At that time, BSA, in its position statement indicated:

Thus the Scouts decided that a known or avowed homosexual was an inappropriate role model based on the Scout Oath and Law. As their policies continued to evolve, interested boys (ages 11-18) were also denied membership if they were avowed homosexuals.

But not everyone has agreed with the Scouts' discriminatory policy, which also prohibits atheists and agnostics from membership in scouting programs.

Yeah, that's it. Play the gay card - let's continue to persecute these folks who lust after every man (or woman) that walks by and can't keep a job, can't remain on target, can't set goals and then make them come true.

You can view a copy of the EDM here. See background to the Malawi arrests and trial here.

The men's prosecution and the ban on homosexuality violate the equality and non-discrimination provisions of the Constitution of Malawi and of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which Malawi has signed and pledged to uphold. 

I have been working with Malawian friends to support the men on trial and to oppose their prosecution and I helped organise the EDM in the British Parliament. The EDM will be communicated to the Malawian High Commissioner in London. It will hopefully add to pressure for the acquittal of Steven and Tiwonge and for the eventual decriminalisation of homosexuality by the Government of Malawi.

James Cone, father of Black Liberation Theology and author of a book and several articles on King states that we must understand King within the historical context of the Black Church. And in so doing, I find it ironic that the public King we witnessed on a national stage talked vociferously about social justice and civil rights for all people yet his personal life did not reflect the same ethos concerning women and gays. And would the public King have spoken out on LGBTQ justice, risking his already waning popularity with the African-American community and President L.B. Johnson?

In my public address I gave at the Gill Foundation's National Outgiving Conference in 2007 I said, "If Dr. Martin Luther King were standing up for LGBTQ rights today, the Black community would drop him too."

King understood the interconnections of struggles. And an example of that understanding is when Martin Luther King said, "The revolution for human rights is opening up unhealthy areas in American life and permitting a new and wholesome healing to take place. Eventually the civil rights movement will have contributed infinitely more to the nation than the eradication of racial justice."

This statement clearly includes LGBTQ justice but would King have spoken on this subject at that time and even now?

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," ~ Dr. Martin Luther King

"Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others." ~ Coretta Scott King

"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," ~ Coretta Scott King

In a time when many black Americans have co-opted Dr. Martin Luther King as the hero of Black America, and during this, the forty-second year since his death, it's important that we look not only at Martin Luther King, the man, but also at the breadth and the depth of his vision.

At the time of Dr. King's death his opposition to hatred and injustice had become more inclusive than just civil rights for black Americans. He spoke out against economic oppression regardless of race; he was outspoken against the war in Viet Nam and he was bold enough to venture into the gay community by turning to an openly gay black man, Bayard Rustin, as a mentor. In fact, while Dr. King may have delivered his famous 'I Have A Dream' speech during The March on Washington, it was Bayard Rustin who put the march together. Rustin was the 'architect' of The March on Washington.

The three arrested activists have been bailed pending further police investigations. One is facing pornography charges relating to safer sex and HIV education materials. He was required to report to the police today. The Executive Director of CEDEP, Gift Trapence, has not yet been arrested but plans to hand himself in to the police next Monday.

Within less than a week to recover from the “shock and awe” of the news several of us flew from across the country to D.C. Under the leadership of Sharon J. Letterman, NBJC's new Executive Director, who cleverly had a hand in NBJC receiving the invitation, twenty-five of us on December 17th arrived at the Southeast Gate at Alexander Hamilton Place and East Executive Avenue for our 6:00 p.m. tour.