Gays and lesbians in the Golden State awoke Wednesday morning to disbelief: How could one minority group achieve such a big victory (Obama), while another one was handed a crushing defeat (the repeal of same sex marriages).
Once the voting breakdown came out, the finger pointing began. According to exit polls, African-Americans in California supported proposition 8, which repealed same-sex marriages that had been legal in the state since May by a 3-1 margin. Black support for 8 was larger than any other group, including Hispanics, who were essentially split on the issue. It’s not clear that blacks alone gave prop 8 it’s margin of victory (blacks represented only 10 percent of the electorate on November 4, and for all groups it was voters over 65 who strongly favored prop 8). But black support for prop 8 left many pro-marriage activists wondering what happened.
It’s too easy and not entirely fair to say the answer is black homophobia. Polling over the summer showed that blacks were evenly split on the issue. What happened between then and November 4 was the Yes on 8 campaign’s misleading robocalls and fliers. Robocalls to black precincts used Barack Obama’s voice, saying he didn’t support gay marriage (true), leaving the implication that he did support prop 8 (he didn’t). Other outreach efforts to the black community were even more blatantly dishonest in saying the Obama wanted 8 to pass (in fact, he has said that while he favors civil unions, he feels that the marriage issue should be left up to the states).
The No on 8 campaign, meanwhile, did little to encourage the support of the black community. When they did, they framed the fight as a civil rights struggle, equating black oppression with gay oppression. Gay leaders used the language of civil rights – as in, “you should be on our side because we fought for you”. But many blacks don’t see it that way. From the Los Angeles Times:
Ron Buckmire, who heads the Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black gay-rights group in Los Angeles, said the vote shows that “there is a lot of work to be done in the black community.”
Buckmire said the campaign should also have emphasized that, at its core, the proposition was about stripping a minority of a right that they had enjoyed. “The civil rights of people should not be put to a vote,” he said. “Period. I would have thought that that message would have gotten through.”
Shockley agreed. Civil rights, he said, has come to mean “one thing in the popular culture”: the empowerment of black people.
But “what people don’t realize is that King said over and over that the victories of civil rights were won for everyone,” he added, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jasmyne Cannick, a black lesbian political activist, said in the LATimes that prop 8 opponents, and the white LGBT community in general, need to have a better understanding of the black community.
The first problem with Proposition 8 was the issue of marriage itself. The white gay community never successfully communicated to blacks why it should matter to us above everything else — not just to me as a lesbian but to blacks generally…Second is the issue of civil rights. White gays often wonder aloud why blacks, of all people, won’t support their civil rights. There is a real misunderstanding by the white gay community about the term. Proponents of gay marriage fling it around as if it is a one-size-fits-all catchphrase for issues of fairness.
But the black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community. To many blacks, civil rights are grounded in Christianity — not something separate and apart from religion but synonymous with it. To the extent that the issue of gay marriage seemed to be pitted against the church, it was going to be a losing battle in my community.
Then there was the poorly conceived campaign strategy. Opponents of Proposition 8 relied on an outdated civil rights model, engaging the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People to help win black support on the issue of gay marriage. This happened despite the warnings of black lesbians and gays that it wouldn’t work. While the NAACP definitely should have been included in the strategy, it shouldn’t have been the only group. Putting nearly a quarter of a million dollars into an outdated civil rights group that has very little influence on the black vote — at least when it comes to gay issues — will never work.
A few black thought leaders do see gay marriage as a civil rights issue. According to Earl Ofari Hutchinson:
The gay rights vs. civil rights comparison have long been a sore spot for many blacks. The debate drew national attention last year when a group of black clergy in Miami circulated a flier with the picture of Martin Luther King Jr. to hundreds of black churches in Miami-Dade County. The fliers denounced gay rights. The group claimed that gays were expropriating the civil rights cause to push their agenda…
Homophobia and racism are frequently two sides of the same coin. Many ultra-conservatives who oppose gay rights have been staunch opponents of affirmative action.
Despite that, conservative groups have corralled a few black churchmen, some with stellar civil rights credentials, into endorsing their campaign to get Congress to pass, and the states to ratify, a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. And some black conservative political groups are imploring Republicans to aggressively tap into black hostility toward gay marriage and use that as the wedge issue to drive more blacks to support President Bush’s reelection bid in 2004.
The mantra of the civil rights movement has always been that an injustice committed against one is an injustice against all. That’s still true. It’s risky, no dangerous, business for blacks to forget that.
Perhaps it takes more black leaders to explain it this way, instead of white LGBT leaders scolding blacks for not automatically seeing their struggles as the same. Clearly, this issue is not going away, whether it comes up for a vote again or whether the courts weigh in. But if same-sex marriage supporters want the help of the black community, they will have to find a better way to reach out.
Incidentally, NAD has completed a comprehensive survey of LGBTs of color. Some of the findings will be explored in a post very soon.