Just Because You’re Black, Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Be a Bigot
We’ve reached the Promised Land, people! Black church leaders are now just as bigoted and bat shit crazy as white church leaders! Ahhhh, equality at last.
Let me tell you a little something about me. From time to time, I read conservative columnists or listen to Christian radio – just to keep tabs on the enemy. My favorite bit of Christian Crazy comes from a woman named Maggie Gallagher. She is the President of the National Organization for Marriage and co-authored the book “The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier Healthier and Better Off Financially”. By the way, this book has been ripped apart by Dr. Bella DePaulo, author of “Singled Out.” Dr. DePaulo basically debunks all the “research” quoted by Ms. Gallagher and makes the hilarious and quite adept analogy that if marriage was a drug, the FDA would not approve it.
Anyway, in Ms. Gallagher’s latest column, she discusses the gay marriage issue in the District of Columbia. There was an anti-gay marriage rally in DC last Sunday. In a speech given at the event, a minister recalled a visit that he and other clergy representing black churches paid to D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who is black. Mr. Gray is in favor of expanding marriage rights to gay couples. One minister asked about the fate of the councilman’s soul. The clergymen were all shocked when he responded that the fate of his soul was irrelevant to the issue of whether gays should have the right to marry.
Apparently, the black churches have their panties in a collective wad because a black politician is doing the unthinkable: granting homosexuals equal rights.
Black church leaders and the Democratic Party both have a political problem. You see, black clergy support the Democratic Party overwhelmingly in national, statewide, and local elections, but the party has a progressive wing that is very energized now and wants Democrats to get off their collective asses and grant gays the right to marry, or at the very least refrain from open hostility towards the idea. Black Christians in the U.S. are primarily of the Protestant variety - many sit firmly in the Pentecostal or Evangelical camp. These are biblical literalists, folks – people who see the King James Bible as the absolute, infallible and unequivocal word of God and they are staring down black socially liberal Democrats and pointing to that passage in Leviticus.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that this will be a big problem in the congressional elections in the near future. Historically, as my husband’s Aunt Glenda always says, black people are the smartest voters in the nation. We vote in our own economic best interests most of the time…that’s more that I can say for white Christian voters. However, it doesn’t take much to change the game. If the Republicans can peel about 15% of the black vote away from the Democrats, there could be trouble – and these “Values” wedge issues, like gay marriage, have shown to be a very effective way to do that. What put Proposition 8 over the top in California was the black Christian vote. According to a Los Angeles Times poll, 70% of black voters supported Prop 8. Imagine that you live in an area where there are enough black Christian voters whose pastors have told them that gay marriage is wrong. There is a close election. If you get enough black Christians to the polls, that could lead to that state’s electoral votes going for the Republican candidate in a presidential election. That is exactly what happened in Ohio in 2004.
The Promised Land. The place where we have the right to be just as stupid as white people.
