Proposition 8 is Not About Black Homophobia

I have learned as both a pastor and also as a member belonging to several minority groups -- African-American, women and lesbian -- that a popular opinion on a civil rights issue does not always reflect the right choice. Too often the right choice and the moral high ground on an issue derive from small struggling groups trying both to be seen and heard among the cacophony of dissenting voices and opposing votes. And it is with these groups we see democracy's tenacity working, where those relegated to the fringes of society can begin to sample what those in society take for granted as their inalienable right like the right for all of its citizens to marry.

Last week we saw democracy work with the election of Barack Obama as our country's first African American president. My enslaved ancestors who built the White House could have never imagined that one of their progenies would one day occupy it. But we also saw last week on the same day how democracy didn't work for its LGBTQ citizens with the passing of Proposition 8, an amendment to the California Constitution eliminating marriage equality for same-sex couples after the California Supreme Court ruled in May that a "separate and unequal" system of domestic partnership for same-sex couples is not only blatantly discriminatory but it is also unconstitutional.

While California's gay community places blame on African Americans for the passing of Proposition 8, we were one of many interest groups backing the amendment. And although we are just 6.2 percent of the state's overall population we can't wash our hands clean by saying other interest groups are just as culpable.

Seven out of ten of us pulled a lever to deny another minority groups their civil rights. And while the pollsters and pundits say that religion was our reason, as African American we have always discarded damning and damaging statements and scriptures about us in the name of religion like biblical passages that either cursed all people of African ancestry (The Curse of Ham, Genesis 9:18-27) or advocated slavery (Ephesians 6:5-8).

Many Proportion 8 supporters voted yes believing the future traditional family was at stake. But when society narrowly defines marriage as solely the union between a man and a woman, it ignores the constant changing configuration of today's family units. And the African American community knows this best. While African American ministers will argue for the traditional nuclear family the stresses and strains of racism has and continues to thwart the possibility. So we created our own family structures.

Therefore, multiple family structures presented by same-sex marriages should not pose a threat to the African-American community because they are what have sustained, saved and are still saving African-American families. A grandmother or an aunt and uncle -- straight or gay -- raising us in their loving home have anchored our families through the centuries. And these multiple family structures, which we have had to devise as a model of resistance and liberation, have always, by example, shown the rest of society what really constitutes family -- its spiritual content and not is physical composition.

Unfortunately, civil rights struggles in this country have primarily been understood, reported on and advocated within the context of African American struggles.

The present-day contentious debate between black and queer communities concerning what constitutes a legitimate civil rights issue and which group owns the right to use the term is both fueled and ignored by systemic efforts by our government that deliberately pits both groups against each other rather than upholding the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that affords each of these marginal groups their inalienable rights.

While it is true that the white LGBTQ community needs to work on its racism, white privilege, and single-issue platform that thwart all efforts for coalition building with both straight and queer communities of color, the African-American community needs to work on its homophobia.

The blame of the passing of Proposition 8 should not be placed on the shoulders of blacks, Latinos or even religion, but rather the blame should rightly be placed on the shoulders of our government. To have framed our civil rights as a ballot question for a popular vote was both wrong-hearted and wrong-headed. If my enslaved ancestors had waited for their slaveholders to free them predicated on a ballot vote we all wouldn't be living in the America we know today. And Barack Obama would not be our president-elect.

Comments

[Dan4Equality]

"The blame of the passing of Proposition 8 should not be placed on the shoulders of blacks, Latinos or even religion, but rather the blame should rightly be placed on the shoulders of our government. To have framed our civil rights as a ballot question for a popular vote was both wrong-hearted and wrong-head­ed."
The government did not frame the the issue as a ballot question - it was conservatives and religious groups who mobilized, wrote the initiative and paid signature gatherers to get this initiative on the ballot. The Supreme Court of CA did its job as a part of our government to affirm the civil rights of same-sex couples.
Nonetheless, I do agree that placing the blame on Latinos or blacks is counterproductive, unless it is to acknowledge where we need to reach out with our message of lgbt equality in the future, and communities with which we need to make extra effort to work with as true allies.

