Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

(Weekly Column)

-- The Revs. Alonzo Neal, left, and O'Neal Dozier, right --

In an effort to ban same-sex marriage, white evangelical leaders have entered into a sordid marriage of convenience with a few likeminded black preachers. This unholy alliance is not a beacon of true diversity, but rather a diversity of ways to attack people who are different or hold divergent beliefs. In a perverse way, these ministers have advanced equality in that they have proven, if nothing else, that hate can be colorblind.

Just last week, for example, a leading anti-gay black preacher and ally of Jeb Bush, Rev. O'Neal Dozier, spewed bigoted remarks about Muslims on a right wing radio show. He explained that he was leading the charge to block an Islamic Center from being built in a Fort Lauderdale suburb because "Islam is a dangerous religion."

Instead of apologizing for his remarks, Dozier threw gasoline on the fire in an interview with The Miami Herald. The preacher explained in no uncertain terms that Islam was a synonym for Osama.

"We don't want our area to be a breeding ground for terrorists," Dozier said.

Dozier sounds an awful lot like former segregationist Rev. Jerry Falwell, who in 2002 told 60 Minutes, "I think Muhammad was a terrorist."

This week, Dozier will be leading a protest at a Pompano Beach Commission meeting to lobby against plans to build the new mosque. He has assembled a number of conservative preachers who seemingly believe that only their brand of Christianity should be allowed a home in South Florida.

Of course, these preachers won't flat out say they are against constitutionally protected freedom of religion, expression, association and speech. So, Dozier's partner in crime, Rev. Alonzo C. Neal of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, explained that Muslims were not the problem - it was their behavior.

"It's not their religion," said Neal, "it's their track record."

Is it just me or is this language eerily similar to the "love the sinner, hate the sin" rhetoric used against gays?

Funny, but I don't remember mainstream Muslims causing mayhem in Florida. However, I do remember busybody fundamentalist Christians harassing women outside the state's abortion clinics. I do seem to recall neo-Puritans terrorizing judges and family members during the disgraceful Terri Schiavo debacle. It seems these preachers should worry about the track records of their evangelical friends before they point the finger at Muslims.

Furthermore, it is amusing to see the contorted attempts at tolerance by these "men of God." Dozier and Neal have unending love for gays that don't act gay and Muslims that don't act Muslim. It is remarkably generous of them to love and accept all who act and believe exactly as they do.

The Dozier incident is reminiscent of 1998 when the extreme right teamed up with the late football star and preacher Reggie White to bash gays. In a speech to the Wisconsin State Legislature, White proclaimed that Asians can turn a TV into a watch, blacks excel at celebration and dance, Latinos can fit 20 or 30 people into one house, and whites are great with money.

And more recently, one of the nation's leading African American "ex-gay" preachers, D.L. Foster, disgraced himself by attacking me for my Jewish faith and drove home his point by drawing a Hitler mustache on my picture.

It is worth noting that there is a rift in the GLBT community on how to handle attacks by African American preachers working in cahoots with the religious right. One side of the argument, articulated by writer Chelsea Jennings in The Washington Blade, says that it is counterproductive to compare ourselves to the civil rights movement. The polar opposite view comes from the group Faith in America, which claims that today's "religion based-bigotry" against gay people is a direct descendent from the civil rights era and should be confronted head-on.

I happen to agree with Faith in America. It is no coincidence that racists of yesteryear, such as Falwell, are today's leading anti-gay opponents. They are eager to gain black support to justify their latest pet prejudice. And, no one has convinced me that there is a marked difference between racism, religious persecution, sexism and homophobia. While each has its unique characteristics, they are all equally unjust.

The unholy alliance is having a measure of success. When the New York Court of Appeals ruled against same-sex marriage last week, Judge Robert S. Smith said comparing racism to homophobia was a false analogy.

Thankfully, preachers such as Dozier, Neal and Foster are making it easy to connect the dots and show that haters rarely confine their prejudices to one group. Instead of giving cover, this new marriage of malignance is uncovering the right wing's true narrow minded agenda - in black and white.

