Black Civil Rights Groups Denounce Anti-Gay Organization

The NAACP and The National Black Justice Coalition have publically denounced a strategy by the National Organization for Marriage to divide LGBT people and African-Americans over marriage equality.

NOM's plan to cultivate a "wedge" between minority communities was revealed earlier this week when the Human Rights Campaign circulated a previously confidential document after a federal judge in Maine ordered it to be unsealed. The December 2009 internal NOM document states, "We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to marriage as a civil right."

In a written statement released Wednesday, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous (above, left) said, "This memo only reveals the limits of a cynical agenda. The truth is that no group, no matter how well-funded, can drive an artificial wedge between our communities. People of color understand what it is like to be the target of discrimination. No public relations strategy will make us forget that.”

The National Black Justice Coalition also denounced NOM on Wednesday. The non-profit's Executive Director and CEO Sharon Letteman-Hicks (above, right) said in a written statement, "These documents expose NOM for what it really is—a hate group determined to use African American faith leaders as pawns to push their damaging agenda and as mouthpieces to amplify that hatred. With these memos made public, the black faith community must refuse to be exploited and refuse to deny their fellow brothers and sisters equal protections under the law."