(AgapePress) - A prominent black conservative says he is not surprised that liberal black lawmakers are thwarting the efforts of several states to get Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) laws or amendments passed.

According to the New York Times, at the national level and in states such as Massachusetts and Georgia, black political leaders have been fairly clear in their opposition to DOMA legislation. Last week in the Georgia House of Representatives, black lawmakers provided 39 of the 50 no votes and abstentions that helped a DOMA fall three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny says most black politicians equate the homosexual agenda with civil rights. "I am absolutely not surprised at the so-called 'black leadership,'" he says. "For the last 40 years they have clearly been on the side of wrong, on the side of evil, and they have supported homosexuality all along."

Peterson asserts that homosexual activists "jumped on the civil rights bandwagon" in the early 1960s "under the pretense of trying to help black people so that they can further their cause, and that's what's happening today."

But Peterson finds it offensive that homosexuals attempt to equate homosexuality with race. "It's not the same," he says, "I cannot change my color from black to white, but I have seen homosexuals overcome and become heterosexuals. And so this [lifestyle] is not a civil right but a moral issue."

Nevertheless, Peterson says these liberal black politicians are intentionally equating homosexual rights with civil rights in an effort to solidify their own positions of power and political influence. But he says those black leaders who oppose defense of marriage legislation are promoting an agenda that is ultimately harmful to the black community and to America.

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