A holiday to honor someone who owned hundreds of slaves for over 50 years,

[Kurska]

54. Yeah and there have always been people who supported gay rights

That doesn't change the fact that for the last forever in western society the injunctive and descriptive norm in western society was for treating homosexuals like dirty. Probably a great many men/women from the past who YOU admire believed awful things about homosexuals. They believed that, because it was the norm at the time. I think it is wonderful to celebrate individuals who saw through the social fog to realize what was right. I can't entirely blame an individual when they can't.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/16/what-did-mlk-think-about-gay-people/

"Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was writing an advice column in 1958 for Ebony magazine when he received an unusual letter.

“I am a boy,” an anonymous writer told King. “But I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don't want my parents to know about me. What can I do?”

In calm, pastoral tones, King told the boy that his problem wasn’t uncommon, but required “careful attention.”

“The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired,” King wrote. “You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.”"

....

Does that make MLK a homophobe? He had a gay adviser, but he never fought for gay rights. When homosexuals needed an ally he wasn't it. Does that mean everything he ever said about civil rights is tainted? Your position on dismissing historical context would mean a yes.

I don't think so. I think he was a great man who grew up in a cultural context where homosexuals were despised. Despite that he seemed to at least have a level of sympathy for them (even if his attitudes would put him alongside the "hate the sin not the sinner" types today).

It is about perspective and context. History isn't as simple as we would like it to be with clear good guys who stand lock step on every issue and bad guys always opposed to them.