Oct 30, 2009  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

Scores of people cheered and waved signs as ministers and religious activists delivered speeches Sunday during a Freedom Plaza rally against same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia.

Chanting “let the people vote,” Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of a church in Beltsville, Md., and Rev. Walter Fauntroy, Washington’s former congressional delegate, were among a series of speakers to call on the D.C. City Council to allow a voter initiative that seeks to ban same-sex marriage in the city.

Jackson, who is leading the fight against a same-sex marriage bill introduced by gay Council member David Catania, announced at the rally that he would begin Monday a 21-day fast to help build support for a ballot initiative on marriage.

“It’s about the next generation. It’s about marriage and the family,” he said. “This is definitely not a civil rights issue.”

There was no official crowd estimate for the rally, but the Washington Post reported that about 150 people attended.

The rally took place one day before more than 100 witnesses testified for and against Catania’s marriage bill during a City Council hearing. About 270 people have signed up to testify on the bill, and Council member Phil Mendelson, who chairs the committee that will hold the hearing, has set a second session for the hearing Nov. 2.

About 100 witnesses testified before a separate hearing Monday morning at the D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics offices over whether the city’s election law allows a same-sex marriage initiative to be placed on the ballot in 2010.

The board ruled earlier this year that a ballot measure seeking to overturn a city law recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions — which the Council passed in May — could not be placed on the ballot because it would violate the city’s Human Rights Act.

Jackson and other speakers at Sunday’s rally stressed they didn’t want to strike laws that make it illegal to discriminate against gays in housing or employment matters. But the ministers and other speakers insisted that same-sex marriage is a religious rather than civil rights issue.

“Everyone is entitled to basic civil rights,” Fauntroy told the crowd. He joined other ministers speaking across the street from the John Wilson City Hall Building in saying same-sex marriage would irrevocably endanger families by redefining marriage against the will of God.

“I am opposed to it because I want to see the perpetuation of the species,” he said. “God told us to go out and multiply.”

A review of the rally’s crowd indicated that about 95 percent of the people were black. Several of the speakers said whites, Latinos and members of other ethnic groups were among those strongly opposed to same-sex marriage.

Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the National Black Church Initiative, said he and other same-sex marriage opponents would actively work for the defeat of all City Council members who vote for Catania’s marriage bill. Nine of the Council’s 13 members signed on with Catania as co-introducers of the bill, making it nearly certain that the bill will pass.

Mayor Adrian Fenty has said he will sign the bill. Once he does so, it goes to Congress, where it must undergo a 30 legislative day review. Gay rights supporters in Congress have said they believe they have the votes, with the backing of House and Senate Democratic leaders, to defeat any attempt to overturn a D.C. same-sex marriage law.

Evans told the rally about a meeting that he and about two-dozen ministers had Oct. 22 with D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray.

In a statement released to the Blade, Evans recounted that Gray told the ministers that “no matter what the church says he was going to push for the passage of the same-sex marriage law.”

“We then asked him what about your soul,” Evans said in the statement. “He boldly told us this matter does not have anything to do with my soul. We were astonished to hear the chairman of the City Council not only willing to ignore God’s word but was determined to defy the teachings of Christ concerning marriage and defy God by declaring same-sex marriage as not a religious issue but a human rights one.”

Gray spokesperson Dixie McCoy, who attended Gray’s meeting with the ministers, disputed Evans’ assertion that Gray acted in an arrogant way or challenged their religious beliefs.