Whatever your criticism of the NAACP's President Ben Jealous in the wake of the Shirley Sherrod incident, there's no question that the group's slow shift toward supporting LGBT civil-rights causes is partly his doing. This is an institutional change that isn't by any means complete -- the NAACP has a lot of culturally conservative, religious members and leaders.
But it was Jealous who initially pushed the national NAACP into opposing Prop. 8 in California, if not embracing marriage equality outright. He also showed support for members of the California chapter of the NAACP, who faced criticism for opposing Prop. 8:
For Pastor Amos Brown, the president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, opposition to Prop. 8 had serious consequences. Several weeks after the election, a significant number of donors had pulled out of the local NAACP's fundraising dinner because of his opposition to Prop 8. Brown was angry, but he wouldn't back down from his position.
"We don't live in a theocracy," Brown told me when I spoke with him in November. Brown, who opposes banning same-sex marriage but also says he wouldn't perform a same-sex marriage ceremony in his church, says his dedication to civil rights and opposition to Prop. 8 come from a similar place. He recalls first seeing a picture of Emmitt Till, a youth who was lynched in 1955 for supposedly making a pass at a white woman.
"When I saw that picture," Brown says, "I promised God myself, never would I be mean to people who were different."
Brown's fundraising dinner wasn't ruined. Jealous, the then-brand new president of the NAACP, raised $19,000 to replace the donors who backed out, and even flew in from Baltimore to show his support for Brown.
In an interview with the Prospect in January, Jealous explained his reasons for coming to Brown's aid. "I was there to defend our branch and their right to act on their conscience," Jealous says, "and I was there as a Californian whose brother is gay, and who personally just couldn't stand by."
This has been one of Jealous' more important and praiseworthy accomplishments as NAACP president.
