TIME TO CATCH UP:
It’s been a few months, but i’m back to blogging .. if for no one else but myself, i’ve always kept a diary and this blog is my current form of that.
What a roller coaster year it’s been for me, every year has bumps but this year has been a little wilder than usual, i’m convinced as i get older and more ‘aware’ things going on around you are more powerful and intense as evolve, for me blind optomism is being replaced with an internal strugle dealing with how slow and regressive change is, for the first time i have a little maturity and where as about twelve years ago i/we were living in an era .. a time where we felt and appeared to be moving forward, in our work places we were being treated fairly, in relationships gay’s and lesbians had a sense of continuing change in our favour, there were moves towards becoming a republic, and racism appeared to be receding. Now in the short space of ten years that has all come spiraling undone and for me it’s been almost impossible to watch, thats what i’ve had to learn to deal with in the last ten years my incredible disappointment in mankind and how weak and greedy we truely are.
However, being surrounded by this force of rancid imorality i.e ‘Bush and Bonzai’ (you know, Bonzai .. a little Bush) it’s has forced me to concentrate on and seek out good.
Recently i came across a few articles on Coretta Scott King (Martin Luther King’s widow) i had no idea she was such an advocate for Gay righs and equated Gay rights with what was happening with civel rights for blacks in America during the sixties, this was incredibley brave of her and she got a lot of heat from some fellow civel rights leaders and even some of her own children.
If anyone has read this far please take another moment to read some of the articles on this amazingly brave and evolved lady ..
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 — The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force mourns the death of Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who died in her sleep overnight at the age of 78. Mrs. King worked tirelessly after her husband’s death in 1968 to carry on his legacy of social justice activism. She was a steadfast ally in the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights, and was honored by the Task Force in 1997 for her support of the cause. In addition, Mrs. King was a featured speaker at the Task Force’s Creating Change 2000, where she rallied hundreds of activists gathered for the country’s largest LGBT rights organizing conference. In 2003, her son, Martin Luther King Jr. III, was personally responsible for inviting Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman to join Mrs. King to speak from the podium at the 40th anniversary of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington.
“Our community has lost a dear and courageous friend, someone who was there for us when virtually no one else was,” Foreman said today.
‘From the beginning, Mrs. King understood that homophobia is hate, and hate has no place in the Beloved Community that she and Dr. King envisioned for our nation and our world.’
— Matt Foreman, executive director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
In 1997, upon receiving the Task Force’s Honoring Our Allies award, Mrs. King told the crowd, “I accept this award as a reaffirmation of my commitment to carry forward the unfinished work of my husband, Martin Luther King Jr. My husband understood that all forms of discrimination and persecution were unjust and unacceptable for a great democracy. He believed that none of us could be free until all of us were free, that a person of conscience had no alternative but to defend the human rights of all people. I want to reaffirm my determination to secure the fullest protection of the law for all working people, regardless of their sexual orientation … it is right, just and good for America.”
At the awards ceremony, Kerry Lobel, then-Task Force executive director, said, “Mrs. King has stood shoulder to shoulder with us as we work to envision and create a world based on social justice. She embraces the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as part of the continued legacy of Dr. King’s brave work. Her progressive vision of peace and justice echoes around the world.”
“Today we deeply mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King, who staunchly stood for the civil rights of all people, including the civil rights of our lesbigaytrans community of all colors, and who consistently challenged our own black community to understand that discrimination is wrong whether based on color or sexual identity. Civil rights is civil rights,” said longtime activist Mandy Carter, executive director and a co-founder of the North Carolina-based group Southerners on New Ground.
“I’ll forever cherish the day that I and Matt Foreman, representing our lesbigaytrans community, got to stand shoulder to shoulder with her on August 23, 2003, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington,” Carter continued. “The 1963 march was organized by Bayard Rustin, a black gay pacifist who was instrumental in introducing Dr. King to concepts of Ghandian nonviolence, the hallmark of the civil rights movement. Thank you so much Mrs. Coretta Scott King. You’ve left an amazing legacy.”
On April 1, 1998 at The Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, Mrs. King called on the civil rights community to join in the struggle against homophobia and anti-gay bias. “Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood,” King stated. “This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group.”
In November 2003 in a speech to at the opening session of the 13th annual Creating Change conference, organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Mrs King made her now famous appeal linking the Civil Rights Movement to the LGBT Human Rights Movement: “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people…. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”
Mrs. King continued, “It is encouraging that we have seen more gay and lesbian candidates elected to political office. It is important for lesbian and gay officeholders and their constituencies to achieve greater visibility as supporters of laws that benefit the entire community. I think this will help educate the American public that lesbian and gay people seek the same goals of quality education for young people, cleaner air and water, safe streets and better health care that straight people want. We have to work harder for the broader vision of the compassionate and caring society that demands decent living standards for all citizens”.
Mrs. King’s support of Gay Human Rights angered some black pastors. She called her critics “misinformed” and said that Martin Luther King’s message to the world was one of equality and inclusion.
In March 2004, she told a university audience that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue and denounced a proposed amendment to the Constitution ban it.
In her speech King also criticized a group of black pastors in her home state of Georgia for backing a bill to amend that state’s constitution to block gay and lesbian couples from marrying.
On March 23. 2004 Mrs. King is quoted as saying at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, N.J., “gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union. A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriage.”
In 2003, she invited the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to take part in observances of the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
It was the first time that an LGBT rights group had been invited to a major event of the African American community.
King said her husband supported the quest for equality by gays and reminded her critics that the 1963 March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin, an openly gay man.
Coretta was a supporter of animal rights.
Thanks for reading this far, reading about Mrs King gave me such a lift and reawakend my hope for a better future for all of us, i just have to keep remembering that things go in cycles.
