Illinois senator Alan Keyes joined by 40 black pastors, representing 100 churches and 30,000 congregation members, held a meeting at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, the 41st anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, to dispute parallels between the same-sex movement and the civil rights struggle and reaffirm their support for a U.S. Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Star Parker, founder and president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a non-profit nonprofit organization that provides national dialogue on issues of race and poverty in the media, inner city neighborhoods, and public policy, recently organized Cure.net, a community of African American pastors representing 100 churches.

She reminded citizens of key topics of King’s speech by saying, "Dr. King's appeal was for the nation to recall and return to its traditional values and eternal truths. The damage caused by the subsequent growth of the welfare state and the relaxing of standards of sexual behavior shows we still have much work to do."

Black pastors, representing 12 states, included Rev. Lyle Duke of Virginia; the Rev. John Heath of Maryland; the Honorable Anne Cools (Senator from Canada); Dr. John Diggs, Jr. of Boston, Massachusetts; the Rev. D. L. Foster of Atlanta, GA; the Rev. Greg Daniels of Chicago, IL.

In addition to commemorating the anniversary of King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, the pastors are also using the upcoming Republican National Convention as a platform to announce their support for a federal amendment to protect traditional marriage and the traditional family.

The Republican National Convention will begin on August 30 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.