The Washington Post reports that the Rev. Eric Lee, Los Angeles president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Los Angeles chapter has come to Washington, DC to support local efforts to establish full marriage equality.  Lee, who also opposed Proposition 8 in California, intewnds to focus on reaching out to the African-American community in the nation’s capital.

“It is clear to me that this is a civil rights issue,” Lee said in an interview. “The challenge, however, particularly for the African-American community, is how to frame it as to not cause the clergy to believe they are compromising their Christian belief systems.”

But Lee, whose trip is sponsored by International Federation of Black Prides and the Courage Campaign, said he thinks he can help gay rights activists make inroads with African-Americans through “reasonable dialogue.”

“I am not of the LGBT community, so there is no pushback like I am trying to force it on them,” Lee said. “I am just trying to reason with them…. I think there is a way that people of faith can affirm the dignity of everyone’s humanity without compromising your Christian or religious principles.”

The Post’s Robert McCartney recently published an article underlying the racial divide over marriage equality, noting that while whites in the District backed the issue 8 to 1, African Americans were against it 48 percent to 34 percent. The divide over the subject underlines the importance of work by leaders such as Lee to work to achieve full equality for all couples regardless of their sexual orientation.