Atlanta’s Black LGBT community condemns Rick Warrens Ebenezer invitation.

SOURCE:

January 2, 2009

The Black community of Atlanta has long been known for being imbued with a strong in belief in equal rights and religious values.

Atlanta was ground zero in the fight for civil rights in the 60’s and is home to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church where King and his father Martin Luther King, Sr. were pastors.

Atlanta has also become something of Mecca for black gays and a 2005 NPR podcast noted that Atlanta has the largest population of black gay couples in the United States.

Each year to commemorate the national holiday honoring King, Ebenezer Baptist Church hosts a church service that has in the past attracted politicians and civil rights leaders from around the nation. Last year, the then-Democratic hopeful and now President-Elect Barack Obama spoke before the church the day the national holiday, delivering a call to responsibility that included a challenge to black churches to renounce homophobia.

Obama said in that address… “Our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community,” in part because “we have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them.”