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News Release
For Immediate Release: January 19, 2009
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

Martin Luther King and So-called ‘Gay’ Rights

(Pittsburgh) – Thursday, January 15^th during the Allegheny County Council meeting concerning Ordinance 4201-08 which would create a countywide human relations commission and add “actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity” to a human rights ordinance, the name of Martin Luther King was invoked many times by those who support this ordinance. The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide traditional value organization, has provided documentation to the Allegheny County Council which debunks the idea that Martin Luther King would consider so-called ‘gay rights’ to be civil rights.

“The actions we saw on Thursday evening are simply further evidence that homosexual activists are trying to hijack the civil rights movement. For them to blatantly use Martin Luther King’s name on his actual birthday in this attempt to write the normalization of their dangerous lifestyle into law is outrageous,” noted Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

There is no evidence that Dr. King equated civil rights with ‘gay rights.’ One of his chief organizers was a black man who identified as homosexual, Bayard Rustin. In a spring 1987 interview with “Open Hands,” a resource for ministries affirming the diversity of human sexuality, Rustin stated that he pushed King to speak up on his behalf, but King did not. In a May 25, 2007 Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper, article entitled “King Family’s Mixed Legacy,” the author concludes, “While Coretta (King’s wife) and Yolanda (King’s daughter) have spoken out on gay civil rights, I am beginning to wonder now if MLK would have raised his voice on our behalf.” In January 2005, Newsweek asked Alveda King, MLK’s niece, if Martin Luther King would be a champion for gay rights. “No, he would champion the word of God,” she said. “If he would have championed gay rights today, he would have done it while he was here. There was ample opportunity for him to champion gay rights during his lifetime, and he did not do so.”

Both Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter Bernice and his niece Alveda recognize that homosexuals have never been refused the right to vote, have never been forced to sit in the back of the bus, have never been forced to attend segregated school and have never been forced to drink from ‘gay only’ water fountains. This IS NOT a civil rights issue and Martin Luther King knew it.

“Historically civil rights protections have been extended to those with immutable or unchangeable characteristics like race and ethnicity, those who cannot make a livable wage, and those with political powerlessness. None of these apply to homosexuals. The attempt to pass ordinances like 4201-08 has nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with special rights,” Gramley concluded.

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