Bernice King spoke to fundamentalist Destiny Church this weekend in Auckland to say her father, Marthin Luther King, Jr., "didn't take no bullet for same sex unions."

I heard Bernice say this on the news and was stunned by the message and her associating this with her father. New Zealand has worked over the past several years to deliver the same rights to gays that others take for granted. I respect her for her good works but there is something more respectful in me that prevents me from speaking for people who can't speak for themselves (the dead) and those greater than myself (God).

In saying this, she goes against what her mother Coretta Scott King has said many times over. and frankly (while she has a right to her own opinion) Coretta knew her husband a lot better and longer than Bernice knew her father.

and besides.... My right to be happy with the man I love doesn't need to be endorsed by any member of the King family past or present.

Do you have a link to that?

She must be aware that Bayard Rustin, who was gay, was a trusted adviser to her father, and chief coordinator of the 1963 Civil Rights March in DC.

[ October 26, 2004, 04:05 AM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

I heard it spoken on our radio but found the text at the Destiny Church web site: http://www.destinynz.org.nz/content.asp?co...t=article&id=87

Toward the end of that, she said
I can't think that Bernice knew (before speaking) that Destiny Church has vowed to take control of New Zealand within 3 years. Destiny Church is also a political party. Destiny Church was created by a local family, modelled on U.S.-syled tele-evangilism. His family is known for large commercial tourism ventures.

It is sad that Bernice, who comes from a nation of great division, is comfortable to incite others to the same devisiveness.

What's even worse is that Bernice is, from what I understand, a member of the family her damn self.

Just posted this letter to the Martin Luther King National Historic Site:

It is a sad statement on their support of freedom of expression - a crucial civil right - that most of the sites associated with MLK don't seem to have a means of contacting them.

I'm sure they would receive a lot of crank messages but that is no excuse for eliminating all possibility of criticism...unless they support limiting criticism as well.

[ October 26, 2004, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

I wrote Bernice King, in care of her Atlanta-based organisation, to express concern with the venue and message--without criticising her. She may not know of Destiny's Church's controvercial reputation or that New Zealand doesn't have the same division over gay rights that the U.S. does.

I'm surprised and disappointed that she would draw such a long bow to associate her father's murder and gay civil rights.

Her contact information is given on her web site http://www.berniceking.com/.

Destiny NZ intrigues me. There is a misaprehension among Americans that the rest of the western world has the same foundational principles that we do. The Commonwealth is not a system based on the separation of Church and State. The sovriegn of every commonwealth nation is Queen Elizabeth who is at the same time the head of the Anglican Church. New Zeland is a Christian nation; in fact it's an Anglican nation. This party is in no way affiliated with the Anglican Church. It is, in fact, affiliated with an entirely different church. Isn't that a conflict if it wants to be the ruling party of a country that is officially Anglican?

But beyond that, in their own principles, the party states, "Will strive for liberty and opportunity for every New Zealander regardless of race, gender, or status, promoting social harmony and national unity." I'm not sure what status is, but as a Jew, I'm pretty sure I've been left off the list (in the hypothetical situation that I was a citizen). That kind of distinction makes my people edgy. I'm sure if you asked the leaders of the Destiny Party if they were planning on pogroms if elected, they would, quite honestly, answer no. The problem is that once you write discrimination into the system, even by omission, you become responsible for what happens under that system.

One of the interesting by-products of the state religion system of Great Britain is a nationally recognized Chief Rabbi. As an American, this notion suprised me when I first ran accross it. The Destiny Party appears to be going in exactly the opposite direction, not only will other religions not be officially recognized, but they will be officially relegated, at best, the background.

I've always seen New Zeland as a liberal democracy with its priorities in the right place. Thus, I'm fairly confident this party will get its fifteen minutes of fame and fade. I certainly hope Mr. Brooks isn't going to correct me on that.

They are more progressive than we are. My comments were directed, not at New Zealand, which I loved visiting, but at Bernice Kings statement.

To reply to jqueer, New Zealand is comfortable with civil rights and other issues that are divisional in the U.S.--such as abortion and gun control--are not debated here. So given this, the concern is as sportinlife expressed, that a King family member would say the things she said and in a gathering of a controvercial divisionally-motivated group for financial/power gain. It was seeking the low ground in inter-cultural relations. And regardless of how Martin Luther King, Jr. viewed men who liked men, his message was about something more universal of removing division. Martin was not my father but even I would not have trivialised his work by my telling the press who he did and didn't die for. It was said for politics rather than affection and affirmation.