As six gay couples apply for marriage licenses, African-American pastors denounce gay marriage.
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN and DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published May 18, 2004
[Times photo: Toni L. Sandys]
"Even the wording is biased," said Clifton Wright, 29, after filling out a marriage license application with his partner, Thomas Kontos, 32, on Monday. They were denied.
TAMPA - On the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark opinion banning school segregation, local gay rights activists and black ministers took opposite sides over another civil rights battle.
Six Tampa Bay area couples applied for marriage licenses Monday at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, buoyed by a court decision allowing gay marriages in Massachusetts.
A few miles away, a group of African-American pastors denounced gay marriages, what they called "moralistic terrorism of today's society."
"The anarchy of the courts and her attacks upon the church and the family must be met by an outcry from the religious community," said the Rev. James Favorite, one of the leaders of Pastors on Patrol, a group that represents about 65 black churches.
The ministers gathered Monday in College Hill to speak out against gay marriage during one of their twice-monthly meetings. They were offended by comparisons between the civil rights movement and the campaign for gay rights.
Gay activists see the issue differently.
"I don't get that," said R. Zeke Fread, an organizer for DontAmend Tampa Bay, a group that is fighting against a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages.
Fread said the use of the word "terrorism" to describe gay couples was a new attack in a long list.
DontAmend Tampa Bay organized a rally Monday at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, where six couples applied for marriage licenses.
While expecting to be turned down, they said their actions were more symbolic. They wanted to protest Florida law banning gay marriages and send a message to legislators that the time has come to reverse it.
Fread, who could not attend the rally, was upset when told of the pastors' comments.
"You'd think that people that suffered the most would understand the stride for civil rights," Fread said. "I was brought up that you respect everybody's rights. You usually have some compassion when you've been there."
But at the African-American ministers' meeting at the First Baptist Church of College Hill, several pastors rejected any comparison between the two struggles.
"You were looking at people born free, born in the image of God," fighting to get their freedom back, said Pastor Julia Wiggins of Zion's Hope International of Clearwater, about the civil rights movement and the struggles of African-Americans after slavery.
"This is a rebellion," she said about gay couples. "These people were not born freaks."
Gay couples choose a "lifestyle," the pastors said, and cannot be compared to the history of black people, who were denied the right to vote.
"God is not against my being black," Wiggins added, "because this is how he made me."
But God is "not pleased with America" because of the "abomination" of homosexuality, Favorite said. "We have bent back too far catering to the "vocal minorities' of this country."
But Fread argued that government's role is to protect the rights of minorities and not impose the religious views of some on others.
The pastors said the U.S. government was founded on biblical principles that find homosexuality to be "unnatural."
What upsets Fread is the attempt to use religion to deny the rights of others.
"To use the Bible as selective quotes to discriminate against another of God's children is just wrong," Fread said.
At the courthouse Monday, the gay couples who had gathered for marriage licenses hoped to make history.
Clifton Wright, 29, and his partner, Thomas Kontos, 32, both of Pinellas County, were among the couples seeking a license to legally recognize their relationship so that they can share in the benefits that heterosexual married couples enjoy, such as tax breaks.
The men celebrated their union at a commitment ceremony seven years ago.
Wright broke down in tears upon receiving the expected denial of their application.
"We're law-abiding citizens, we pay our taxes," he said. "We said the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Liberty and justice for all is just for some of the people."
But Wright said it was important to take action on a significant day, the day the Massachusetts ruling took effect.
"In the future, we want our grandchildren to know that grandpa and grandpa were there on May 17th."
