The Washington Times is reporting that the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is insisting on meeting with the president with the hopes of changing his mind about his recent embrace of same-sex marriage.
"Let us speak with you and President Barack Obama about the issue of same sex marriage," said Rev. William Owens, founder of CAAP, said in the letter. "If President Obama changed his mind, let him consider changing it again."
He also scoffed at the idea that offering homosexuals the right to marry is somehow a civil right.
"I can promise you personally, as an organizer of the civil rights movement in Nashville, I did not march one inch, one foot, one yard for same-sex marriage," he said.
Owens then quoted from a letter written by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. from a Birmingham jail in which he laid down the markers for how one can distinguish whether or not a law violates civil rights.
“How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust?" the Rev. King wrote. "A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. "
Owens added: "Reverend King, Jr. spoke from and led from and bled from the heart of the black church. I would pray you have enough residual respect for this group of clergy, to agree to meet with us and other national leaders to discuss our concerns over your and President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage as a civil right."
Even though the black community regards Obama's success as the "fulfillment of our dreams for our sons," Owens and the 19 other religious leaders who signed his letter said the president's evolution to embrace same-sex marriage "has broken our hearts by using his power and position to endorse as a civil right something that is simply wrong."
Political pundits are still trying to guess who Obama's embrace of same-sex marriage will impact voters, but black church-going Christians - a crucial voting block for the president - are not at all happy with the president's "evolution" on marriage.
As the pastor's so aptly said in their letter, "Some things are bigger than the next election."
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