“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

-- Elie Wiesel

A top Vatican representative and Roman Catholic Archbishop is reaching out to form a coalition with other religions and has called on them to join the Vatican in a worldwide holy war against same-sex marriage, claiming that proliferation of equality “is not a good thing for society,” and will lead to “confusion.”

“I wonder if we shouldn’t ask for and look for more support among other Christian confessions and indeed, persons of other faiths,” Archbishop Antonio Mennini, who represents Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican in Great Britain, said in an address to Catholic bishops from England and Wales.

“It seems to me that, concerning the institution of marriage, and indeed the sanctity of human life, we have much in common with the position of the Jewish community, the Chief Rabbi and many of the more significant representatives of Islam,” Mennini added.

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Pink News reports that in the UK, “Archbishop Peter Smith said that while there has been no ‘formal’ contact with Jewish groups to form what he called a united front on the subject of marriage,‘we will work with anyone who agrees with us that to redefine marriage is not a good thing for society and will lead to confusion’.”

A new analysis of 2010 U.S. Census data has found that same-sex couples are more likely to be interracial or inter-ethnic compared to their heterosexual counterparts.

Analyzed by the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute, "Same-Sex Couples In Census 2010: Race And Ethnicity" found that 20.6 percent, or more than one in five same-sex couples, were interracial or inter-ethnic, compared with 18.3 percent of straight unmarried couples, and 9.5 percent of straight married couples.

Among the study's other interesting findings: those same-sex couples which included a racial or ethnic minority were also more likely to be raising children, and the number of same-sex couple-led households increased at a faster rate between 2000 and 2010 compared to that of married or unmarried heterosexual households.

"This is our first 2010 glimpse of the racial and ethnic compositions of U.S. households headed by couples, including same-sex couples, Gary Gates, Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, said in an email statement. "The new Census data help provide a fuller picture of the diversity within the LGBT community."

Black Christians are portrayed as an anti-gay bloc, but they are not static.

Given these conversations, a number of black Christians openly support the full and equal protection of all citizens, including gays and lesbians. It is not such a leap, when churches emphasize their commitment to social justice (explicit in the disputes over the term “civil rights”) and when activists focus on specific legal “privileges” like hospital visitation rights, inheritance, and nondiscrimination in employment and housing.

Second, in the realm of theology, we see an evolving understanding of the relationship between religious beliefs and politics. That problematic old distinction of race vs. sexuality obviously falls short of the notion that same-gender-loving persons might be created in the image of God, just as their heterosexual brothers and sisters are.

To be clear, there are black churches — a small minority, as is also the case across lines of race and ethnicity — that endorse this belief, based on a Gospel that affirms everyone unconditionally and unequivocally. But even among those Christians whose theology embraces gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, there is an array of postures on issues like same-sex marriage. One on hand, some clergy now affirm marriage equality even while vociferously defending a Bible-informed view of homosexuality as sin. On the other hand, some religious leaders publicly insist that special efforts must be made to protect the most vulnerable in our society, through measures like anti-bullying campaigns and hate-crime legislation. The basic logic here is that churches, as they work out their theologies — say, a definition of “sin” adequate for the 21st century — should not have the final say in matters of citizenship and equal rights.

The growing momentum of marriage equality suggests that gender and sexuality norms are changing dramatically and opening space for new conversations. Perhaps these developments will force American society, including its churches, to mature in deliberations concerning sexual difference — a maturity we have not yet seen in discussions of race.

Four Former DNC Chairs Endorse Marriage Equality In Democratic Platform

WASHINGTON -- Four former chairs of the Democratic National Committee called on the party on Wednesday to embrace marriage equality in the 2012 Democratic platform.

"We are proud that the Democratic Party fights for working families, economic justice, and equal opportunity for all," said Howard Dean, Donald Fowler, Steve Grossman and David Wilhelm in a joint statement. "Times change but our principles must always remain strong. That is why, as former chairs of the Democratic National Committee, we stand with Freedom to Marry, 22 Democratic senators, Leader Nancy Pelosi, and more than 35,000 Americans in urging the Party to include a freedom to marry plank in the platform that is ratified at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this September."

Dean, the former governor of Vermont, served as DNC chair from 2005 to 2009. Massachusetts Treasurer Steve Grossman led the organization from 1997 to 1999. Fowler was South Carolina state party executive director and CEO of the DNC convention in Atlanta in 1988 and was DNC chair from 1995 to 1997. Wilhelm ran the day-to-day operations of the 1992 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign and was DNC chair from 1993 to 1994.

The current DNC chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), has not yet said she supports adding same-sex marriage to the platform.

The leading opponents of same-sex marriage planned to defeat campaigns for gay marriage by "fanning the hostility" between black voters from gay voters and by casting President Obama as a radical foe of marriage, according to confidential documents made public in a Maine court today.

The documents, circulated by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, are marked "confidential" and detail the internal strategy of the National Organization for Marriage.

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies," says an internal report on 2008 and 2009 campaigns, in a section titled the "Not A Civil Right Project."

"Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots," advises the document, which is a road map to the successful campaign against same-sex marriage in California.

Bayard Rustin, the openly gay African American who was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s right hand man responsible for a good deal of the civil rights activist’s tactical and strategic success has been awarded a proclamation by Tom Bates, the Democratic 74-year old highly-popular mayor of the City of Berkeley, California, to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of Rustin’s 100th birthday. Bayard Rustin was born March 17, 1912, and died August 24, 1987, in New York City.

The proclamation was presented last night by Berkeley City Councilmember Darryl Moore at the Berkeley City Council meeting, and a copy of the proclamation (image, above; full size, here,) once signed by Mayor Bates, was sent, along with the statement below, directly to The New Civil Rights Movement.


Dr. King (L) and Bayard Rustin (R)

“Bayard Rustin was one of the lead organizers and strategists for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August of 1963, who also brought Gandhi’s nonviolent protest techniques to the American Civil Rights Movement, and helped mold Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into an international symbol of peace and nonviolence,” Councilmember Moore said in a statement to The New Civil Rights Movement. “Bayard Rustin has gone largely unrecognized for his role in the Civil Rights Movement because he was openly gay. It was feared that having an openly gay advisor would discredit the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other leaders of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.”

Councilmember Darryl Moore, who also serves as Board Chair of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), the leading national black LGBT civil rights organization, wanted to take the opportunity during Bayard Rustin’s 100th Birthday to shine a light on his lifetime of accomplishments. “Bayard Rustin is best known for his role in the Civil Rights Movement, but he was also hugely involved in the labor movement, international human rights and was a stalwart of the LGBT community,” says Moore. “He really was an incredible person who has changed our world in ways that we have not properly recognized nor appreciated.”