Doug LeBlanc, over at GetReligion, has an interesting piece up on the gay marriage issue.
He links to this Boston Globe piece that I tease out here:
The three major associations of Greater Boston's black clergy, exercising their considerable influence within the minority community and asserting moral authority on civil rights matters, have shaken up the debate over same-sex marriage with their insistence that the quest by gays and lesbians for marriage licenses is not a civil rights issue. The Black Ministerial Alliance, the Boston Ten Point Coalition, and the Cambridge Black Pastors Conference issued a joint statement this weekend opposing gay marriage.In response, gay and lesbian African-Americans are hastily pulling together an organization they say will seek to end their invisibility within the black church.
But the region's black pastors, some long associated with liberal political causes, say they are proud to be speaking out on an issue they consider to be hugely important.
What drives their collective motivations, their willingness to go against the leftist flow?
"As black preachers, we are progressive in our social consciousness, and in our political ideology as an oppressed people we will often be against the status quo, but our first call is to hear the voice of God in our Scriptures, and where an issue clearly contradicts our understanding of Scripture, we have to apply that understanding," said the Rev. Gregory G. Groover Sr., pastor of Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston.
Amen Rev, amen...
However.
Risking offense and perhaps showing more cynicism than I should, I can't help but wonder why the good Reverend doesn't apply the understanding of Scripture and it's call to depend upon God for sustenance, and lead his people away from the unhealthy dependence upon the god of government?
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