Comedian Wanda Sykes, who is performing in Anchorage next month, and CNN reporter Don Lemon headlined the NAACP‘s first ever LGBT Town Hall at the annual convention in Los Angeles last week, supporting same sex marriage and using humor to explain why ‘praying away the gay’ doesn’t work.

Julian Bond, former NAACP chair and veteran civil rights activist, gave a strong opening speech on the panel theme “Our Collective Responsibility: Overcoming Homophobia.”

He explained that the LGBT Task Force was formed in 2009 with the National Black Justice Coalition, and described the NAACP’s three-point mission to increase acceptance of black LGBT people in the African American community:

1. strengthen the NAACP’s knowledge of LGBT issues and policies,
2. build alliances with LGBT organizations, and
3. advance awareness of LGBT issues as they relate to the programs and interests of the NAACP.

He also addressed several areas where conflict exists between the LGBT and the African American communities.

We know that black lesbians, black gay men, black bisexual people and black transgender people suffer a level of discrimination and harassment far beyond the level felt by straight black women and men.

If you disagree, or if your Bible tells you that gay people ought not be married in your church, don’t tell them they can’t be married at City Hall. Marriage is a civil rite as well as a civil right, and we can’t allow religious bigotry to close the door to justice for anyone….

For some people, comparisons between the African American Civil Rights movement and the movement for gay and lesbian rights seems to diminish the long, black historical struggle with all it’s suffering, sacrifices and endless toil. People of color, however, ought to be flattered that our Movement has provided so much inspiration for others, that it has been so widely imitated, and that our tactics, heroes, heroines and methods, even our songs, have been appropriated as models for others….

People of color carry the badge of who we are on our faces. But we are far from the only people suffering from discrimination…. They deserve the laws, protections and civil rights, too.

(Thanks to Metro Weekly for the partial transcript.)

There were several moments of controversy during the 2 hour discussion. NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous joined the panel and was asked why the organization has an anti-gay preacher, Keith Ratliff, on its board. Ratliff claimed in March that gay rights activists have “hijacked” the Civil Rights movement.

Jealous responded, “He did not say it in the name of the NAACP…. We have board members who hold all sorts of divergent views.”

The last speaker, transgender audience member Ashley Love, pointed out the importance of including transgender people in the discussion:

“The NAACP was founded because black people were being excluded from having a seat at the table,” she said. “So why would we as an LGBT black coalition exclude transsexual and transgender people, who are the most vulnerable, the most marginalized, the most endangered in the entire coalition?”

Other critics of the Convention noted that there were neither transgender nor bisexual members of the panel.

But the people at the town hall, and many of the news reports, agree that the first NAACP LGBT panel was a good start for the veteran civil rights organization, and could have a positive effect on the regional branches and thousands of members nationwide.