A little over a week after President
Barack Obama spoke up, gay marriage supporters are cheering a second
high-profile endorsement from the NAACP.
At the NAACP's quarterly board meeting
in Miami, the 64-member board approved
a resolution which calls gay marriage a “civil right and a
matter of law.”
(Related: Julian
Bond says Obama nudged NAACP on gay marriage.)
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest gay rights advocate, called the move “historic.”
“We could not be more pleased with
the NAACP's history-making vote today – which is yet another
example of the traction marriage equality continues to gain in every
community,” HRC President Joe Solmonese said in a statement.
GLAAD President Herndon Graddick called
the NAACP “a leading advocate and a voice for members of
marginalized communities.”
“Today's announcement represents
their continued stance against the discrimination that LGBT families
face,” he said.
Evan Wolfson, founder and president of
Freedom to Marry, added: “The NAACP has long been the nation's
conscience and champion for an America where all share equally in the
promise of liberty and justice for all. Today the NAACP resoundingly
affirmed that the freedom to marry is a civil right and family value
that belongs to all of us, and that discriminatory barriers to
marriage must fall.”
Wolfson also referred to gay marriage
foe the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) much-criticized
strategy to pit minority groups against marriage equality supporters.
“The toxic tactics of anti-gay groups
like NOM to 'drive a wedge between blacks and gays' will be washed
away in the wave of righteous affirmation,” he said.
Stuart Gaffney, media director for
Marriage Equality USA, concluded that “Standing together from
coast-to-coast with allies such as the NAACP is what is going to make
the dream of marriage equality for all loving couples a reality.”
(Related: Keith
Ratliff: NAACP board's most outspoken gay marriage foe.)