Julian Bond, Friend of the LGBTQ Communities

Julian Bond, Friend of the LGBTQ Communities

Julian Bond has been an outspoken friend and ally of Gays and Lesbians for years. He turns 69 years old today! According to White Crane Bond refused to attend Coretta Scott King's funeral as it was held in a Black Mega Church that was very anti-gay. He said King was a strong advocate for Gay and Lesbian rights...

So strong was Bond's solidarity with Gay equality that he boycotted the 2006 funeral services for Coretta Scott King on the grounds that it was held at a Black anti-Gay megachurch in a clear affront to her principles:

"I knew her fairly well; we were neighbors for [over 20 years] when I lived in Atlanta. There was a house between us. And I knew her attitude toward Gay and Lesbian rights. And I just couldn't imagine that she'd want to be in that church with a minister who was a raving homophobe. And I couldn't see myself in my church either. Although I have a great deal of respect and affection for her, I thought that I could show a lot more by staying away. We were neighbors and her children and my children grew up together and I saw her quite a bit. I couldn't do it."

"For some, comparing the African-American civil rights movement and the movement for Gay and Lesbian rights somehow diminishes the long black struggle for equality with all its suffering and sacrifices. People of color ought to be flattered, however, that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others, and that our tactics, methods, heroines and heroes, even our songs, have been adopted by or served as models for others." - Julian Bond

Horace Julian Bond (born January 14, 1940) is an American leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia during the early 1960s, he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He has been Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1998. In November 2008, he announced that he does not plan to seek another term as chairman