National Gay and Lesbian Task Force responds to NAACP marriage equality endorsement

The board of directors of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, today voted to endorse marriage equality. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the NAACP have worked together on issues related to racial and economic justice, LGBT rights and marriage equality, among others. NAACP leaders Julian Bond and Ben Jealous have each also spoken at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, the largest convening of pro-LGBT rights supporters in the country.

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey said today:

This is truly a historic moment as the NAACP  — the nation’s oldest civil rights organization — takes an official and unequivocal stand for marriage equality. As the country’s oldest national LGBT rights group, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force could not be more thrilled.

We are also not surprised by the leadership exhibited once again by the NAACP. Just a few months ago, NAACP President Ben Jealous stood before 3,000 LGBT rights activists at our Creating Change Conference and spoke powerfully and poignantly about the ties of conscience and courage that bind us. “The NAACP and the LGBT movement have fought together for social justice since Bayard Rustin planned the March on Washington in 1963,” he told the crowd. “He was a black gay hero who wrote the textbook on mobilizing the masses for jobs and freedom.”

We are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the NAACP working together on the many issues that affect all of our lives. Whether it be fair access to education and jobs, an end to voter suppression and racial profiling, the right to love and be who we are free of discrimination — these issues affect all of us, our families and our country. Today the NAACP did what it does so well — inspires and affirms our common humanity.