First Black Southern Baptist President Opposes President on Gay Marriage

After President Obama announced on May 9th that his views on gay marriage had fully “evolved,” many expected a severe push back from the black community. Instead, The Chicago Tribune found that African Americans’ views on gay marriage shifted in the wake of the President’s announcement. “An ABC/Washington Post poll found a new high of 59 percent of African-Americans say gay marriage should be legal,” the Tribune reported. “That’s up from an average of 41 percent in polls leading up to Obama’s recent announcement that his position had ‘evolved’ into support for the right of gays and lesbians to legally marry.”

New Southern Baptist Convention President Fred Luter is definitely not among that 59 percent.

That on its surface doesn’t seem at all surprising. The SBC President doesn’t support gay marriage? Ok, no SBC President has ever supported gay marriage. But Luter isn’t just another SBC President — he’s the first black SBC president in the history of the 167-year-old organization that is the largest protestant body in the United States with over 16 million members.

“I believe that nothing, nothing can be politically right if it’s biblically wrong,” Luter said last week in an interview with Florida Baptist Witness. “The Word of God says marriage is between one man and one woman,” Luter said, adding that “no president, no governor, no mayor, no politician, no individual can change that fact.” In light of the Bible’s teaching on marriage, Luter said he is “totally against” President Obama’s support of gay marriage.

“People feel that because I’m African American I’ve got to agree with everything that the president says because he’s African American,” Luter told the Florida Baptist Witness.

This week Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took the issue head-on in his speech to the NAACP. Romney drew raucous cheers from the nation’s oldest civil rights organization when he vowed to “defend traditional marriage.”

This comes just a couple of months after the NAACP followed President Obama’s lead and officially endorsed same-sex marriage.

Reuters is now reporting that there is an emerging “rift” inside the NAACP as its members struggle with balancing their support of the President with their core beliefs…Not to mention the fact that Obama has utterly failed in addressing unemployment in the black community. African-American unemployment now sits at 14.4 percent.

Here’s what The Desmoines Register had to say after Romney’s NAACP appearance:

“Black Americans are in the bag for the Democrats. Aren’t they?

“Well sure, except that a lot of African-Americans care deeply about traditional marriage, raging unemployment and getting their kids into good schools.

“Romney demonstrated at the NAACP convention that he, not Obama, is with them on those issues. ‘If you want a president who will make things better for the African-American community, you are looking at him,’ he said. ‘You take a look.’

“Some just might. A few percent swinging to Romney in November would make a huge difference. That’s the Obama campaign’s real nightmare.”