27 Jan 2014 Project 21’s Nedd on Gay Grammys Wedding
At last night’s Grammy Awards, where the news was supposed to be about the year’s best musical performances, politics became performance art as 33 couples — many of them same-sex couples — were married at the awards ceremony.
The couples were married by Queen Latifah (who was authorized to do so by Los Angeles County officials) during the live performance of the song “Same Love” by Grammy nominees Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, accompanied by Madonna (who later sang her song “Open Your Heart”), Mary Lambert and Trombone Shorty.
During the “ceremony,” Latifah recited song lyrics that said: “Whatever god you believe in, we come from the same one. Strip away the fear, underneath, it’s all the same love.” Macklemore, from a fake altar, yelled: “No freedom till we’re equal.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of the homosexual activist group GLAAD, called it “the latest in a long line of signs that our nation not only accepts, but celebrates the love and commitment of gay couples today.” The New York Times reported Grammy officials said that the mass wedding, broadcast on network television, was in keeping with “the show’s long history of addressing timely social issues through music.”
Project 21 member Council Nedd II, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church, did not feel the event was appropriate — nor did he appreciate the common theme of comparing gay rights to the black civil rights struggle of the 20th century.
Bishop Nedd said:
The Devil has been clever in creating the idea that he does most of his work in a red suit with a pitchfork, and behind clouds of smoke. Everyone knows to stay away from that.
However, when Macklemore & Lewis, Madonna and Queen Latifah put on a spectacle at the Grammys — with a song that twists scripture for its own purposes — it really doesn’t seem so bad.
When, during the next gay pride parade, the police and firemen show up and sic police dogs on the marchers and attack them with fire hoses and riot batons, then you can talk to me about black and gay being comparable.