Black leaders have called President Barack Obama's comparison of the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march to same-sex marriage activism insulting, disgraceful and even delusional.
In a speech delivered Saturday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches, Obama said, "We're the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge."
But Rev. William Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) told Breitbart News that he participated in civil rights marches with many of those civil rights activists, and "all of them are shocked" at the president's comparison.
"They never thought they would see this day that gay rights would be equated with civil rights. Not one agreed with this comparison," Owens said.
"President Obama is a disgrace to the black community," Owens continued. "He is rewriting history. We didn't suffer and die for gay marriage. We marched for opportunity, equality, justice, freedom from oppression. We are the true heirs of the civil rights movement. We have a new movement to reclaim the 'real' civil rights movement."
Owens called Obama "delusional to compare our struggle" with the fight for marriage equality.
"Gays have not had firehoses or dogs unleashed at them. They have not been hung from trees or denied basic human rights," Owens told Breitbart.
According to Owens, the gay rights community hijacked a movement it knows nothing about, and now Obama is seemingly jumping on board.
"President Obama didn't march," Owens said. "He has benefited from those of us who did march, but for President Obama to say we marched so that gays would have the right to marry today, is a disgrace and a lie."
Bishop E.W. Jackson of Staying True to America's National Destiny also had a bone to pick with Obama's speech.
"To me, it is an insult and every black person ought to be insulted by it," Jackson told CNSNews. "Instead of applauding that, we ought to be booing lines like that because it denigrates the tremendous price our ancestors paid to experience the full rights of citizenship in this country."
Jackson continued: "I think it's a problem not only for the president but for a lot of people, who are deeply misguided, to compare people who are protesting to have their behavior, their sexual behavior, recognized as some kind of civil right or for that matter civil virtue and compare that to people who are trying to vote, trying to go into a restaurant and get a sandwich, are trying to stay in a hotel overnight while they are on the road, trying to sit wherever they want to sit on public accommodation and transportation."
"To compare those two, to me, it is highly intellectually dishonest or just outright stupid," said Jackson. "You can't possibly believe that in your heart of hearts if you're a thinking person."
