“This is a cultural war, a cultural shift, and those who are in rebellion have decided to portray us as bigots and prejudiced,” says [Nathaniel] Thomas, pastor of Forestville New Redeemer Baptist Church, a trim, pale-brick building across from a storage facility on a dead-end road just inside the Beltway near Pennsylvania Avenue.

He knows that some gay activists are incredulous that black ministers could oppose a civil rights initiative. “ ‘How dare a black preacher take this position,’ they say, ‘because you’ve felt this pain,’ and I have,” he says. Over the decades, he has marched for voting and housing rights and fought for equal protection for blacks.

But Thomas and the 77 other Baptist ministers in the association do not see same-sex marriage as a civil rights matter. Rather, they say, it is a question of Scripture, of whether a country based on Judeo-Christian principles will honor what’s written in Romans or decide to make secular decisions about what’s right.

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1. Br. Michael wrote: The drive to approve homosexual behavior will end freedom of religion in this country just as it has in other countries.  Already the courts have gone a long way to effectively write it out of the constitution. Already we see Obama and the liberal/progressives arguing that freedom of religion is only freedom to worship so long as it conforms to the secular law. February 25, 12:04 pm | [comment link]

2. Teatime2 wrote: Of course African-American pastors aren’t on the liberal side of this—why would they be? The GLBTs insist that their “struggle” is akin to the civil rights movement of the ‘60s and that is insulting! That a race of people who were brought here against their will and were denied all human rights solely because of the color of their skin could be compared to homosexuals who are having a hissy because most states won’t recognize their “marriage” is utterly ridiculous. That the GLBTs can’t see how hurtful this comparison is attests to the self-absorbed and hyperbolic nature of their assertions and movement. February 25, 8:03 pm | [comment link]

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