Bishop Harry Jackson
Gay marriage is not an equality issue, according to Bishop Harry Jackson, but an attempt to redefine a sacred institution. And he’d rather leave the traditional definition alone. Jackson, 56, leads the outspoken movement of religious leaders in D.C. opposed to efforts to recognize gay unions. And when he’s not influencing policy, he’s influencing nearly 3,000 souls every Sunday as the senior pastor at Beltsville’s Hope Christian Church.
Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I am a born-again Christian evangelical preacher. What’s most comforting to me about my faith is the ability to rely on the words of Scripture to bring personal guidance, inward transformation, and to release a sense of encouragement and strength to my heart.
Which bothers you more: the idea of gay marriage, or the idea that the residents of D.C. have not had the opportunity to vote for it?
To recognize gay marriage is patently not the way for us to go in this culture at this time. That is the defining issue for me. But it really is a combination of the two problems. Gay marriage is inappropriate, and it’s going to lead us down a road of untested and unintended consequences, wherein good people who think they’re doing the right thing are actually doing something that history will prove to us is the wrong thing. But I also think it’s really significant that people haven’t gotten a chance to vote for it, which means that I’m not sure if people know we’re making this huge choice. It’s the idea of a choice being made by a small group, imposing their will on the masses.
How do you balance your personal and pastoral role with your public and political role?
I am all about growing people to go into the world and speak, with relevance, to the issues of our day. So part of my role is to define what the great moral issues of our day are. The reality, is I’m not speaking out on issues that don’t have moral consequences — issues that don’t have biblical and historical relevance.
There should be a sense of people arriving at convictions about what’s going on in the public square based on our faith. You may say that building a new road doesn’t have anything to do with faith, and in most cases it doesn’t. But the definition of marriage does, what happens to the poor does.
Many people in the gay community frame their struggle as a civil rights struggle and therefore expect African Americans to join with them in the name of civil rights. Is that fair?
It’s not an equal rights issue, but a redefinition issue. I think that the civil rights concept deals with immutable characteristics, like race. The gay community’s definition states a behavior that can be known, or not known. If you’re gay, you don’t have to announce to everyone that you’re gay. It’s a far leap to say that a Georgetown-educated white gay person has the same struggles as someone in the hood in the District of Columbia. I can’t grade your pain and sense of rejection, but even the historical levels of abuse and persecution can’t compare. I dare say the gay experience in the last 25 years does not rise to the level of opposition blacks have seen. It’s an issue of how someone chooses to identify himself, versus how American society has dealt with the black experience for 400 years.
In the District of Columbia, it’s a privileged minority who are disproportionately wealthy and empowered, and with access to power, waging a concerted effort to redefine marriage. As far as having someone who is persecuted, I don’t see that.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe that God has created every individual with a unique personal calling and destiny. Unfortunately, that treasure cannot be fully discovered outside of relationship with Christ.
