[USA]: BREAKING: NAACP Endorses Marriage Equality
The Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the United States of America’s largest and oldest civil rights organization, today endorsed marriage equality at an meeting on Saturday, 19 May 2012. The organization had originally been founded in 1909 to improve the lives of the country’s African American citizens.
The NAACP’s move comes as attitudes in the African American community towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are changing rapidly. A recent poll found that 54% of African Americans supported US President Barak Obama’s recent decision to also personally endorse marriage equality in the USA and his additional remarks that he favors the repeal of DOMA, the misnamed “Defense of Marriage Act” that codified anti-marriage discrimination into law on a federal level.
The Decision Affirms Opposition to Government Efforts to Codify Discrimination
“The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure the political, social and economic equality of all people,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP. “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.”
“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law. The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. “The well-funded right wing organizations who are attempting to split our communities are no friend to civil rights, and they will not succeed.”
Below is the text of the resolution passed by the NAACP board of directors:
The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the “political, education, social and economic equality” of all people. Therefore, the NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens. We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Further, we strongly affirm the religious freedoms of all people as protected by the First Amendment.
Source NAACP, Bi Magazine, Democratic Underground, TransGriot
The NAACP’s move comes as attitudes in the African American community towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are changing rapidly. A recent poll found that 54% of African Americans supported US President Barak Obama’s recent decision to also personally endorse marriage equality in the USA and his additional remarks that he favors the repeal of DOMA, the misnamed “Defense of Marriage Act” that codified anti-marriage discrimination into law on a federal level.
The Decision Affirms Opposition to Government Efforts to Codify Discrimination
“The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure the political, social and economic equality of all people,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP. “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.”
“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law. The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. “The well-funded right wing organizations who are attempting to split our communities are no friend to civil rights, and they will not succeed.”
Below is the text of the resolution passed by the NAACP board of directors:
The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the “political, education, social and economic equality” of all people. Therefore, the NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens. We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Further, we strongly affirm the religious freedoms of all people as protected by the First Amendment.
Source NAACP, Bi Magazine, Democratic Underground, TransGriot