[mystictrek]

+ It is the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Spirituality & Practice offers a lot of MLK quotes and other resources. Here's are 3 quotes to ponder:

As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.


Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.


Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

+++

READ ARTICLE

+++

love, john + www.abundancetrek.com & www.abundancetrek.com/blog + "Be the change you want to see" -- Mohandas Gandhi

[October's Autumn]

I need to find a good biography on MLK Jr. I have been hearing snippets about his activism that included civil rights but were also anti-war among other things. Most recently I was reading from someone who knew him personally who was concerned because his was far more complicated of a man than he is often portrayed by people now. People want to forget that he fought through non-violent civil disobedience, was anti-war, pro-gay, etc.

[McKenna]

October, on Feb 10 2008, 01:17 AM, said:

I need to find a good biography on MLK Jr. I have been hearing snippets about his activism that included civil rights but were also anti-war among other things. Most recently I was reading from someone who knew him personally who was concerned because his was far more complicated of a man than he is often portrayed by people now. People want to forget that he fought through non-violent civil disobedience, was anti-war, pro-gay, etc.

Really?! I've never heard that before! Do you have a source for that? That would be great if he really was...

[October's Autumn]

McKenna, on Feb 10 2008, 04:47 PM, said:

Really?! I've never heard that before! Do you have a source for that? That would be great if he really was...

His widow, Coretta Scott King talks about him being pro-gay. I don't remember exactly what she said but when she was being told to basically shut-up about gay rights she reminded her detractors that her late husband fully expected to do for gay civil rights what had been done for black civil rights. I guess there was plenty of gay people who were marching with them. As far as the rest goes I'll have to go through some stuff. I'm pretty sure it was in a JET magazine or an article that came out around MLK, Jr. Day about people fearing losing part of who MLK was because they are so focused on aspect of what he believed in.

[October's Autumn]

http://www.hatecrime...es/coretta.html


This is one where Coretta Scott King says she believes her late husband would have fought for gay rights.


http://news.minnesot...lliamsb_wwmlkd/

http://www.skeptictank.org/king.htm

[McKenna]

October, on Feb 20 2008, 10:47 PM, said:

http://www.hatecrime...es/coretta.html
This is one where Coretta Scott King says she believes her late husband would have fought for gay rights.
http://news.minnesot...lliamsb_wwmlkd/

http://www.skeptictank.org/king.htm

I looked around a bit and found an article that says Coretta believes MLK would have supported gay rights, while his daughter disagrees (turned out to be same article that you cited second above ). So I guess it's a bit iffy, but I'd be more inclined to believe the wife than the daughter, since Coretta knew him longer and more intimately.

Still, the very fact that his wife believes he would have supported gay rights is pretty amazing, and I'm very glad to hear it!

[October's Autumn]

McKenna, on Feb 21 2008, 07:26 PM, said:

I looked around a bit and found an article that says Coretta believes MLK would have supported gay rights, while his daughter disagrees (turned out to be same article that you cited second above ). So I guess it's a bit iffy, but I'd be more inclined to believe the wife than the daughter, since Coretta knew him longer and more intimately.

Still, the very fact that his wife believes he would have supported gay rights is pretty amazing, and I'm very glad to hear it!

Considering Bernice King was only about 5 when her father died (he died in 68, she was born in 63) I wouldn't take anything she had to say about him to heart. 5 year olds don't know their parents... especially not like a spouse does.

[McKenna]

October, on Feb 21 2008, 10:37 PM, said:

Considering Bernice King was only about 5 when her father died (he died in 68, she was born in 63) I wouldn't take anything she had to say about him to heart. 5 year olds don't know their parents... especially not like a spouse does.

Exactly.

What I got from the article was that the people arguing against MLK being a supporter of gay rights were doing so on the basis that he was a preacher. Still, I'm more inclined to believe his wife, who (presumably) knew him on many more levels than simply that he was a preacher and even that he was a civil rights advocate. She probably knew him better than anyone.

[October's Autumn]

Also, he was looking for equal rights for ALL people. Some think he was only advocating for Civil Rights for black people, but his scope was way beyond that. His overall stance on war, poverty, "isms," etc. point to the fact that he would have been fighting for GLBT rights.

When ever a female paster/preacher/minister starts to be anti-gay it makes me want to scream. I feel like throwing some choice biblical passages in their face. To me for Bernice King to be a Reverend and claim and then turn around and use the bible to promote discrimination against others is the ultimate hypocrisy -- considering what the bible says about women speaking in churches.

[rivanna]

A few more MLK quotes --

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.