24 Comments:

Just as those on the fringe, like sex-chick conservative pundit Ann Coulter, these folks are really media hounds that hope their actions will enhance their real agendum, to make money (and the power money buys) by appealing to the invincibly ignorant. The similarity to Hitler and the Nazi ascendency in the late 20s and early 30s in Germany is both evident and scary.
posted by Henrietta, at 7/11/2006 8:06 AM

In Chicago, Gay Liberation Network and Black LGBT & Allies for Equality have teamed to protest antigay discrimination at churches both Black and white. We too have been told by some African American gays that Black straight folks resent our struggle being compared to THE civil rights movement, the one for Black rights.

We stand with Coretta King and other African Americans who back our full equality and who identify the indivisibility of struggle for civil rights by all oppressed groups. We reject a phony "hierarchy of oppression" that benefits the enemies of all the oppressed, and we continue to learn from the method of mass mobilization employed by King, organized labor, women and others to achieve a measure of equality in America.
posted by Bob Schwartz, at 7/11/2006 8:25 AM

LOL Give me a break! I think that ANY fundamentalist religion is dangerous. Islam fundamentalism only LOOKS different to the Western eyes, because is a STATE religion, that allow the application of religious law to public life. If Christianity would become a state philosophy with a fundamentalist religion ruling -like the southern baptist- here, many readers of this blog would be hanged, stoned to death or worse... burned to stake (ho, wait, that was the roman catholics, sorry).

The only think restraining the religious raight from a mass killing of homosexual and a laws that restrain the power of women, is the -fragile- separation of state and churches. that is why it is important to fight to keep them separate.
posted by Anonymous, at 7/11/2006 11:07 AM

When Los Angeles based black minister,Jesse Lee Petersen, quoted in the Southern Voice said that
"Coretta Scott King is a disgrace to the civil rights movement for her support of gay rights."

That did it for me. Petersen is a native of the deep south.
I see who these black preachers are willing to get into bed with.

As a black woman, who is part native american, these preachers make me as sick as any white segregationist ministers did during Jim Crow.

Anyone who sleeps with hate, and allows ignorance and fear to flourish to further their own ends.
Cannot be right with God.
Cannot be right EVER!
posted by Regan, at 7/11/2006 3:15 PM

Several years ago in a certain section of Pennsylvania, a friend and I were going shopping at an Amish market. The men, women and children all wore the traditional 19th century dress, with horses and wagons coming and going. To our surprise, right across the street from this market was a Hindu temple devoted to the Goddess Durga. On the sign out front of the temple was a sign with the many-armed Goddess riding on the back of a tiger. I smiled at my friend and said, 'only in America'! Neither side was ranting nor calling for the destruction of the other. We lose this uniquely American quality at our own peril.
Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at 7/11/2006 4:09 PM

Regan: I agree! You know, the evangelicals are always going to and fro, talking about "the Lord", Jesus, heaven, love, true happiness and forgiveness. It is quite sad, because despite all the lip service they pay to those things, they deserve our pity, for theirs are lives in which they will never really touch the face of God.
posted by Chris L., at 7/11/2006 5:24 PM

I am sick and tired of black preachers who are irritated by the fact that the gay rights movement is compared with the civil rights movement.

People like O'Neal Dozier, Jesse Lee Patersen, the late Reggie White, Bernice King, and Alan Keyes fought only for their right to become bigots. They do not realize that it's the same old shit, but with a different group of people. Perhaps they should not play their "skin/sin card" and realize that homosexuality is not a sin. We shall overcome these assholes and their bigoted god.

Blood From Machines
San Diego, CA
posted by Anonymous, at 7/11/2006 6:20 PM

The civil rights comparison is valid. The history isn't exactly the same, but it's close enough.

And so is the irrational violence, impunity for the assault.
Discrimination based law against equal potential as heterosexuals.
Arbitrary destruction of gay headed families and removal of children from gay parents.

