The president of a black pastors coalition has expressed his anger that President Barack Obama compared the civil rights movement to that for same-sex marriage at the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march, when black American citizens were beaten while demanding voting rights they were being denied.
“Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago,” Obama said in Selma, Alabama, on Saturday, as he characterized the movement for same-sex marriage as another civil rights struggle.
“I marched with many people back in those days and I have reached out to some of my friends who marched with me, and all of them are shocked,” Rev. William Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) told Breitbart News. “They never thought they would see this day that gay rights would be equated with civil rights. Not one agreed with this comparison.”
In February of 2014, CAAP issued a press release in which it announced a campaign to call for the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder on the basis that he has violated his oath of office by “attempting to impose same-sex ‘marriage’ throughout the nation.”
“President Obama is a disgrace to the black community,” Owens said. “He is rewriting history. We didn’t suffer and die for gay marriage. We marched for opportunity, equality, justice, freedom from oppression. We are the true heirs of the civil rights movement. We have a new movement to reclaim the ‘real’ civil rights movement.”
CAAP has launched a new initiative called RISE, a grassroots network that unites “people of every race, creed, culture, and background,” to focus on defending faith, family, and justice.
“The LGBT community hijacked our movement, a movement they know nothing about,” Owens asserted. “President Obama is delusional to compare our struggle with the struggle for marriage equality. Gays have not had fire hoses or dogs unleashed at them. They have not been hung from trees or denied basic human rights.”
“President Obama didn’t march,” Owens continued. “He has benefited from those of us who did march, but for President Obama to say we marched so that gays would have the right to marry today, is a disgrace and a lie.”
When CAAP announced its petition last year to impeach Holder, Owens said at a press conference that Obama had deceived the American people by announcing his position on same-sex marriage had “evolved.”
“That is not true. He made the deal with the gay community to let him get elected – his second election – that he would take the issue up,” Owens charged. “But it was always there; he did not ‘evolve.’ It was already there because of their commitments of very large sums of money and his relationship with them.”
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