"Some religious leaders are struggling with President Obama’s support for gay marriage but not the Rev. Jesse Jackson," gushed frequent MSNBC contributor Toure noted in the opening line of his May 17 Time.com "Ideas" blog post as he introduced how he "spoke to the Reverend [Jesse Jackson] about the impact of Obama’s announcement among blacks and the wider community of the faithful."
It goes without saying that the interview was a game of softball in which Toure helpfully lobbed easy questions over the plate to drive home for readers, but particularly those who may be African-American Christians who typically vote Democratic, that it would be great if they could evolve to where President Obama has on same-sex marriage, a "civil rights" and "discrimination" issue.
- What do you think about the President taking a progressive stance on marriage equality when some of us are ready to roll with him and some of us are not?
- What do we say to those who say the Bible says marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman?
- Do you have a fundamental problem with using the Bible to try to define law?
- I struggle with why some blacks are homophobic and supportive of legalized discrimination when we know what that’s like and how painful that is.
- I like that you keep analogizing issues from the civil rights movement to what gays are going through. For some black people that is a very controversial point and they don’t want to have that connection ever made.
- There’s definitely a hypocrisy in that we accept the gay individuals we know in our lives but don’t want gays as a group to have equal rights.
- Do you think black ministers will support Obama like they did before?
You can read the full post here.
