During the HRC/LOGO Democratic presidential forum last Thursday, Illinois Senator Barack Obama was asked about homophobia in the religious black community, and how he would discuss the intolerance coming out of some pulpits in this community, which has been a bonding point with the professional anti-gay white evangelical movement.
Part of his response, which includes what he said to a group of black ministers at a forum in Tennessee:
I specifically talked about the degree to which the notion of gay marriage in black churches has been used to divide, has been used to distract. I specifically pointed out that if there’s any pastor here who can point out a marriage that has been broken up as a consequence of seeing two men or two women holding hands, then we –you should tell me, because I haven’t seen any evidence of it. .It set off this response from the infamously anti-gay tool that trots out to defend religion-based bigotry, Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., of the High Impact Leadership Coalition (which paid for this outlandish ad in Roll Call and USA Today against hate crimes legislation). From OneNewsNow, the “news” organ of the American Family Association:And what I’ve also said — and what I’ve also said is, if you think that issue is more important to the black family, which is under siege — if you think that’s more important than the fact that black men don’t have any jobs and are struggling in the inner cities, then I profoundly disagree with you.
…And the black community, I think, has a diversity of opinion, as you and I both know. There are people who recognize that if we’re going to talk about justice and civil rights and fairness, that should apply to all people, not just some. And there are some folks who, coming out of the church, have, you know, elevated one line in Romans above the Sermon in the Mount.
And so my job as a leader, not just of African-Americans but hopefully as a leader of Americans, is to tell the truth, which is this has been a political football that’s been used. It is unfortunate. It’s got to stop. And when it stops, we will then be able to address the legitimate and serious concerns that face the black family.
Yes, and some in the evangelical movement that you are in bed with now, Bishop Jackson, thought segregation was biblically justified, and that it was “morally wrong” for people of different races to marry, based on scripture. Slavery is endorsed in the bible, as well as stoning adulterers. Cherry picking on the issue of gay rights — and we’re talking about civil, not religious rights — doesn’t fly, particularly with the tragic levels of HIV/AIDS in the black community. This sort of holier-than-thou ignorance and hypocrisy is inexcusable, because it shuts down rational dialogue, silencing and intimidating black LGBTs and potential allies. That’s the whole point of the professional anti-gay religion-based bigotry machine.“He’s dead wrong concerning what the Scriptures say, and more importantly, he’s dead wrong in terms of the Scriptures and in terms of reading the culture.The culture has gone in a different direction, and the devaluation of marriage is a major problem, and I believe that he’s a very dangerous man because he sounds reasonable, he sounds engaging, but he’s misinformed”
Bishop Jackson calls Obama a “junior or infant Christian speaking out as though he were an ambassador of the faith.” Jackson says he does not buy the notion that the homosexual rights movement is similar to the black civil rights movement either.
“I think what most African-Americans buy is that there should be justice for all, in terms of the outworking of civil law. What they do not buy is that we should rename sin as something righteous and holy,” explains Jackson.
Jackson says the average person in a black community says, “wrong is wrong, and right is right, and even if I’m not living right myself, I refuse to call that which is morally wrong right.”
Related:
* High Impact, Low Maintenance: The GOP is counting on Bishop Harry Jackson and his High Impact Leadership Coalition to bring African Americans to the Party. [You must click over to see the photo of Jackson as the spot of color in a stage full of right-wing luminaries back in 2005 — Schafly, Perkins, Ted Haggard (!), Zell Miller, Daddy Dobson, Bill Donahue, and more.]
* Reporting from the NBJC Second Annual Black Church Summit
* Clergy Against Hate web site
* Faith in America (an organization that challenges individuals and institutions that use religion to justify discrimination and persecution of LGBT citizens).
33 Responses to “Bishop Harry Jackson: Obama’s ‘misinformed’ about homosexuality and faith”
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Jesus explicitly condemned divorce on multiple occasions, in sayings almost universally held to be authentic even by non-christian biblical scholars. Divorce really does break up families. The single line in Romans referred to by Obama is in a letter written by a man who never met Jesus, and who openly feuded with his disciples.
Jesus would not recognize the thing that modern fundamentalism calls Christianity.
