Here is a letter I wrote to a San Francisco Black minister who refused to attend a San Francisco chapter NAACP dinner because of their opposition to Prop 8. The article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/21/BA19148QAH.DTL I refer to is in Friday's San Francisco Chronicle. Scroll down

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Walter Ballin
Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Subject: For Rev. Boyd: Your Comment "We follow that direction. The people have spoken on this issue."
To: BethelAMEC@aol.com

Dear Rev. Boyd:

I read an article in Friday's San Francisco Chronicle about several Black ministers who will not attend the San Francisco NAACP's fundraiser dinner, because of the the SF NAACP's opposition to Proposition 8. In the article you were quoted as saying "I did not take a position on this issue in front of my congregation but our general assembly agreed that marriage was between a man and a woman," said Boyd. "We follow that direction. The people have spoken on this issue. It became law and everyone should abide by that. The tension is mostly coming from people who disagree with that, but they had their opportunity and the yes campaign won."

Now I recall back in the 1960's just before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and signed into law, hearing white ministers in the south stating that it states in the Bible that God said that there must be segregation. Until the Supreme Court made its decision in the Loving case in 1967, inter-racial marriage was illegal in many states and it was also illegal in California until 1948 when our state Supreme Court ruled that law unconstitutional. After the California voters voted for Proposition 14 to repeal the Rumford Fair Housing Act in 1964, the state Supreme Court ruled Proposition 14 unconstitutional. Perhaps we all should have left everything well enough alone and said as you just did that "We follow that direction. The people have spoken on this issue. It became law and everyone should abide by that. The tension is mostly coming from people who disagree with that, but they had their opportunity and the yes campaign won?"

Sincerely Yours,

Walter Ballin
Chico, CA