Reverend William Owens, a well-known African-American pastor who identifies himself as “a religious liaison for the National Organization For Marriage,” says men having sex with dogs is no different from same-sex marriage, and people become homosexual because they were sexually abused.
“Well if it’s a civil right for a man to marry man, and a woman to marry woman, what’s the difference of a man deciding he wants to have sex with a dog?,” Owens is recorded as saying. He adds:
When people that you don’t know they’re homosexuals, and they get caught into something, they will tell you it was early childhood that they were molested. Sometimes by a family member, sometimes by their father, or sometimes by a friend. It starts in early childhood. […] Homosexuality spreads because somebody abused children.
Josh Glasstetter at Right Wing Watch, who provided the above quotes and the audio, below, writes:
I wasn’t surprised then, to learn that Owens is affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage, whose internal planning documents talk of the need to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.†Owens was once a heroic civil rights leader in Nashville, but these days it’s hard to know – apart from NOM – who or what Owens’ constituency is. For instance, Owens is a collecting signatures for an anti-marriage equality pledge at 100000signatures4marriage.com (that’s with a 1 with 5 zeros). But he wrote in a May 31 letter that “over one thousand†people had signed (so close, just 99% more to go!).And just last week, the African Methodist Episcopal Church took exception with a Coalition of African-American Pastors press release that claimed that both organizations would call on black pastors to “withhold support from President Obama because of his ongoing disrespect for the views of many of us in the black church.†Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, chair of AME’s Commission on Social Action, said that “contrary to the report, neither the AME Church nor its leadership is involved with or partnering with the Coalition of African-American Pastors.†Oops.
Owens, who is founder and president of the Tennessee-based Coalition of African-American Pastors, held a protest yesterday against the NAACP’s support for same-sex marriage, on the final day of the civil right’s organization’s conference’s final day in Houston.
The Huffington Post reports on Owens protest yesterday:
“This is supposed to be an organization for black people who were beaten, who were mistreated and who were enslaved,” Owens told The Huffington Post. “You’re advocating for something that’s not normal, that’s not natural. It’s still out of line, it’s against moral law.”
“Gay marriage is leading us down a bad path,” Owens added. “Our young people are already hurt. They’re already damaged.”
…
When asked whether he personally knew any same-sex couples, Owens said he did not. “Not that I would have an aversion to knowing them,” he said. “I just don’t know any.”
Polls have shown that black opposition to same-sex marriage has considerably softened since the president announced his support. A Washington Post-ABC surveyfound that a majority of African Americans support same-sex marriage, and that black support had jumped 18 percent in May alone. Other polls taken in Ohio and North Carolina, both swing states this fall, have shown dramatic jumps in black support on the issue.
Listen to Reverend Owens at a recorded press conference from May: