NAACP Chair Civil Unions are Unequal

NAACP board chairman Julian Bond was one of several speakers appearing at the New Jersey senate judiciary committee hearing on a pending marriage equality bill. On Monday he voiced his support for the bill, which eventually passed the committee on a 7-6 vote.

"Black people, among all people, should not oppose equality," Bond said, "and that is what gay marriage represents. It does not matter the rationale -- religious, cultural, pseudo-scientific -- no people of good will should oppose marriage equality, and they should not think that civil unions are a substitute. At best, civil unions are separate but equal, and we all know that separate is never equal."

Bond, the head of the nation's leading advocacy group for African-Americans, has been an outspoken supporter for gay rights. His organization also supported the effort to repeal California's Proposition 8 in February. The NAACP was also a cosponsor of the National Equality March in October. In 2005 the organization's board passed a resolution to support laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as well as other attributes.

The full New Jersey senate is scheduled to vote on the bill Thursday.