Monday, July 16, 2012

Group endorsing Romney behind black pastor protest of Obama

According to the following video, the "cat's is out of the bag" in regards to a group of African-American pastors protesting President Obama's and the NAACP's supporting of marriage equality:



As it turns out, this is not a genuine protest of anger stemming from the African-American community, but rather an astroturfed effort by the National Organization for Marriage. The video is probably the first time NOM has attached its name to this protest, but to be honest, many of us lgbtq bloggers knew that NOM was involved from the beginning..

William Owens, the leader of the Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP) -  the group pushing this protest, has been described by NOM as it's "liaison to the Black Church." This is significant for two reasons.

 1. Remember that NOM got into trouble earlier this year when it was discovered that the organization planned to create a "wedge strategy" to divide the African-American and gay communities on the subject of marriage equality:



As you can read above, NOM planned to recruit black leaders to speak out in an effort to get the gay community so enraged that they verbally attack these leaders. Then the black community would respond hostilely to these attacks. The end goal is definitely cause confusion between two groups who support President Obama in wide numbers. And that has a lot to do with Reason 2.

2. NOM has endorsed Mitt Romney, President Obama's challenger:

“We are proud to endorse Mitt Romney for president,”  (NOM President Brian) Brown said. “Gov. Romney was an early signer of NOM’s presidential pledge which represents his commitment to the nation to take specific actions as president to preserve and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

In August, Romney was among the candidates who signed a pledge from NOM committing himself to back a Federal Marriage Amendment, defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court and establish a commission on “religious liberty” to investigate the alleged harassment of same-sex marriage supporters.

“Now is the time for all people who recognize the importance of marriage to come together to support a true champion, Mitt Romney, against an incumbent who has done virtually everything in his power to undermine the institution of marriage,” Brown continued.

The goal of the CAAP protest (which NOM has so generously proven) is not to take a stand against marriage equality. Nor is it to get President Obama to rescind his support of marriage equality.

The point of the CAAP protest is to generate a hostile division between gays and blacks which would help Romney get elected.

And don't be fooled by Owens and other pastors in the video. Odds that they are in on the con.

So as it becomes clear that this protest is yet another attempt by NOM to divide the black and gay communities, we must insist that the media not approach this story half-assed. We must state and insist with every chance we get that the media take the time to tell the ENTIRE story.

Granted, I don't see this strategy working because black folks aren't monolithic. We don't buck every time a pastor says "jump."

But educating people on what's going on with this astroturfed protest would go a long way to prove that while the black and gay communities may have different struggles to reach our goals of equality, we generally have the same enemies with the same mindsets. They see us as either pawns or less than nothing.

It's time that African-Americans and gays stop fighting each other over the subject of marriage equality and recognize when these enemies are trying to exploit us.

Hat tip to Jeremy Hooper.

 


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