Reverend Keith Ratliff has resigned from
the NAACP over its decision to endorse gay marriage.
At the NAACP's quarterly board meeting
in Miami last month, 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.)
At a press conference to announce the
decision, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous warned against gay
marriage bans, calling
them “dangerous.”
Ratliff, who ministers at the Maple
Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines, Iowa and is the
president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP, told the Des
Moines Register that he did not attend the meeting.
“I want to thank the NAACP for the
privilege to humbly serve in such an organization and thank all those
I had the privilege to work with in the states of Iowa, Nebraska and
throughout the country,” Ratliff is quoted as saying by KCCI-TV
in Des Moines.
Ratliff has vigorously opposed the 2009
legalization of gay marriage in Iowa.
(Related: Keith
Ratliff: NAACP board's most outspoken gay marriage foe.)