Black pastors group calls for Eric Holder impeachment over gay marriage

The Coalition of African American Pastors, a group of conservative, black men of the cloth, say Attorney General Eric Holder ought to be impeached for his stance on gay marriage laws.

The group faulted the entire Obama administration for caving to partisan pressures on the issue — and said the White House has “sold out” American principles for personal agendas — but that going after the president would prove fruitless, The Hill reported. So CAAP members are turning to Mr. Holder instead.

“If Obama was a white man, he would be impeached,” said Rev. William Owens, the group’s founder and president, in The Hill. “Obama has been given a free pass to do what he pleases, but I don’t give him a pass. I’m very black, been black all my life. He doesn’t get a pass. I don’t give him a pass.”

CAAP has kicked off a petition to kick Mr. Holder from office via impeachment.

“He will go down in history as the worst attorney general,” said Mr. Owens, in The Hill.

The Hill reported that fewer than 100 had signed on to the petition, as of late Tuesday morning.

Mr Holder recently advised attorneys general they no longer needed to defend laws in their states — including Pennsylvania, Nevada, Virginia and Oregon — that ban same-sex marriage, if they found the measures to be discriminatory.

His statement, as reported by The Hill: “Any decision — at any level — not to defend individual laws must be exceedingly rare. They must be reserved only for exceptional circumstances. And they must never stem merely from policy or political disagreements — hinging instead on firm constitutional grounds.”

Mr. Owens said the White House’s use of the civil rights movement to press for same-sex marriage laws was indefensible.

“It’s a disgrace that [Obama] has stood on the shoulders of Rosa Parks and martin Luther King Jr.,” he said, The Hill reported. “I detect them calling this a civil rights movement. It’s not a civil rights movement. It’s a civil wrongs movement.”