Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights
OK, now I have to start this article with an apology. Earlier today, I mentioned that many black public figures were hesitant to speak out for or against Bishop Eddie Long in his most recent sex scandal. Well, I was wrong.
One leader who hasn't held his tongue is Civil Rights leader Julian Bond. CNN is reporting that Bond called Eddie Long "a raving homophobe." Bond's remarks came years ago, when the family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chose New Birth Missionary Baptist Church as the location for the funeral of the late Coretta Scott King. Bond said that King's widow supported gay rights and would never have chosen a pastor like Long to speak at her funeral.
Bond had more to say recently about the charges against Bishop Eddie Long:
"You hope these charges are not true because it's bad news for his family, bad news for his church. However, if they are true, it's typical of people who are raving homophobes who are secretly homosexual. They have this self loathing, self hate, and they have to let it come out some way."
So, there you have it, black leaders are beginning to speak out about Eddie Long, and the message is not a favorable one. Long has been attacked for his close affiliations with George W. Bush and the work he has done to alienate the gay community through the years. The possibility that Long might be secretly gay is nothing short of explosive.
One can only imagine the degree of personal anguish Long may have been experiencing through the years, hoping that his secret would never get out. If it is the case that Long happens to be gay, this could turn out to be the most liberating experience of his life. It might also be liberating for the black church, which continues to grapple with how our spiritual beliefs mesh with the realities of the world.
Some of the questions that the black church may have to answer are these: what if someone is naturally attracted to members of the same sex and can't get rid of this attraction through prayer? Should they spend their lives pretending to be something they're not? Should they simply teach themselves to want something they don't want? What are the answers here?
While it's easy to say that a person should simply shut off and ignore their sexual desires, we might need to realize that sex is probably the most natural thing that human beings do. We all exist because someone else decided to have sex with another person. There's no venereal disease on earth treacherous enough to stop people from trying to have sex. Men in the White House have risked national security and millions of dollars in order to get naked with another person. These same principles also seem to apply if you're gay, so I don't expect that simply asking people to "turn off the sex button" is going to work. Maybe we can be more creative.
Julian Bond, Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson and others are open and honest enough to accept the gay community in to the black experience and the black church. Perhaps we should all embrace the idea of a fair and open black community, where being different doesn't automatically lead to condemnation. Those who are marginalized become a threat to us all, because nothing good happens in the dark.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.