After failing to receive a response to their request to meet with President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the administration’s support for same-sex marriage, the Coalition of African-American Pastors is now calling on other black Christians to withhold support for Obama’s re-election.
“By embracing gay marriage, President Obama is leading the country down an immoral path,” said Rev. William Owens, the president of CAAP, in a statement. “The Black Church has always been the conscience of America, and today we are calling on black pastors and black Christians to withhold support from President Obama until he corrects course.”
CAPP’s letter to Obama and Holder expressed their disappointment.
“President Obama is the fulfillment of our dreams for our sons,” they wrote. “And he has broken our hearts by using his power and position to endorse as a civil right something that is simply wrong… Some things are bigger than the next election.”
“We can’t compete with the Hollywood folks who are raising the big bucks for the president,” Owens said during a Monday press conference in Nashville, according to The Christian Post. “But it was black folks who rallied around him in 2008 and for him to ignore our request with a group of clergy who represents tens of thousands of black Christians of many denominations is an insult.”
According to CAPP, Obama is steering the country in the wrong direction with his support of same-sex marriage, and while they “were once proud of President Obama,” their “pride has turned to shame.”
CAPP is urging the rest of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to stand up against Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage.
“It is with this background and strong belief, that we — and the AME pastors who joined with us — challenge the entire African Methodist Episcopal Church to stand with other denominations and speak out against President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage and officially and formally reaffirm support for the Bible’s view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” said the group.
Obama announced his support for the legalization of same-sex marriage in early May.
“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said in an ABC News interview.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in late May, after Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage, 59 percent of African-Americans said they supported same-sex marriage, a dramatic increase from a rolling average of 41 percent.