Elder Dallin H. Oaks refers to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in remarks prepared for delivery at Brigham Young University-Idaho, a speech church officials describe as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom.

In an advance copy provided to The Associated Press, Oaks suggests that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices in the public square.

“The extent and nature of religious devotion in this nation is changing,” said Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a church governing body. “The tide of public opinion in favor of religion is receding, and this probably portends public pressures for laws that will impinge on religious freedom.”

Oaks’ address comes as gay-rights activists mount a legal challenge to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that overturned gay marriage in California. His comments about civil rights are likely to anger gay rights activists who consider the struggle to enact same-sex marriage laws as a major civil rights cause.

In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election’s aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.

“It may be offensive to some — maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” he said.

Read more of this Associated Press post by clicking here.

Now this is amazing.  White people, (the LDS church has very few black members, I’ll get to that in a minute) claiming their struggle for religious freedom (and by religious freedom they must mean spending tens of millions of tax-exempt dollars on supporting a political agenda and dictating who is entitled marry), are being oppressed by LGBT Americans, who don’t have the same rights or equality?

This is so wrong at so many levels I’m not sure where to start.  Just in case you aren’t familiar, the Mormon Church used to preach segregation.  It was their firm belief that being a person of color was a punishment from God and people of color were lesser than white people…and that was up until 1978!  It was in that year former President Jimmy Carter threatened the LDS church with taxation if they did not stop preaching segregation, and amazingly enough, God spoke to the elders, and within weeks of the taxation threat, told them being a person of color was no longer a punishment from God, therefore they should be accepted into the church.

Secondly, how is anyone, who enjoys full benefits of marriage, employment, housing, etc….you know, all the rights, liberties and freedoms offered to everyone in America except for those of us in the LBGT community, going to claim they are being oppressed…and compare their oppression to that of what people of color experienced during and prior to the Civil Rights Movement?

This statement is not only stupid and delusional, but it’s extremely disrespectful towards anyone of color, and it demonstrates the lengths people will go to in their attempt to prevent American citizens who are a member of the LGBT community from ever enjoying full equality and maintain our second class citizenship.

It is with my most sincere hope, the community of color in this country stands up against this distasteful ignorance.  I sincerely hope this becomes the straw that broke the camels back with the Mormon church.  Hopefully Americans are smart enough to see through blatantly false and degrading statements like this and recognize that this mentality is twisted and wrong.

I never quite stop being amazed at the hate, intolerance and bigotry that comes from those who oppose equality for LGBT citizens, but this is over the top, and I again hope, that over the top, the Mormon church finds an edge, with a very steep decline that drops a long way down.

Why is it so hard for folks to say that gay rights are African-American rights because lgbts of color are touched by both communities? Why is it so hard for folks to say that there are times in which the black and gay struggles intersect?

That is why I am so damned weary of this argument about “is gay the new black” or “can gay rights movement compare itself to the civil rights movement.”

Read more at: Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters!

Find out what Congressman Lewis has to say about LGBT rights and marriage by listening to an interview, with host James Hipps, at gayagenda.com!

Read the rest at Freedom to Marry!

Get the rest at Black is Beautiful, Gay is Good!

And it has seemingly spooked the Religious Right, or at least its media arms, so much so that they felt it necessary to seek out quotes from movement leaders that would remind everyone that, though nonbelievers exist, they are a small minority and that this is still a Christian nation.

Read the entire post at Right Wing Watch!

Tonight’s topic is the Obama Administration’s White House Agenda for Civil Rights!

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Here are some quick facts about MLK!

Birth January 15, 1929
Death April 4, 1968
Place of Birth Atlanta, Georgia

1954 Selected as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama
1955 Received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University
1955-1956 Led a successful effort to desegregate Montgomery, Alabama, buses
1957 Helped found and served as the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
1958 Published Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
1963 Wrote ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’ stating it was his moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws
1963 Delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1964 Won the Nobel Peace Prize
1964 Became the first Black American to be honored as Time magazine’s Man of the Year.
1965 Organized a mass march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama for voter’s rights
1968 Was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee

‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’ August, 1963, in a speech to civil rights supporters at the March on Washington.

Read the rest at The Liberty Papers!

After a sickening acknowledgment of the historic election of Barack Obama as our next president in which Huckabee talks about how much he remembers segregation, Huckabee says that gay rights are not civil rights because gays have not been the victims of violent attacks in the ways that African-Americans have.

Read the rest at Bilrico!