Julian Bond is a living legend in the African-American civil rights movement and without question one of my personal heroes. At the forefront of every human rights struggle since the 1960's, he currently is Chairperson of the NAACP and a professor of history at the University of Virginia and a scholar in residence at American University.
By Julian Bond-
What are the lessons to be drawn from the geographically separated controversies over Bishop Eddie Long in Atlanta and the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi in New York?
Young Clementi took his life when his roommate secretly broadcast a sexual encounter he had with another man.
Four men have charged the Atlanta mega-church pastor with using his clerical position to coerce them into having sex with him when they were teenagers.
Homophobia is at the root of both tragedies, for if Long’s travails don’t seem as serious as a young boy’s death, they are—if true—tragedies for Long’s family and his congregation.
Homophobia is rampant in Black America, and it is driven by preachers like Long, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the most virulently homophobic Black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement. Black Christians are more likely to describe homosexuality as morally wrong than white Christians, and homosexuality is a major topic among many Black pulpits.
We are titillated by the descriptions of Long’s alleged largesse to his four accusers, but, most of all, we are appalled at his blatant hypocrisy, if the allegations are true. But we shouldn’t be—we’ve heard this story before. Just remember Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard and Todd Bentley, all, like Long, evangelical preachers.
Long stands out in this group. All were accused of violating the standards they preached about, but none were so identified with strident opposition to homosexuality as he was. With Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, by his side, he led a march through Atlanta in 2006 in support of former President George W. Bush’s anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment.
Bible-based discrimination is an old story for Black Christians, and it is peculiar why we tolerate it against others when we reject it when aimed at us. White Christians found support for enslaving people of color in the Bible’s pages, which also offers support for condemning homosexuality.
Some who object to gay rights believe homosexuality is a choice, but science has demonstrated conclusively that sexual disposition is not an option or alternative that some select. It exactly parallels race—I was born Black and had no choice. I couldn’t and wouldn’t change it. Like race, sexuality isn’t a preference—it is immutable, unchangeable and the Constitution protects us all against prejudice and discrimination based on immutable differences.
The consensus of the scientific world is that homosexuality is as ordinary as left-handedness—it is not an illness or disease.
Some who believe in Biblical literalism find sanction for their anti-homosexuality there, but selectively ignore Biblical injunctions to execute people who work on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2), to crack down on those who get haircuts (Leviticus 19:27) or to condemn those who wear clothes with more than one kind of thread (Leviticus 19:19).
We wouldn’t think of executing someone for having a Sunday job, but homophobia literally kills. We know Tyler Clementi’s name because his death has been in the news, but did you know about 13-year-old Seth Walsh of Tehachapi, Calif., or 13-year-old Billy Lucas of Greensburg, Ind., who also hanged themselves, or 13-year-old Asher Brown, 13, of Houston, Texas, who shot himself in the head? They all endured anti-gay harassment and bullying until the pressure became too great, as it apparently did for Tyler Clementi.
In the aftermath of the Atlanta scandal, many are given to call Bishop Long’s church “The Church of the Down Low.” This refers to the homophobia-inspired fear that forces many Black gay men into underground lives in a secret sexual world—secret even from family and friends—a covert world on the “down low.” The price some of us pay is AIDS.
As the Atlanta Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker wrote, “Bigotry fuels the scourge of AIDS in Black America, and the plague is making its greatest inroads into the population from which come the worker bees of the Black church: Black women.”
We need to sweep these prejudices away, as the Supreme Court did in 1967 when it eliminated the ban on interracial marriage.
If you’re worried, as many ministers profess to be, that your church will someday be forced to perform same-sex marriages, never fear. Our Constitution protects the autonomy of any religious community to determine to whom they will or won’t offer the matrimonial rite. Your sanctuary is safe, but please, don’t block the doors to city hall to those loving couples who want the same marriage and civil rights protections you now enjoy.
Julian Bond is chairman emeritus of the NAACP and a professor of history at the University of Virginia and a scholar in residence at American University.
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