[jackson1015]

Forgot about the curse of Ham....tha­t's something else I've NEVER heard any minister in a black church talk about. Separation of church and state, people....­that's what it comes down to, otherwise we're just going round and round on this issue.

[harrythesurfer]

I just don't believe (as is the majority of California voters) that you can equate a person's race and sexual-preference as being one in the same, sorry!

As a black male, that is NOT a bigot, I would appreciate if the gay community would NOT try and piggy-back racial issues as being equivalent to their own. They are NOT the same.

Thanks.

[kutkreata]

Also I agree with you Irene, they need to take this to the courts.

[Thelea]

And I do not condone hate in any form but please recognize the difference between someone who does not agree with your lifestyle and someone who is actively seeking to deny you. Blacks are not actively working against you, that was the white church establishment with some black church support. You know who these churches are.

Attack the weakest links and you gain nothing. Storm the bastions of power.

[tyrdofwaitin]

The gay community could take a real page from the African American struggle for Human Rights: as Ms. Monroe suggests, you don't put a civil rights issue to a vote! This is something that must be legislated or affirmed in the judiciary. YOU VOTE FOR A PERSON, YOU LEGISLATE CIVIL RIGHTS!

In the meantime, (white) gay folks would do well to own up to a few things: First, they don't own the gay community; there are gay black, Latinos, Asian and First Nation folks. Second, take a break from scapgoating anyone; maybe if you'd not been so self-assured, you would have realized that defeating Prop. 8 would be no cake-walk. (Many white gays were boasting earlier this year that Prop. 8 would be easily defeated). Take nothing for granted when people vote on an issue of human rights. Third, white gays did not visit the black communities to leaflet and inform; either their fear or disdain of black folks prevented them from going into these communities to change minds. On the other hand, proponents of Prop 8 canvassed large portions of the black community.

Get with it white- gay -community and stop playing the victim: black folks could write the definitive book about victimhood in the United States. If you're going to support a new day ushered in by Barack Obama, we'll have to end the divisive finger pointing and get to work. Connecticut just legalized marriage between same sex people; find out how that was accomplished!!!

[GodOfBiscuits]

This article is a complete cop-out.

Of course it's about black homophobia. It's about the homophobia of seven out of ten black voters.

You can call out all of the other people who voted in favor of Prop 8, but it was the black community who had the clear and overweening example of how the vote could act in favor of minorities both in concrete and in symbolic terms given the election of a black man to the Presidency.

What happened with seven out of ten African American voters was this: they walked into a voting booth and most likely knew the benefit they'd get from voting for an African American president while at the exact same time knew what pain and violence they'd be bringing to gay Americans by voting yes on Proposition 8.

Pastor Shirley Caesar-Williams of the Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church in Raleigh:

"Too long we’ve been at the bottom of the totem pole, but he has vindicated us, hallelujah,” she cried. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have nothing to put my head down for, praise God."

She won't look down because she knows what she'll see at the bottom: us gays.

So in that respect, I suppose, it's not about homophobia, but scapegoatism: so long as African American voters (well, 7 out of 10 of them) can make themselves appear even further up the totem pole by pushing others further down and then pointing fingers.

[gaysofla]

Dear Huffington Post LGBT Friends & Supporters,

While members of California’s LGBT Community have taken to the street en masse to protest Proposition 8, it seems Florida gays are resigned to having LGBT inequality enshrined into their state’s constitution. After 62 percent of Floridians voted for Amendment 2, little has been done to protest the discriminatory measure…until now! Join us this Saturday in towns & cities all over Florida to protest Amendment 2. The following link has more information and details:

http://www.gaysofla.com/content/view/422/50/

We too shall one day overcome!

