blacks are being bought and sold again

http://www.alternet.org/story/21404


Purchasing the Pulpit

Recently, a group of black pastors under the name of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, held a press conference and summit in Los Angeles to announce the kick off for their "Black Contract with America on Moral Values." Led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Washington and white Christian evangelical Reverend Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition, the press conference and summit gave new meaning to the phrase "sleeping with the enemy."

According to the newly formed coalition, topping the list of issues that black Americans need to focus on is the protection of marriage. Never mind the war, access to health care, HIV/AIDS, education, housing and Social Security, the number one problem facing black America is same-sex marriage.

Standing before the press in their Sunday best and eager to get their 15 minutes of fame and achievable share of President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative, these black pastors seemingly allowed their pulpits to be purchased by the GOP and Lou Sheldon, who is to gay people what Strom Thurmond was to blacks. Sheldon at one time even went so far as to support the quarantining of people with AIDS and accused the federal government of "running a network of whorehouses," when the U.S. responded to the AIDS crisis with resources.

Later that afternoon over one hundred black pastors gathered at Rev. Fred Price's Crenshaw Christian Center, another prominent mega-church, where Sheldon showed his infamous "gay rights, special rights" video and urged the pastors to have their congregations lobby African-American legislators who hadn't taken a position on the issue of same-sex marriage.

-snip- (here the writer said that listening in it sounded like a KKK meeting)

Black pulpits are for sale to the highest bidder and black Christians are quite possibly being sold to the GOP under the guise of protecting America's moral values. With claims that gays are "high-jacking" the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.'s message, Sheldon is bribing black pastor after pastor and church after church with check after check to take another look at the GOP and partnering with their white Christian counterparts all while using the Bible as a justification for their commonality. Yes, the same book that was used to justify racism, sexism and anti-Semitism has both black and white Christian evangelicals reading from the same page.
-snip-
------------------------------


run these faux preachers out of your churches - get a grip.

That implies these assholes (preachers) aren't selling THEMSELVES.

in New Mexico, affecting Election 2004 in that state.

These black pastors are genuinely opposed to gay marriage, and have a conservative social agenda. They are not selling their own personal values here for money, which is what this article implies, of course. Now, I don't agree with their views, but they have their right to their religious beliefs.

These are simply black fundamentalists, folks. There is a huge range of political opinion within the black community, just like the white community, and someone with these religious views are strongly opposed to gay marriage, and abortion, and would fit in quite comfortably with other fundamentalists, regardless of color.

This article is mistitled and misguided.