Straight male ministers' Day on the Hill

The Tennessean profiles Family Action's Ministers' Day on the Hill. It would more aptly be called conservative Evangelical Protestant straight male ministers' day on the hill. The article is at pains to point out that there were white and African-American ministers present. That's an improvement over previous years when the demographic was largely white as this video shows:



No clergy who are women are visible in the video and none are mentioned in the article. Obviously no openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender clergy were present. And why not? The agenda was an attack on the rights of women and the GLBT community. Oddly, they're still talking about "gay marriage," which makes no sense since we've already dealt with that in the Tennessee constitution. But Family Action has an odd habit of chattering about marriage no matter what equality issues comes up, as they did when we were working on the successful non-discrimination ordinance in Nashville.

So why is Family Action trying to add racial diversity to its Day on the Hill? It's simple. African-American lawmakers must not be voting with them on a lot of their legislative package. And my guess is that until they embrace an agenda of justice including jobs and education, that's not going to happen.

And until this day on the Hill reflects the diversity of ministers in Tennessee, we'll continue to call attention to the fact that it's really conservative Evangelical Protestant straight male ministers' day on the hill.