David L. Wylie, Senior Editor
http://www.gaysofla.com

[xdevildawg4u]

Rev. Monroe, thank you so much for your thoughtful, eye opening and moving commentary. It is this kind of approach that can heal some of the hurt in the gay community and begin the dialogue between the gay and African-American communities.

Could you please find Jasmyne Cannick and have a little come to Jesus meeting with her?

I am so tired of reading her vile, racist and bitter commentaries blaming gay people for just about every racist act in the history of America. She really seems to have gone off the deep end with some of her rants. I think someone like you would be just the person to gently and kindly talk her off the ledge.

[walk0nwalls]

I don't know, I'm kind of keen to interpret the 43% of funds from the LDS church to the "Yes on 8" campaign as a huge target sign.

[caseywagner]

That 6.2% number is completely wrong and inexcusable. Basic research.

Black turnout as a percentage of the electorate was 10%.

Add "Black Men" and "Black Women"

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

[overlyelectrical]

uh
what she said was that blacks make up 6.2% of CA's population, which they do

[dp112]

The uncomfortable truth is that the black community is not comfortable with the gay community. To say that is not racist, its pointing out the truth. Gay rights is a civil rights issues - civil rights issues are not owned by the black community - especially not in the age of Obama. I look forward to the day when our black brothers and sisters are willing to help us break down the walls of discrimination that members of the LGBT community still face.

[Nikola Tesla]

Let's be specific, it's the black church that fosters hate.

[john77]

There is no institutionalized racism in the gay community. Racism in the gay community is random. Gays don't go to houses of worship that teach them to hate blacks. The black community, on the other hand, DOES attend houses of worship that teach them to hate gays. Therefore, homophobia in the black community IS institutionalized. This is something that Irene needs to remember. Stop giving a pass to blacks on the issue of homophobia, Irene.

[heydavemaine]

Part Three

And that brings us up to this election. God bless Obama, just by saying our name, he has opened doors. I still get chills when I think about the speech he made--inside the Ebenezer Baptist Church! on MLK, Jr.'s birthday!--in which he admonished A-A's about homophobia. He has given us hope, too.

That's what hurts me about 70% of the A-A community voting to support Prop 8. It was on the very day that all of us were doing something that did not support racism. It excluded us at the same time as we embraced unity...as we were joyful in Obama's win... after we had worked our butts off, too. That's what hurts. We can't belong even now.

It has made me despondent and deeply angered at the same time. I want to go back to the beginning--the hell with marriage for the moment. I don't want ENDA anymore, it is an insult to us. I want an amendment to the civil rights act. No more excuses. No more waiting. Nothing else is acceptable.

The time for us to be begging for understanding from anyone is over. WE have been rationalizing and enabling this homophobia. It's time to stop. Maybe by DEMANDING equality we will actually get through to the African-American community and everyone else who needs to face their bias.

And the election of Obama is the perfect time for us to begin again. Who's with me?

[heydavemaine]

Part Two.

It was a very different, howwever, when just a couple years ago the same thing happened again. This time the A-As in the DNC--including Donna Brazile--argued vehemently that LGBTs should not be included in the party's rules for affirmative action in the selection of national delegates. The rationale put forward by Ms. Brazile and Rev. Leah Daughtry was that only populations whose voting rights have been denied in the past should receive these protections. They even succeeded in revising the DNC rules to say so.

In the past we have watched as Bill Clinton, "great friend of the LGBT community, enacted DADT and ACTIVELY supported DOMA, and as every Dem candidate for national office thereafter has publicly opposed same-sex marriage.

We stood by as the DNC did almost nothing to slow down, let alone fight, the dozens of state constitutional initiatives against marriage for us, many against civil unions, too-- even as the Rove Republicans cynically used them all to defeat Democratic candidates everywhere. In other words the Dems couldn't support us even when it was in their own very best interest to do so.

[continued]