You Are Equating Voting Rights With What?!?!

Seneca Falls: “We demand that women have the right to vote, like men!”  Stonewall: “We demand that men have the right to dress like women!”  Thank you, President Obama.

I have been stunned by the line in President Obama’s second inauguration speech: "We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still," said Mr. Obama, "just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall."  I’m troubled by those who have supported this assertion of equivalence, and baffled by the many - women and ethnic minorities in particular - who remain silent at the connection of their voting rights with the sexual practices of a few.

Stop and think about what events and outcomes are being equated here.

• Seneca Falls – The 1848 women’s-rights convention that is considered to have led to the 19^th Amendment in 1920 that secured voting rights for women.
• Selma – The 1965 civil rights marches in Selma, AL led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others that are considered to have led to the Voting Rights Act, in this case providing Federal protection of voting rights for African-Americans in the Jim Crow South.
• Stonewall – The 1969 riot at a New York gay bar where transvestites demanded to be left alone to “do their own thing.”  History is still watching to see what this finally leads to.

Remember too, that from the moment the drag queens at Stonewall started kicking NYPD with their high heels, they could already vote and had legal and social access to the best schools, neighborhoods and jobs.

I am a preacher, so I know the seduction of a snappy alliteration.  I’ve battled myself over a great illustration that is looking for a text to preach.  But our President speaks as if there is a moral equivalence between voting and sodomy, golden showers and transgender surgery.  Really?!?  Is it really the role of government is to protect everyone’s access to all of this?

Martin Luther King told me about his dream, and I realized that it was my dream as well.  Barak Obama has a dream that will be a nightmare when we wake up.