Being gay isnt' the same as being black or female.
But institutional injustice is what civil rights are about.
Self determination and equal access and protection under the law is what civil rights are about.
And any black person that says gay people don't need them, should hear the echoes of segregationists in their own ears.
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

Even worse, is forgetting the contributions gay people made to the betterment of black lives when it mattered.
posted by Regan, at 7/12/2006 12:26 PM

I agree with Pastor Dozier's efforts to stop the building of the mosque. If you like Islam so much why don't you go live in Saudi Arabia and see what it is like to live under Sharia law. According to Omar Ahmad co-founder of CAIR: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." It's amazing how liberals like you fall for Islamic propaganda. Fortunately the majority of Americans do not and that is why Bush won the 2004 election.
Peace
posted by Anonymous, at 7/13/2006 12:25 PM

Dear Anonymous,

Freedom of religion: Interesting concept, huh?
posted by jekelhyde, at 7/16/2006 11:14 AM

I personally see all of you as liberal idiots who care noting for the black community. But as usual try to make us your poster children for your own agenda. While men like The Reverend Dozier is actually as living breathing example of the persecution that Christ, John the Baptist and all of the apostles went through at the hands of men and women like you. Because of their stance for morality and Christianity they were murdered. The Reverend is a man of integrity which means very little to people like you. Or let’s just say your view of integrity is very different from the word of God. The biggest problem you have with the reverend is that he is a black pastor breaching to black members on how the Lord fills about you democratic liberal views. Which means you just might start to lose vote of black Americans if our eyes became open. Well guess what he is not alone. I as well as other black men are making a stand and teaching our children to make a stand. So your liberal views are loosing their ground. Even now I am making my community aware of the Heart of God. Thank God for men willing to stand even if it means their death and stop preaching for a dollar bill or some kind of a handout from the liberal democrats that use us for their purpose. And please stop saying that Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are the leaders of the black community. They are your appointed leaders not ours. We have our leaders and you just wrote about one.
posted by True Christian, at 8/02/2006 3:21 AM

When did black gay slavemasters use young white boys as 'foot-warmers"? When did black gay slavemasters brutally rape white men leaving them useless to themselves and their families? NEVER! White gay men were part of our oppressors! That is one of the reasons blacks deeply resent the gay movement's attempt to compare their plight to those of African Americans. You think that one Matthew Shepard can compare to the THOUSANDS of black men and women who were lynched? We were lynched not for one day, or one year, but hundreds of years. How dare you!

Gays talk about the Stonewall riots, then use those folks as the face of your movement. Not Dr. King, not Huey Newton, not Rosa Parks, not Malcolm X. I have frequently heard gays talk about having to 'sit at the back of the bus'. That's a bald-faced lie! You have no idea how insulting that sounds. My people sat on the back of the bus...my mother had to sit at the back of the bus...not yours!

When you are forced to clean other peoples floors because other jobs were denied to you. When you can site where one in four gay men are in jail then you can talk to me about discrimination. When people spit on you and throw eggs because you want to go to school then you can talk to me about a shared history of discrimination.

The Black community will never turn its back on God. You try to foist the Al Sharptons on us while ridiculing black ministers who live and work in our communities every day. We chose our leaders, not you! I have heard countless gays speak of Christians with utter comtempt. Lest you forget, the next time you quote Dr. Martin Luther King, remember that he was a Christian!
posted by Anonymous, at 8/10/2006 7:59 PM

There were black slave owners, who is to say there weren't gay black slave owners?

As for the actual article, first of all, Pompano Beach is not a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. If the author of this article knew anything about the history of Broward County they would know that.

If the author knew anything about the zoning laws in Pompano Beach, they would know that this Mosque was requesting to re-zone to build in a residential neighborhood, rather than an area zoned for CHURCHES/Mosques.

The citizens have every right to challenge such zoning changes. It seems that some want to use this as an agenda for hate themselves.
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