Seattle Clergy- Pro-gun protest ‘shockingly insensitive’
Seattle religious leaders have drawn up a letter, with 188 signatures as of late Thursday, decrying as “shockingly insensitive” a pro-gun rally scheduled at “high noon” Saturday in Olympia, during the weekend of the national holiday honoring assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The letter will be read at a news conference Friday morning at Seattle’s Mount Zion Baptist Church, which once hosted Dr. King on a visit to the city.
“We find it shockingly insensitive to Dr. King’s message, and contemptuous of his legacy, to celebrate the very instrument of his assassination during a holiday weekend dedicated to his memory,” said a draft of the clergy statement. “The way to honor Dr. King’s memory is to condemn violence and to oppose any and all racial hatred, and we call on gun rights activists to join us in doing this rather than in focusing on the very means of Dr. King’s murder.”
The Guns Across America event, one of 50 demonstrations scheduled for state capitals across the country, has been promoted as peaceful, civil and responsible. “We will not engage in any negative activities,” supporter Matthew Piquet said in an advisory earlier this week. As to packing heat, the advice was: “Responsible legal carry is permitted and encouraged. Handguns only.”
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http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/01/17/pro-gun-protest-shockingly-insensitive-area-clergy/
