MARCH DIVIDES KING FOLLOWERS: From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[Photos and "voices from the scene." --Eve]

Some civil rights leaders are denouncing a decision by an influential black pastor to lead a march from the King Center calling for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Church, a predominantly black megachurch in Lithonia, will lead the march today from the King Center to Turner Field.

Organizers of the demonstration said about 25,000 marchers were expected, including Bernice King, youngest daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and an elder of the New Birth church.

The church's Web site said the march advocates "a constitutional amendment to fully protect marriage between one man and one woman." Other goals include education reform, health care and creating wealth in the black community, the church said.

"If Dr. King were here today, he wouldn't participate in this march," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights movement who marched alongside King. "During the civil rights movement, we were trying to take discrimination out of the Constitution." ...

Neither Bernice King nor her mother, Coretta Scott King, were available for comment on today's march, but they have spoken publicly about their beliefs on same-sex marriage in the past.

Coretta Scott King said in March that constitutional amendments should be used to expand freedom, not restrict it.

"A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing, and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages," she said during a speech at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

Bernice King, the Kings' youngest daughter, expressed how she felt her father would have responded while speaking at a church in Auckland, New Zealand, in October: "I know deep down in my sanctified soul that he did not take a bullet for same-sex unions."

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posted by Eve at 6:46 PM VOTE

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