NAACP Conference

Recently, the NAACP held national meetings and conferences in DC to celebrate its 100th anniversary as the nation's oldest civil rights organization. The center of the event, NAACP president, Benjamin Todd Jealous, who touched on a number of pertinent civil rights issues, was also interviewed later to talk about other, less mentioned issues such as LGBT Rights and Marriage equality.

According to Pam's House Blend:

Ben Jealous has has a strong background on social justice issues; his efforts have been forward-thinking in many respects, including outreach to the blogosphere. I met Mr. Jealous last year as he was starting on the job at the NAACP, and I asked him specifically about the organization and its public stance on marriage and LGBT rights. At the time he was quite firm in saying that there is strong support for marriage equality in some individual chapters (they are autonomous) and in leadership in the NAACP(board member Julian Bond is also a strong ally as well).

But it's clear, based on this interview with T.J. Holmes of CNN the other day, that he's getting the message loud and clear from membership that this it's a third rail issue they don't want to touch. Jealous says now that "We don't take a position on that nationally."

Read the entire story after the jump


Also, you can read the full commentary on the event by HRC's own Donna Payne who attended the conference on HRC Backstory