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Group plans ‘Not On My Watch’ event in Arlington May 22.
ARLINGTON?The push to frame “same-sex marriage” as a civil rights issue is driving a coalition of black pastors, mostly from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, to publicly voice its opposition to the movement.
Dwight McKissic, president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Pastors’ Conference and the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, said the group plans a “Not On My Watch” rally at 10 a.m. May 22 at Arlington City Hall to “support the biblical and traditional view of marriage and to refute the supposed parallels between the civil rights movement and the so-called ‘gay rights movement.'”
McKissic said to his knowledge no organized coalition of black pastors has previously spoken on the issue in North Texas and he hopes the effort will draw support from black Christians as a non-partisan, biblical morality issue. He said it is ultimately a spiritual warfare issue.
“We are trying to make this a non-partisan gathering to encourage people to at least stop and look at where their politicians stand on this issue before they vote,” McKissic said. “And to not look at party but to look at principle ? to at least ask them to consider voting for the politician, regardless of label, who supports the constitutional amendment (to protect traditional marriage).”
McKissic said the coalition is “politically diverse” and believes equating homosexual marriage with the civil rights movement of the 1960s is offensive and harmful for the black family and all Americans. McKissic said he wants to avoid charges he said have been voiced in other cities that white conservatives have prompted black clergy to oppose same-sex marriage.
For that reason, he is hosting a rally, led and funded by African-American churches, he said. Everyone is welcome, he added.
McKissic said he’s concerned that changing the definition of marriage will adversely affect “our grandkids and future generations” of families “that are already under attack.”
“I’m concerned about the attack on the Bible. Once the government sanctions this, there will be an assault on the authority and authenticity of Scripture. I’m concerned about all of the negative social ramifications of this decision. I’m concerned about what it will do to our school system in terms of ? textbooks having to reflect families being not just a man and a woman but man and man and woman and woman, that the school system will become a tool of Satan, in my opinion, in promoting this ungodly, unbiblical view of marriage.”
Walter Mickels, a North American Mission Board missionary based in Dallas, wrote an opinion article, from the perspective of a black evangelical, to Baptist publications, urging resistance to the same-sex marriage movement.
Mickels told the TEXAN he believes equating homosexual practice with ethnicity or other minority classifications “waters down the whole civil rights issue as well as the 14th Amendment itself.” The 14th Amendment guarantees equal rights, privileges and protections for all U.S. citizens.
“There is no evidence out there to say that homosexuality is innate or inborn. ? There is nothing we can go to and scientifically verify such a notion. And we know there is not because it is not,” Mickels said.
“Currently, the greatest problems within the African-American community are rooted and grounded in the breakdown of the family structure. Same-sex marriage would further destroy this fundamental building block of our society. It would continually propagate fatherless households and increase the emotional instability of our children. It would also further misrepresent the proper roles of men and women within the family unit,” Mickels wrote.
Mickels said he planned to participate in the Arlington rally.
McKissic said the “Not On My Watch” event would begin with 15-30 minutes of prayer followed by several brief presentations on the Bible’s stance about homosexuality, social impact of homosexual marriages, effects on the educational system, and what science reveals about homosexual practices.
National black civil rights leaders have differed on same-sex marriage. McKissic said the NAACP might deal with the issue at its summer meeting; he hopes groups such as his might influence the organization’s position on same-sex marriage. The NAACP has taken no official position to date, though some prominent members, such as board Chairman Julian Bond, have voiced support for homosexual civil unions. The 95-year-old civil rights organization announced its support for abortion rights on Feb. 21?the first time it has acted on the issue, according to the NAACP website.
But Walter E. Fauntroy, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington D.C. and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, told the Washington Post in March he supports a constitutional marriage amendment and called homosexual marriage “an abomination” that threatens society.
A group of 30 black pastors in Atlanta released a letter in March to Georgia state legislators supporting a state constitutional marriage amendment and voicing their disapproval of comparing the homosexual marriage debate to the civil rights struggle, Baptist Press reported.