He not only condemned divorce, togolosh, he had a seriously major problem with the idea of there being a heirarchy in God’s eyes. He never considered himself to be a holier - or more more spiritually mature - person than the next person in any way! In fact, his whole teaching was very much based in the idea of being equal in God’s love.
I think Jesus had a word for the Bishop and his ilk: pharisee.
I think Jesus had a word for the Bishop and his ilk: pharisee
I prefer the whole “serpents, offspring of vipers” construction myself.
I won’t argue with that, but I’d wonder how many of those families are broken already and beyond repair before divorce, and how many will neve get fixed because their moving parts keep breaking one another.
I think one of the most painful events in my life would be for my son to tell me that divorcing his mother was one of the worst things I’ve done in my life. I still haven’t completely recovered from some of the abuse, and I’m not sure I every will.
As for the second half of the comment - seconded.
I doubt that Bishop Jackson, like most holy-rollers, even believes any of the crap that he “preaches”. He is just playing to the gallery because that is where his income comes from. It beats working for a living.
I dunno, the whole “Whitewashed tombs” saying comes to mind as well.
Junior or infant Christian? Excuse me? Bishop Harry Jackson can call Obama whatever he wants–he’s got that right as a U.S. citizen. However, the rest of us have the same right to tell him that he’s wrong, and even worse… a liar.
I’ve looked up Jackson’s credentials and have found nothing in terms of history, anthropology or theology–just a BA in English and a MBA. While that has no bearing on his faith or spirituality, it does have something to say about his authority to speak on the cultural atmosphere of Biblical times and his expertise on scripture. Hell–I’m ordained in the Church of Universal Life, but that doesn’t make me an expert on anything!
idiosynch - I’m also a divorcee. In my case I believe it will be for the better in the long term, though the short term certainly sucks donkeys. Still, the fact remains that we were a family, and now we’re not. I mention the prohibition on divorce because it’s unambiguous in scripture, and nearly ignored by Theocons. I support both the right to divorce and the right to gay marriage, so at least I’m being consistent in striving to undermine the foundations of western civilization
The Latter Day Pharisees are hypocrites.
The scary thing is, in spite of what we may think about Jackson’s true beliefs, what he says actually does have power behind it, because he’s a leader of a religious organization. Obama hit it right on the head; there’s too much discord with the issue of marriage, to the point where we’re going away from the bigger issues in our community.
Good post …
idiosynchronic,
I’ve been divorced for nearly 13 years now, and if you ask my daughter about it, she’ll tell you it was a good thing in the long run even though she didn’t think so at the time. But the marriage wasn’t going to work, and we’d have been far worse off if we hadn’t split up. A big part of what helped was that my ex and I weren’t at each other’s throats afterwards.
I’m sorry, but it’s just impossible for me to take seriously someone who calls himself “Bishop Harry.”
There is so much that Bishop Harry said that pisses me off. I’m still trying to figure out where the asshole(y) gets off calling anyone a “junior or infant Christian”. I suspect this is playing to those who think Barack is a Muslim or just converted to Christianity. Asshole, asshole, asshole.
Well, does it make it any easier knowing that marriage in Jesus’ time was a totally different construct than in ours? The whole ‘marry your soulmate/equal partnership/true love’ meme is less than a century old.
I don’t know you or your son, but maybe it will comfort you to know my older (step)brother and I were just discussing our Bradybunched clan. He was telling me that he thought both his mom and mine were cool, and that he had a hard time regretting his parents’ divorce b/c they were both happier with their new spouses, and he liked his stepparents and sibs.
It sounds like your marriage was not a happy place, so I doubt your son would ever tell you it was a bad move. Kids love their parents, but they also want everyone to be happy.
Back to topic, what the fuck? An “infant Christian”? Unless he’s talking about the Infant of Prague, he’s just full of shit, making him the typical televangical theofascist.
The whole “ban on divorce” thing was, to my understanding, in defense of women at the time. Due to the fact that men could go ahead and divorce their wives at any time, leaving them destitute and with little means to support themselves, it was a bad thing. And it was distressingly common.
