Gay Marriage tests Maryland.’s Black Caucus
This article talks about how black legislators in Maryland are divided on the issue of gay marriage:
Maryland’s African American lawmakers are deeply divided in the emerging debate over same-sex marriage, which forces them to balance their communities’ bedrock religious convictions against a traditional commitment to civil rights.
In the short time since a Baltimore circuit court declared the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, black Democrats in the General Assembly have reached consensus only on one thing: They don’t want the matter put to a vote.
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Tomorrow, Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is planning a sermon on the subject at Hope Christian Church in Bowie, said the Rev. Derek McCoy, associate pastor. “We have to stand up as a voice and defend what we believe is a sacred right between a man and a woman,” McCoy said.
Here’s a message to Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. , Rev. Derek McCoy, Sen. Ulysses Currie, Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., and Rev. Jonathan Weaver, all mentioned in the article as opposing gay marriage:
You are entitled to be personally opposed to gay marriage and to refuse to bless or sanction such marriages in your congregations. That is your freedom of conscience. But the moment you seek to make that a secular Maryland law, you are imposing your own religious and moral convictions on others and trampling on their freedom of conscience and their equal civil rights under the law. Please, please recognize the distinction between the two and don’t allow the Maryland state government to become a theocracy. “Render unto Caesar…”