On EBONY.com: All Black Lives Must Matter to the Church
[OPINION] Brooke Obie says our religious sanctuaries must be open and welcoming to LGBTQIA People
At the funeral for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was gunned down by White terrorist Dylan Roof during a Bible study meeting, President Barack Obama gave a soul-stirring eulogy, reminding the country of the Black Church’s long history of being a safe space for Black folk:
“The Church is and always has been the center of African-American life, a place to call our own in a too often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships. Not just for Blacks, not just for Christians, but for every American who cares about the steady expansion of human rights and human dignity in this country; a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all. That’s what the Church meant.”
To draw that conclusion, President Obama expunged from the record the fact that many Christian denominations, particularly the AME church, have specific written policies against Marriage Equality and ordaining gay clergy and have spent money and political capital fighting publicly against both. On the day his administration celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the constitutionality of Marriage Equality nationwide, President Obama stood in that pulpit and erased his own victory in order to provide a false comfort of the Church as sanctuary for all, and many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer, intersex, asexual (LGBTQIA) community rightfully cried foul.
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