So to say that there was no divorce was likely better for the women of the time. Things have changed since then, so I see no real reason to follow a prohibition meant for people of a different time, place and culture. Still not planning on divorcing my wife any time soon, but I’m not ruling it out on religious grounds.
Actually on topic, Obama’s little speech was pretty good. Far superior to the response, which was infantile.
Your post is spot-on, Pam, thanks. I have a hard time respecting people who use the bible as a reason to limit the rights of others. I hear the story of Lot used, and I wonder that it was apparently ok for Lot to toss his virgin daughters to a crowd of Sodomites for their express sexual use so that they’d leave the angel alone.
My take: if your church doesn’t want to marry gay couples, then it shouldn’t have to. If your church refuses to acknowledge the couple as married, then it has that right. But your church doesn’t get to dictate civil and legal rights. Gay marriage does not threaten straight marriage, so back off.
Idiosynchronic: I can’t say whether your decision was right or not, but my own parents didn’t divorce. They stayed together for my sake, they told me. I have to admit, it put a lot of pressure on me: I spent a large part of my childhood thinking that, had it not been for me, they would have been much happier. That’s a big load for a kid to carry. So maybe you saved your son a lot of long-term pain, IDK.
I tend to think of the prohibition on divorce (along with being from a different time and place, and as a measure of protecting women from destitution) should also be taken in the spirit that unilateral divorce is/was unacceptable. Mutually accepted divorce, where both partners are unhappy and wish to end the marriage, wasn’t an issue in biblical times, and I don’t think the scripture refers to it.
Not that I think a religious text should govern the laws of a country, either.
He’s dead wrong concerning what the Scriptures say,
Does Bishop Harry give any specifics on how Obama is “dead wrong”? Cause Obama seems to be reading the same basic book I have: and I don’t have a freaking clue what Harry is talking about.
And, hey, Harry, when are you going to provide Obama the requested “evidence of a single marriage destroyed by homosexuals having rights”? Right after you collect that million bucks from John Randi?
Anyone who calls himself a “bishop” or any other such bullshit title is obviously a fraud.
My child has said this to me, and it tears me up - until I remember what a living nightmare the marriage had been, and how I am a better parent because I’m not an emotional and physical wreck… I know I made the right decision. Sometimes, that’s all I got.
On topic: Bishop Harry and his ilk can kiss my uni-gendered family’s asses.
Yah know, regardless of whether it is Jackson or Obama that is right in their reading on that overly hyped piece of contradictory historical fiction, WHY THE HELL SHOULD IT MATTER?!
We don’t live in a theocracy. Fucking period.
If you can’t make a secular argument for something, then it has no place in civil society. It has no place in law. And it sure as hell shouldn’t have jack shit to do with whom should be president.
I really don’t see why solid belief in something with no rational evidence is a good reason for political support. And similarly why this is somehow a valid, or even to be fucking respected, reason for denying a whole class of people their civil rights.
I do believe that Bishop Harry just called the entire black community a pack of raving hypocrites.
Speak for yourself, fuckhole. I’m neither black nor gay, but even I feel personally insulted by this feckless little assgoblin.
I agree with your whole post, Sarah. In practice it’s becoming less and less of the case, though. Our country has historically made sky wizards and their appointed mouthpieces de facto legislative bodies. From the Puritans to the Baptists to the Mormons…It’s unfortunately who we are. has some interesting relating to their rise to power as a political force. I liked the thinking relating to the rejection of evolution theory during reconstruction as being a means of sticking it to the yankees.
As long as we as a nation prefer to be willfully ignorant - and as long as by and large fundies vote in greater proportions - every candidate, no matter how progressive, will have to reconcile their platform with some sort of dogmatic “virtue.” Even the most humanist in practice is not immune. I doubt we’ll see in my lifetime a viable presidential candidate that publicly self identifies as agnostic or atheist.
Aww, crap. My html-fu sucks today. I was trying to reference American Theocracy.
Anyone who calls himself a “bishop” or any other such bullshit title is obviously a fraud.
Don’t worry - you outrank him.
Print, cut, and distribute.
That’s rich what Jackson said about Obama being a “junior or infant Christian.”
Jackson has a BA in English and an MBA. He has an HONORARY degree in theology.
