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I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. (Martin Luther King, Jr. 1957)
In a recent editorial in the Democrat-Gazette, Paul Greenberg remarked how conservative Martin Luther King, Jr. really was:
Martin Luther King's ideas were rooted -- in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in the Bible and its
moral imperatives. He knew the power of the old ideas he was bringing to bear anew... Dr. King was not out just to conserve
certain ideas, but to use them, to make them take flight again, to bring them to life. He would use those ideas to shame
those who dared call themselves conservatives while denying every uplifting precept of the Bible and Constitution and their
own rearing. (Jan. 15, 2008)
At the center of King's vision was a commitment to love, and he insisted that love is expressed through nonviolence. Nonviolence
is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active
outpouring of one's whole being into the being of another. (1957)
As an act of love, Martin Luther King opposed the Vietnam War in absolute terms and also in terms of its consequences of robbing
our nation of resources that would better be used helping children and the poor. As an act of love, Martin Luther King insisted
on the freedom and dignity of every human being, even when that meant challenging the law of the land. As an act of love,
Martin Luther King insisted on a Biblical justice that honored the poor, the oppressed and the alien.
Is there any doubt what Martin Luther King would be saying to our generation?
He would have opposed our nation's arrogant blunder into war with Iraq and would be insisting now on a swift withdrawal.
World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must
begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity,
and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system
of peace can be built. (December, 1964)
He would decry a system that entices needed immigrant workers by the hundreds of thousands, yet makes it impossible for them
to immigrate legally, and then criminalizes those who are here trying to achieve the American Dream. What would Martin Luther
King say about an immigration system that authorizes five-thousand visas annually for general workers from Latin America when
our vibrant economy simultaneously absorbs 300,000 a year, and calls them the criminals? Hypocrisy! God has forbidden our
oppression of the alien.
He would condemn the growing gap between the super-wealthy and the middle-class/poor. How his voice would ring out over tax
breaks weighted toward those who are already rich.
He would tell us to invest in our children and in their education. I wonder if he had lived, might we now have universal
pre-school education. I'm certain that he would have insisted on the universal right for all God's people to access to medical
care.
Had he lived, I can imagine his joining his late wife Coretta Scott King to extend the struggle for civil rights to include
our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Listen to her words to the 1998 annual Creating Change conference: My husband
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny, ...an inescapable network of
mutuality.... I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be." Therefore, I appeal to
everyone who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian
and gay people. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great
democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender or ethnic discrimination.
These are moral ideals that are fundamentally conservative, rooted in the values of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution,
the Bible and the moral example of Jesus. Nonviolence, equal rights, advocacy for the poor and oppressed -- this is love's
agenda. I too am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world.
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