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Martin Luther King Day Post! (Better late than never!) January 20, 2010

Happy retroactive MLK day everyone! I’ve unfortunately been hearing about Martin Luther King being a philanderer who betrayed his wife on numerous occasions. I don’t know enough to be able to say whether this is credible information or not. Do any of our Copious Readers have the facts?

However, what I do think is interesting is how the celeration of his work toward racial equality almost always prevails over the stories of his infidelity.  This bodes well for those of us who want to disassemble the marriage mythology. When the populace chooses to honor MLK’s “Dream” instead of his Dalliances, that says we honor racial equality (a human right) more than we honor marriage (a relatively arbitrary legal and social institution).

Yay!

–Christina

P.S. There’s also the issue of whether extra-marital infidelity is inherently bad. The couple could have had any number of personal “arrangements” that would allow for sex outside the relationship. Coretta Scott King could have had her own affairs, who knows.  But in either case, my point in the above paragraph remains the same.

P.P.S. But if he and Coretta did *not* have an “understanding” and he did cheat on her, then when I pass over to the other side, I am going to find him, and I am going to kick his loving and dreaming ass.

Photo credit: New York World-Telegram & Sun.