“I’m not the enemy,” defends Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in the current issue of Atlanta magazine. Her comments, made in response to backlash from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates, ironically became public just days before President Barack Obama named Bayard Rustin, the openly gay advisor to Dr. King and chief organizer behind the historic March on Washington, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom–the nation’s highest civilian honor.
King, the youngest among her siblings and CEO of the King Center, has previously made headlines for saying that her father “did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage.” Despite her mother Coretta Scott King’s support for LGBT equality, the ordained minister who led a protest against gay marriage with megachurch pastor Eddie Long continues to oppose equal protections for the LGBT community.
“People have labeled me homophobic,” she says in the Georgia-based publication. “If I was homophobic, I wouldn’t have friends who are gay and lesbian, so that can’t be true. But because I have a certain belief system, I am now the enemy.”
Bernice King might not be the “enemy,” but her logic is deeply flawed.
“Her comments are why there has to be a separation of church and state,” says Sharon Lettman-Hicks, Executive Director and CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), the nation’s leading black LGBT civil rights organization. “The country has gotten to the point where we’re beginning to have the conversation that black LGBT people exist; just look at new documentary The New Black and the president awarding Bayard Rustin the Medal of Freedom. It’s happening, but change is not an easy thing.”
The “I have gay friends” defense
“When I read Bernice King’s comments, I had to pause,” Lettman-Hicks says. “I thought to myself that before slavery was abolished, I am certain that many white people had the same opinion about black people being free and equal.”
Most black Americans don’t have to go back centuries to encounter a mentality that mirrors King’s sentiments. In fact, insert any marginalized minority group or identity, and you have an argument often used to remove any sort of social responsibility from anyone with access to privilege (white, male, straight, able-bodied… the list goes on).
“I’m not racist, I have black friends.”
“I’m not transphobic. I work with people that are trans.”
“Sexist? No way! My wife’s a woman.”
Regardless of one’s personal beliefs about LGBT identity, discrimination is discrimination is discrimination.
Trying to excuse prejudice as just a preference
“A lot of times what we call prejudices are preferences,” King further explained about her views. “How do you get to a place where everyone likes all vanilla ice cream or all lemon custard? They don’t.”
When the law refuses to recognize an entire group of people as human or denies countless everyday Americans equal protections, we’ve got to take a serious look at what Bernice King attempts to distinguish as just her “preference” and not a harmful prejudice.
For thousands of LGBT people, simply providing for themselves and their families is a daily hurdle because their basic human right — to be able to take care of the people they love — is being legislated based on a set of personal biases. “Preferences” such as King’s are barring people from jobs, housing, parenthood and more.
Sometimes the personal is not the political
When asked if she would marry her gay and lesbian friends, King responds, “I wouldn’t marry them. But I don’t dictate that. That’s society’s call.”
And she’s right. Here is one moment when King rightly separates church and state.
“I’m glad that King recognizes the fundamental separation between religious rites and civil rights,” explains Aisha Moodie-Mills, LGBT Policy & Racial Justice Advisor at the Center for American Progress (CAP). “She has the right to perform, or not perform, whatever ceremonies she likes in her church, just as I have the right to be treated fairly and equally under marriage laws. It is indeed ‘society’s call’ to shape these laws, and the momentum we see on LGBT rights demonstrates once again that the moral arc of the universe always bends towards justice.”
Yet, personal beliefs about gays are often legislated
Certainly, King makes an important distinction. While she values “marriage between a man and woman” both “spiritually” and “psychologically,” as a Democratic nation, the proverbial power is (supposedly) in our hands as citizens to make our individual life decisions.
Where King misses the mark is her failure to note that valuing heteronormativity doesn’t grant you license to legislate that LGBT people be politically disenfranchised.
Does she have to be an outspoken advocate for every cause? No. King’s Atlanta magazine interview exposes the heavy burden of her inheritance as the daughter of a civil rights icon. King is “tasked with carrying on the legacy of a man known as the ‘conscience of America’”—a mighty feat, indeed.
Yet, her father, Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Remembering this piece of wisdom, as someone who has championed everything from gun control to education, it understandably raises eyebrows that Bernice King does not take a stand against injustices everywhere.
What we can learn from the Bernice Kings of the world
Though deeply problematic, King’s comments are revealing. It’s time for us as a nation to expand the conversation on gay rights, because we need to understand more deeply how personal preferences become socially mandated prejudices. While it’s happening on a grassroots level and in pockets of activism in the black community, it’s time we talk about more than marriage equality when we talk about gay and trans people, and how civil rights includes equal rights for the LGBT community.
Let’s also talk about the 29 states in which LGBT Americans can be fired because of who they love, or the 41 percent of black transgender men and women who have been homeless at some point in their lives. Let’s ask the Bernice Kings of the world how they feel about that.
What we find might surprise a lot of people. Research indicates that (gasp) black people are not monolithically homophobic. In fact, when it comes to issues like employment discrimination and anti-LGBT violence, African-Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of their LGBT brothers and sisters.
Creating space to respectfully disagree
How do we create safe spaces for people to respectfully disagree without granting them a pass to legally oppress people for being who they are?
Surely trying to change hearts, minds and public policy is bound to ruffle a few feathers. Hurling words like “homophobic” against King and others with her belief system will only end up doing the movement more harm than good. But it is also our jobs as advocates to confront extremists with virulent views, and to challenge people on the fence to do some soul-searching.
“We’re going to have to find a way to settle down and accept our shortcomings and our differences, period, and give people room to exist in that space,” King also shares in Atlanta magazine. “What I struggle with is when we disagree.”
King has a point there as well. But we have to remember that accepting differences without legal protections against discrimination is meaningless.
Bernice King was contacted for a statement for this article, but her office did not respond by publication time.
Kimberley McLeod is a D.C.-based media strategist and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocate. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of ELIXHER, an award-winning online destination for Black LGBT women. Follow her on Twitter @KimKMcLeod.