Rosendall responds to right-wing columnist on Fauntroy and marriage amendment

The Washington Times, August 14, 2001
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Letter: Civil rights leader's opposition to gay marriage is hypocritical

Turning the truth on its head, Commentary columnist Maggie Gallagher portrays me as an ogre and the Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a former D.C. congressional delegate, as a victim ("Hate speech target," Aug. 11). Urging people to contact a public figure on a matter he has raised is not abuse. It makes no sense to call attacks on gay people principled policy positions while denouncing gays for defending themselves.

Mr. Fauntroy is scapegoating gay people for the problems in straight people's marriages. At a July 12 news conference, Mr. Fauntroy further blamed gays for what he called the feminizing of black men during slavery. What pathetic nonsense.

Mr. Fauntroy routinely claims credit (as I have witnessed) for the work of the late, openly gay Bayard Rustin in organizing the 1963 March on Washington. For Mr. Fauntroy to attack gays while taking credit for a gay man's work is doubly insulting.

Gays pay taxes like everyone else and are entitled to the same blessings of liberty. Even many conservatives oppose rewriting the Constitution to resolve a social dispute. If Mr. Fauntroy, in betrayal of his own civil rights background, seeks to disadvantage people he dislikes, we will not be complacent observers.

- RICK ROSENDALL
Vice President for Political Affairs
Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C.
www.glaa.org