The Washington Post is running an article on evangelical reaction to gay marriage. As expected, people who wouldn't vote for Obama anyway are now fired up about not voting for him. What struck me was this bit:
Some conservatives hope the issue drives a wedge between black voters, who largely oppose same-sex marriage, and the president. The Rev. John Coats II, who leads an African American church in Columbus, Ohio, said his Facebook page erupted on Wednesday with critical comments about the president from people who had previously defended him. He is already preparing to preach on Sunday posing the question: Why doesn’t the black community produce politicians who reflect the community’s values?
“I’m not saying they will be pushed to the point to vote for Romney,” Coats said of black voters. “But I believe it will increase voter apathy, and I have to say I’m surprised, and somewhat delightfully, that people are taking a closer look at this president who would never do that before.”
What also struck me was that in 1959 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nominated Bayard Rustin, an out homosexual, as public relations director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rustin had been instrumental in masterminding the media campaign surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Who was Bayard Rustin? Well to quote a bit from Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters
In 1947 Rustin joined a CORE-sponsored bus ride through the South to test a new Supreme Court ruling that Negro passengers on interstate routes coulde not be forced to sit in the back of the bus. White opponents me the challenge with beatings, and Rustin was among those convicted under local segregation laws. A showcase appeal proceeded until the day Roy Wilkins called the freedom riders into his office to say that NAACP lawyers had misplaced their interstate bus tickets, which was essential evidence. Therefore the appeal could not go forward. "You boys have got to go to the chain gang" said Wilkins. . .. Rustin took the Gandhian position that cheerful acceptance of punishment might make a better witness for the cause than lawful evasion. "If we got to go, we got to go," he told Wilkins with a smile.
. . .
Rustin welcomed more jailings and a few beatings, including on in New Olreans that left him without some of his front teeth.
I would humbly suggest to Rev. Coats that dislike for gay marriage is a horrible reason to urge people not to vote.