You can’t be a serious scholar of Christian theology without — at a minimum — being able to read Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, to say nothing of the years of graduate study required.
Anyone who lacks that kind of an educational foundation who claims to know what the Bible says about a given subject is just talking out their ass.
So many of these evangelicals got their theological “education” out of the scholarly equivalent of a Cracker Jack box. The mainline denominations of west Europe won’t even recognize American ordinations because of the abysmal quality of the education the vast majority of American ministers receive.
/rant off
Yah know, regardless of whether it is Jackson or Obama that is right in their reading on that overly hyped piece of contradictory historical fiction, WHY THE HELL SHOULD IT MATTER?!
I would think that a sociologist would recognize that Obama isn’t speaking to us or himself - he’s using the common language of a culture that has historically used religious metaphor, religious practice, and hymns to code escape information and other ideas and news they wanted to pass along below the radar.
Any time a wingnut denigrates someone else’s position to speak on a subject you can be pretty sure it’s projection. But I’m particularly taken by the kind of calling implied by annointing yourself “Bishop” and having an MBA. Perhaps he can explain to us how he’s leveraging the synergies of his believer demographic.
Infant christian has a very specific meaning in evangelical circles. It doesn’t have a lot to do with formal education or knowledge — they’d probably characterize biblical scholars with a more liberal/non-literal worldview as young or infant — instead it has to do with “spiritual growth”, which generally means “acting more like what I expect a Christian to act like”. Things like voting democractic, exhibiting tolerance (especially religious tolerance), falling on any of the “non-christian” side of divisive political topics — these indicate a lack of spiritual growth.
A lot of this is based on 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, which chastises a community for being “mere infants” in christ. As with most evangelical beliefs, it means precisely what the person saying it chooses it to mean; however, it almost certainly doesn’t mean he thinks Obama is stupid.
Interesting projection that thinking and behaving more like the recorded (ahem) teachings of christ should qualify one as an infant. Especially as compared to the “adults” who have put away childish things like tolerance, empathy and compassion.
Good thing the gospels never said “let the little children come to me”.
As a black person, I have to say that Harry Jackson is dead wrong about LGBT issues not being part of the modern civil rights movement. Discrimination against the LGBT community have no place in our country and it shouldn’t have a place in our churches. Discriminiation is discrimination. Period.
I’m glad that Obama has people informed about LGBT issues. Jackson should just hide in his wingnut shell, because the majority of black people are rejecting his homophobic ideals. Many of us blacks realize that gay rights are civil rights.
I just love how he makes the assumption that the average person in a black community is not living right. Then again, given what his definition of “living right” probably is, I hope we are not living right.
I too am fascinated by this thing where Obama is being labeled “misinformed” or “dead wrong about what the scriptures say” but it is never made quite clear what exactly, in or outside of scripture, he is misinformed about.
Surely if you say someone is “misinformed” you should be able to point to the specific bit of misinformation they used?
Welcome to America, where we still haven’t finished fighting the Enlightenment.
As a sociologist of public discourse, he’s going straight for the religious vote. He’s not using the coded language you’re referring to, but straight foward, public sphere, religion-speak. He’s tone deaf to the concerns of secularists.
I share Sarah’s frustration, that even among the Democratic candidates we’ve got the god-bothering used as a rationale for the denial of full equality. Edwards says he won’t use his religion to deny full civil equality, but as we’re seeing, creating a separate legal institution for the specific purpose of segregating same-sex couples does result in unequal treatment–so, saying you support full equality by supporting separate but equal isn’t supporting full equaliity.
Obama’s making the same bloody mistake. He was terrible in an earlier debate, not even understanding the difference between civil unions, civil marriage, and religious marraige.
Same shit from partial DOMA-defender Hillary.
Argh, to live in a secular democracy!
Kate -
Like Jeff above, I do actually know why he is doing this hon. I’d have to be bloody awful at my job not to.
My question was more rhetorical frustration that that “common language” still exists, that to speak to more than us he needs to do so in a form which employs blind faith as a reason for bigotry in it. I don’t think this is “coded” in the slightest, and I am sick and fucking tired that in order to get elected a politician has to dance to a tune that should have nothing to do with politics.