NAACP Approves Resolution Supporting Marriage Equality and Opposing Anti-LGBT Discrimination

(UPDATE per ThinkProgress: “I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.” — Coretta Scott King – promoted by lowkell)

See the statement below from the NAACP, affirming that great organization’s support for “marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution” and opposing “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.” My guess is that Martin Luther King, Jr. would strongly approve of the NAACP resolution passed today, as it helps bend the “arc of the moral universe” towards justice for every citizen of our nation. Thank you NAACP!

NAACP Supports Marriage Equality



May 19, 2012

Decision Affirms Opposition to Government Efforts to Codify Discrimination

(Miami, Florida) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People today released a resolution supporting marriage equality. At a meeting of the 103-year old civil rights group’s board of directors, the organization voted to support marriage equality as a continuation of its historic commitment to equal protection under the law.

“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 NAACP has addressed civil rights with regard to marriage since Loving v. Virginia declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in 1967. In recent years the NAACP has taken public positions against state and federal efforts to ban the rights and privileges for LGBT citizens, including strong opposition to Proposition 8 in California, the Defense of Marriage Act, and most recently, North Carolina’s Amendment 1, which changed the state constitution’s to prohibit same sex marriage.

Below is the text of the resolution written by NAACP Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond and passed by the NAACP board of directors, with only 2 dissenting votes:

The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the “political, educational, 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.