji Scott

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