At D.C. Anti-Marriage Rally, Marion Barry Decries Marriage Equality

Former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, whose political career is as notable for his arrest during an FBI sting for drugs as for his two stints as an African American mayor of the nation's capitol, stood with anti-gay Bishop Harry Jackson in speaking out against recognition of gay and lesbian families at a poorly-attended anti-marriage rally.

An April 28 article at the Web site for People for the American Way noted that Jackson, pastor of a Maryland church, decried GLBT equality activists for "hijacking" the civil rights movement--though, added the article, "He of course had no problem using iconic civil rights songs (Lift Every Voice and Sing, We Shall Overcome) as part of his effort to deny equality to a group of their fellow Americans."

The article directed readers to a more in-depth report on Jackson, who in 2004 declared that he had received word from God to work for the re-election of George W. Bush.

Barry, along with Tony Perkins of the anti-gay Family Research Council, addressed the crowd from Jackson's podium. The gathering had convened to protest the city council's vote to acknowledge gay and lesbian families granted marriage in jurisdictions where marriage equality is legal, though Washington, D.C. does not offer marriage equality itself.

A similar policy is in effect in New York State, and has been upheld by courts there.

Barry, now a Washington, D.C. Council member, was not present when the a preliminary vote on the legislation saw the measure approved with unanimous support, according to online news site the dcist.

"If I had been, I would have voted 'no,'" Barry said, despite having said last year in an address to the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club during his re-election campaign that he would support such legislation, the dcist noted.

Said Barry, "I am a politician who is moral."

In 1990, Barry was arrested at the Vista Hotel in an FBI sting and charged with possession of crack cocaine; an array of other charges were also leveled at Marion, who was the Mayor of Washington, D.C. at the time, but he was convicted only of a charge stemming from a separate incident in 1989.

Subsequent to his conviction and court-ordered drug counseling, Barry served on the council and then became mayor once more in 1994.

Barry declared, "We have to say 'no' to same-sex marriage in D.C."

The dcist article quoted an onlooker, Sharon McGowan, who is a resident of the city, as noting, "It's really interesting that they had to bring people in from outside D.C." to raise objections to the measure.

Others in the crowd indicated that they had been encouraged to attend the rally, which drew an estimated 150 people, by their pastors.

The People for the American Way story noted that Barry stated his support for civil unions at the gathering, even as he decried marriage equality; Jackson, meantime, compared marriage equality for same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia, saying that two men or two women being married was like a marriage between "a man and a three-year old."

Jackson also encouraged the crowd to talk up the sexual acts in which they imagined that two men or two women might engage, in order to disgust people and garner outrage against gay and lesbian families, the article said.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty reportedly supports the measure.