Wingnuts Very Thoughtfully Compare Obama's Civil Rights In Selma Speech To The KKK

About 100 marchers, including at least one original participant, are expected to complete their recreation of the 1965 Selma-to Montgomery march today when they reach the Alabama Capitol Friday morning. Finally, some historical re-enactors we like!

But the 50th anniversary of Selma, that pivotal moment in the Civil Rights movement has not pleased everyone, sadly. It turns out that a group of rightwing anti-gay preachers are upset Barack Obama thinks LGBT people have civil rights too, and also, the neo-Confederate League of the South would like to remind everyone that the 1965 march was not a good thing at all, because it was full of Communist preverts practicing deviated perversions all over the place.

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Rightwing newsblog ConservativeCybercast News Service (CNS) brings us the plaintive "what about us?" cries of a couple of important "Conservative Black leaders" who are simply aghast that Barack Obama insulted the memory of Bloody Sunday last week when he suggested that the fight for gay rights is anything like the struggle for civil rights, because black people aren't perverts or something. The always-entertaining E.W. Jackson, who failed to become lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2013, didn't like the overall theme of Obama's speech.

"I think the thesis of the president’s speech seems to be that what makes America great is protest, what makes America great is criticism of our country and he’s wrong."

"What makes America great is freedom, freedom is what allows protest,” said Jackson. “Freedom is what allows critique, but he didn’t talk about freedom he talked about this sort of ongoing critique of the country that we’re constantly trying to make the country in his mind better but to me all he meant was we’re trying to change it into an image that I find to my liking.”

Darn that Obama! Making Selma all about him, remember how he did that? And also, apparently the Civil Rights Movement was not about rocking the boat, it was about celebrating America. Jackson was especially offended that Obama said, in his remarks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, "We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge." For one thing, Obama wasn't even there in 1965. For another, The Gays are nothing like the Civil Rights heroes:

“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,” Jackson said.

“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.”

Not that E.W. Jackson is all that big on the Civil Rights movement, either. As you'll recall, he also thought that segregation was perfectly OK in some cases, and that the 3/5 Compromise was a pretty nifty idea. Maybe he'd be OK with 3/5 of the Gays? Probably in girl-on-girl videos ...

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Lest you think Jackson was the only black wingnut CNS could find, they also spoke to Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who thought Obama's Selma speech didn't thank America for all the nice things it's done for black people:

There was no hope in that rally,” Peterson said. “Just think about this: 50 years later we have a black president in the United States of America. This country has done more than any other country to make amends for slavery in this country and yet there was no appreciation of that. There was no praise of America, thanking America for what it had done. It was as though it was still 1955.”

“It was disgusting, it was evil, it was wrong,” said Peterson.

“That rally was a klan’s rally, was no different than the KKK, it was a hate rally, a hateful rally,” said Peterson.

Perhaps if Obama had just thanked Marse Lincoln -- who was a Republican -- for giving blacks their freedom, it would have been more to Peterson's liking.

But homophobic black preachers weren't the only ones critical of how Selma was being remembered. The League of the South was pretty darned upset that nobody in the liberal media was calling attention to the True Facts of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march, instead covering up the awful truth, which was that the marchers were a bunch of drunken hippies and negro radicals committing miscegenation while hopped up on goofballs. We really like their completely objective description of the events of "Bloody Sunday," too:

In 1965, marchers–local and regional negro leaders and outsider leftists of all stripes (Jew and Gentile alike)–descended on the quiet and quaint central Alabama river town of Selma to begin a 50-mile “voting rights” march to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. The first march plummeted like a lead balloon, as local and State law enforcement officials turned back the marches before they could cross the now-famous (0r infamous) Edmund Pettus Bridge. After the national news media showed the encounter between the marchers and Alabama officers, public pressure from outside the South got the feds involved and the march finally took place. The great untold story by the anti-South media was the orgy of sex, alcohol, and drugs that took place between Selma and Montgomery in the spring of 1965. But to deal honestly with these event [sic] and personalities would not have advanced the agenda of the evil South and the righteous left.

"The encounter between the marchers and Alabama officers" -- was tea served? Besides, the whole thing wasn't about civil rights, it was about Jews and white liberals doing it with blacks, (do we even need to say, no, the "drunken orgy" story was a myth propagated by segregationists at the time?) and about making the South look bad for some reason.

The League of the South was delighted to see that someone did something about all this historical amnesia: It reports that a fellow LOSer, Patricia Godwin, sponsored a billboard celebrating Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the KKK, just in time for the 50th anniversary of Selma, featuring his Civil war slogan "Keep the Skeer on 'em." It's nice to see that somebody cares about historical accuracy. Or as the LOSer's editorial put it,

[We] in The League of the South salute Miss Patricia and General Forrest. It is nice to have a bit of civilization on what us rednecks sometimes refer to as Little Harare on the Alabammy! Keep the skeer on ‘em indeed!

They seem nice.

[ AL.com / CNS News / RightWingWatch / LOS ]