Sappho-Journo Threatened After Anti-Obama Op-Ed

[Ian David]

Sappho-Journo Threatened After Anti-Obama Op-Ed
Black Churchies Lash Out, Question Reverend's Racial Alliance

Be sure to read Stereohyped's perspective for "the black view."

Reverend Irene Monroe ain't no friend of Barack Obama. The black lesbian has come out against the black presidential candidate on more than one occasion. She first blasted the Illinois junior senator back in November, writing:

..is affinity to conservative Christian beliefs not only informs his decision on the issue of marriage equality, but it also solidifies his decision about us in a community of believers like himself.

Though some black churches have lent their support to the lavender cause, the majority still maintain a decidedly repressive approach - an approach Obama maintains.

Obama once told CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

I think that marriage has a religious connotation in this society, in our culture, that makes it very difficult to disentangle from the civil aspects of marriage. And as a consequence, it would be extraordinarily difficult and a distraction to try to build a consensus around marriage for gays and lesbians. What we can do is form civil unions that provide all the civil rights that marriage entails to same-sex couples. And that is something that I have consistently been in favor of. And I think that the vast majority of Americans don't want to see gay and lesbian couples discriminated against when it comes to hospital visitation and so on.



<snip>

Obama's strident subscription to religious prescription led Monroe to write in The Advocate:

...Obama's image, standing under a blue neon halo and wearing a robe resembling one worn during Jesus's era, inspired hope. And for these Americans, Obama is a secular messiah who is believed to have come not only to help the Democratic Party reinvent itself but also rescue a country despised around the world.
...
For other passers-by, just mentioning Obama and Jesus in the same breath is not only blasphemous, but also an offense to their civil rights. And so, too, many argue it would be an offense for Jesus.

...{Obama} has opted, like so many religious conservatives, to use religion to justify his discrimination. And that's an abomination.

Within days of the piece's publication, the good reverend found herself under fire from her black peers:

I get all these anonymous, threatening calls from folks, saying that they’re going to come after me, I’m a race traitor. They’re not being nice, they’re throwing racial epithets, saying the n-word, ‘What kind of black person am I?’ All sorts of homophobic epithets.




More:
http://www.queerty.com/queer/irene-monroe/sapphojourno-threatened-after-antiobama-oped-20070504.php?rss

[Skinner]

1. I'm trying to figure out why the writer seems to think it is a bad thing...

...that Obama referred to the federal marriage amendment as a "political ploy."

I get the feeling that either the writer doesn't know what the federal marriage amendment is, or else that the writer hopes readers will not know and assume it is a pro-gay piece of legislation, which it most certainly is not.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. This is scarcely surprising

The black churches hare historically espoused very conservative doctrines. FOr that reason black gays have always had a harder time overall of acceptance that other gays. Politically, racial solidarity has also been a big thing within the black community, which is why conservative blacks have gotten a fair amount of support, and their critics been criticized.