Judge Declines to Stay Law on Gay Marriage
A Superior Court judge decided yesterday not to delay enactment of a law stipulating that the D.C. government will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.
Judge Judith E. Retchin ruled that she would not a grant a stay preventing the law from taking effect Monday, as requested by opponents. However, the effective date is likely to be delayed by the need for congressional approval. Attorneys for the group said they needed more time to research and argue their position before the law takes effect.
Opponents, led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, and seven other D.C. voters want a referendum on the issue, but the D.C. elections board said that would be illegal under the District’s Human Rights Act.
Although Retchin decided against delaying the law’s enactment, she said opponents could seek to amend the law after the marriage provision takes effect.
See Judge Declines to Stay Law on Gay Marriage
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Bitter loser Harry Jackson files lawsuit to force referendum against gay marriage in DC
See Harry Jackson, a Beltsville, MD preacher who is trying desperately to gain national recognition by forcing the District of Columbia’s residents to vote on the issue of same-sex marriage, and has reportedly turned to the courts to force the DCBOEE to approve his anti-gay marriage voter referendum. Based on Jackson’s repeated racially-tinged statements, he appears to believe that, because Washington is a majority African-American city, there are religiously- and culturally-based motivations for the city’s black residents to vote en masse for his socially conservative agenda. He and the pastors who speak in unity at his side have an unyielding argument that gay activists are hijacking the Civil Rights movement in an attempt to pit the interests of black community members and gay community members against one another — ignoring the obvious crossover or support that exists between them.
The DC City Council has already rebuffed Jackson and his so-called “army” of bible-waving protesters by voting twice in favor of recognizing gay and lesbian marriages that have been performed legally in other jurisdictions. The Board of Elections and Ethics also determined that that the intentions of Jackson’s referendum would not be in-line with existing ordinances. Reports indicate that Jackson and his wife, Vivian, are Maryland homeowners, but if Jackson is a legitimate tax-paying resident of DC, he has only been so for a extremely short period of time, and is possibly the roommate of another man. (No word yet on where his preacher wife is living officially.) Jackson seemed to indicate on a recent plea to Fox News, that he was the victim of computer hackers who obtained his personal residential information. His group of conservative preachers in April complained about unelected, activist judges approving of homosexual marriages, so it’s rather ironic that he is turning to the judges now to help him regain footing against the determinations made by DC elected officials and the board of elections. (Washington Post)
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Black Pastors and Gay Rights: DC Becomes a Battleground
The nation’s capital is suddenly center court in America’s loud argument over gay marriage. Nothing new about that, except that this time the battle is being hashed out in the streets, churches and living rooms in working class wards of the city. While there is something poignant about both sides literally singing the same hymn (”We Shall Overcome”) at its rallies, there is also something refreshing about the debate taking place in the unofficial part of Washington, D.C: For once, it’s not partisan.That is not to say it’s not a touchy issue. Gay marriage pits race and faith together in the same combustible conversation, and does so in a community in which both are sacrosanct subjects. The black Christian church predates Emancipation by more than two centuries, and served as a bulwark against the pernicious effects of slavery, Jim Crow, alcohol and drugs, AIDS, poverty, crime, police brutality and bad schools.
In the face of all that, African-American pastors and their churches have offered up faith and love of family as twin defenses. Thus they have been an institution with a message that at its core is fundamentally conservative. And at the same time, it was from the pulpits of these very same black churches that emanated the commanding voices that demanded fundamental change to the old order. Make no mistake, the moral authority and raw political power of the civil rights movement was rooted in these self-same churches. And in that sense they were a liberating, as well as a stabilizing, force.
These contradictory forces of liberalism and conservatism have coexisted, not always easily, for centuries within the church. But gay marriage has opened a chasm in the black community, in which, to paraphrase (and modernize) Lincoln who, while speaking about the North and South during the Civil War, observed that each side reads the same bible, prays to the same God, invokes His wisdom against the other – and belongs to the same political party.
In the local politics of Washington, the true power brokers are predominately black, monolithically Democratic and tuned into the religious sensibilities of their constituents. Thus, the discussion taking place here over gay marriage is really a series of conversations; some within the black community and some within the Christian churches, and almost all of it within the Democratic Party. This is not altogether a bad thing. For starters, there’s no Republican bogeyman, and for another, the race card is played to establish one’s bona fides, not to stoke prejudice. Finally, the church-bashing rhetoric one finds in other places where this debate is taking place is muted here: Attacking the church would simply be a good way to lose the argument. And judging by the language being invoked by both sides, the stakes of this argument are high: Leaders of competing camps clearly believe that what unfolds here in unofficial Washington will be a harbinger for where this nation is heading on gay rights.
“The march towards equality is coming to this country, and you can either be a part of it or stand in the way,” David Catania, one of two openly gay D.C. Council members, declared on May 5, as the council approved his pro-gay marriage measure.
“This is the Armageddon of the marriage debate,” was the rejoinder offered by Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., and author of a petition seeking to have the question put on the ballot for every voter in Washington. “It’s a declaration of war.” See Black Pastors and Gay Rights: DC Becomes a Battleground
Politics Daily
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Ministers Lead Protest of DC GAy Marriage Legislation
Freedom Plaza was transformed into an intersection of faith and protest yesterday as about 150 people rallied to denounce support for same-sex marriage in the District.
“We have to say no to same-sex marriage,” said the Rev. George Gilbert, pastor of Holy Trinity United Baptist Church in Northeast Washington, who concluded his remarks by leading a chant: “Not on our watch! Not on our watch! Not on our watch!”
This month, the D.C. Council gave preliminary approval to legislation that would recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere in the country, and council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who is gay, has said he will introduce a bill this year to allow same-sex marriages in the District. Any District legislation has to survive a congressional review.
The Stand Up for Marriage rally was held across the street from the John A. Wilson Building, the seat of city government, and was organized by Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., pastor of Hope Christian Church of Beltsville. Jackson has held similar rallies across the country.
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