While I'm sure religiously conservative African-Americans would vehemently disagree, the editors of the Washington Post's On Faith page seem to think that the struggle to desegregate the American church in the 1960s and the battle to have openly gay clergy in the pulpit are similar and equally predicated on a notion of fidelity to the teachings of Christ.
The day before the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial was originally scheduled to be dedicated, the On Faith page of Saturday's Washington Post published an obituary of a Methodist minister written by a liberal clergyman who equated a push for gay clergy as akin to struggles within Methodist churches to tear down the walls of segregation that used to keep black preachers out of the pulpits of predominantly white Methodist churches.
"On Faith" did not publish an article to counter that there's a huge difference between discriminating in church on the basis of race or ethnicity and disqualifying an openly gay person from serving in the clergy.
In "His work lives on," Foundry United Methodist pastor Rev. Dean Snyder marked the August 12 passing of W. Astor Kirk, a Methodist minister who played a key role in ensuring that the United Methodist Church would be desegregated.
But Snyder seemed most impressed with how Dr. Kirk went on to become an advocate for openly homosexual and lesbian ministers in the church pulpit, authoring a resolution that will be debated at the United Methodist Church's convention next spring in Tampa which mandates the church “to abolish ecclesiastical institutional discrimination against members of The United Methodist Church. . . commonly referred to as ‘homosexuals.'"
"It has been my honor to be his pastor and friend this past decade. I am convinced his struggle for a truly inclusive United Methodist Church will prevail," Snyder concluded his article.
