"You can't sit on your bogus laurels as a moral conscienceI for the nation and turn around and preach bigotry and hatred and discrimination."

Most of the people throughout American history who thought of themselves as a moral conscience for the nation preached bigotry and hatred and discrimination against one group or another. So I don't know why black preachers (or do you mean black people in general?) should be any different.

Isn't there an editor at Salon who looked at this article first?

Or does Debra Dickerson get a pass because she's black and she's writing about race?

If I were African-American I'd be offended that this article got in.

What confusion amongst the responders!

DD--in the community? or out, out, out! been to the clue store? needs a clue, big-time! lousy writer? only the best! she's white! you wouldn't be attacking her if she weren't black!

Help!

I look at this article and I say, the woman has a clear point: that white America for decades considered black Americans a moral compass/moral conscience for the nation... one that it nonetheless could ignore without consequence. Marginalization meant we could sit on a pedestal, over in the corner, and the nation could give the occasional guilty nod to our suffering--but no one who mattered need be bothered to know what was actually on our minds. But Dickerson's saying we ain't behind W.E.B. du Bois's veil no mo'. As Bill Cosby said in another context, our dirty laundry is parading around, grabbing faith-based initiative dollars (in the millions!), and offering up mean-spirited sound bites for the cameras and posterity...

It *will* be interesting to see what the nation makes of all this. (It's certainly been interesting reading these responses, which are basically all over the map.)

But I don't think we should take away from DD the fact that it actually takes a lot of courage to do what she did. The knocking around she's taking on these pages will be gentle love taps to what will come if the evangelicals decide to take offense. I tend to be highly ambivalent about some of DD's career moves--writing for the National Review, the lengths she's gone to to get certain stories--but... I also get where she comes from. She came up the hard way and worked like a Hebrew slave for everything she's gotten...

I don't care that some of the details are wrong. The argument is right. You can't sit on your bogus laurels as a moral conscienceI for the nation and turn around and preach bigotry and hatred and discrimination. Christians weren't requested to tolerate anybody--they were COMMANDED to love God and their neighbors as themselves.

Period.

I'm hoping these lame-O hacks masquerading as men of God don't notice she's called them out. Failing that, I hope God protects her. She'll need it.

She deserves the criticism. Yet another facile spin on a complex issue that the author apparently knows little about beyond the surface and is content to reduce it to the kind of navel gazing snark that's become all too common in Salon these days.

domini may have been over the top with her rhetoric but she's right on the substance. As she and some others have pointed out, writing an essay on the subject without having a grasp of even the most basic current state of affairs is worthless except if you want to indulge your personal sarcasm bone. Especially when the general information is readily available in mainsteam black publications like "Ebony" or "Essence" hence the disconnect point.

Christianity does not assume those things. You claim that women or black women haven't learned about the church. Well, you apparently haven't learned about scripture. Read the Song of Solomon, perhaps. Or basically any of the Gospels. Christianity is a religion of transcendance and human equality and salvation. The men who have controlled the way the church teaches scripture are about power and control. Look seriously at any religion, or any social construct (such as Buddhism as it was actually practiced before today's feel-good postmodernism) and you'll find sexism and oppression.

Or maybe just read some fem lib theology. You'd be surprised how much bigger things are than the way you construct them.

Is acceptance of homosexuality the new litmus test for progressives? Do we all have to agree that homosexuality is alright and reject what the Bible says about it to be seen as non-bigoted by people such as Dickerson?

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Yes, if by progressive you mean people who aren't inclined to force their beliefs upon another.

The Bible is as clearly pro-slavery as it is anti-gay, and in fact, for many generations the Bible was used as religious justification for the enslavement of Africans.

Even today, it would be unlikely that most State population would support an amendment allowing inter-racial marriage. Loving V. Virginia overturned the many State laws making marriage between a Black and White a criminal offense. The decision was exceedingly unpopular at the time (1964) and is a direct comparison to the efforts today to recognize marriage between those other than a man and woman.

Anti-Gay bigotry and anti-Black bigotry is mined from the same vein. Either a person is born Gay, and in that case has no more control over being gay than a person does being Black, or you end up supporting the practice of “Passing.” Where light colored Blacks would pass as White, and have to silently renounce their own race and families, in order to have maximum opportunity in society.

When you look down on someone or discriminate against someone simply because of who she or he is, and not what she or he has done, then you are a bigot, whether the trigger is color of skin or attraction of gender.

I have read some things that Debra Dickerson has written, including books, and while I welcome an African American voice on Salon, I fear that she has an axe to grind. She has obvious disdain for many African Americans, conservative or otherwise. It is unfortunate that this is the voice that Salon has chosen to spark debate.

She uses a few African American clergy to make the point that African Americans are falling prey to the Christian right is very simplistic. The issue of gay marriage is complex and many African Americans have a more nuianced view than a vote for or against a referendum. While many, including myself, are ambiguous on gay marriage or do not support gay marriage, we support equal rights, civil unions and the right to autonomously make life decisions, including inheritance. So, a vote against gay marriage is not necessarily a vote for persecution or discrimination against homosexuals. Moreover, many blacks, even spritual ones, do not believe that Christianity is only about gay marriage and abortion. We have a more holistic view that encompasses justice, the poor and other Christian duties.

Also, what evidence in the election makes Ms. D. believe that blacks are about to go red? Votes in a few states against gay marriage? What about the overral message that the black electorate sent to the GOP. Not just no, but hell no. Inroads gained by the GOP in 2004 were lost in 2006.

Finally, Ms. Dickerson could use a good editor. This article was perilously close to rambling and it was sometimes incoherent.