Yesterday, I tried to outline a humanistic case against the whole "Teh blackz did us in!" argument. I also linked some math. Now we have better math. The basic idea is that you need black folks to have been about 10 percent of all votes cast on Prop 8 to make a difference. Black folks are one of the smallest minorities in California, making up about six percent of the total electorate, which numbers at about 17 million. At 6 percent, black folks are worth about a million or so votes. There were just over ten million votes cast on Prop. 8. For blacks to cast ten percent of those you would need a turnout of 90 percent in the black community. Lemme repeat that--90 percent. It's possible, I guess. I leave it to you to weigh the odds.
I'm still embarrassed by the fact that 70 percent of those who did vote, voted yes. It means we have serious work to do. But I'm seeing a makings of a disreputable trend to turn a problem into a black problem. We use disproportion as a crutch--what's important is that blacks are disproportionately poor, not that there are large numbers of white poor people. Ditto for homophobia. What's important isn't the large minority of whites, and the influential majority (barely) of Latinos who passed Prop 8, but the roughly 5 percent of the California electorate who voted for it.
Something is very very wrong with that. The anger is justified, expected, and human. But it's not how we're going to fix this.
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» Race, Sexuality, and Modes of Being from The Opposite of Jim Bunning Comments (128)
I read that diary and found the math enlightening. I have come to two conclusions: A. This is not a failure that comes down to blacks. We are being scapegoated. Not a shock. B. Despite that, a problem exists, and we need to figure out how to solve it. I am thinking that those of us in the black community who DO care need to think of ways to communicate on these issues to our people effectively. I honestly don't know how to do that myself- I have called those homophobic "kill the batty-boy" attitudes and statements out in my religious family for my whole life, and I think I come across as effectively as the shrill liberal at Thanksgiving dinner comes across in white families. My Mom just rolls her eyes at this point, no other response. I do not KNOW how to go about opening their minds, and I get frustrated when I try. Which probably does my efforts little good. 
What's important isn't the large minority of whites, and the influential majority (barely) of Latinos who passed Prop 8, but the roughly 5 percent of Californians who voted against it. I'm not sure that the part of the sentence after the "but" says what you meant it to say. I don't think there are any numbers where 5% is the number of Californians who voted against Prop 8. Maybe you mean the 50% who voted for it?
Yeah, and when you go to Arkansas, white folks turn out to be more homophobic than black voters. Obviously, this shit is more complicated than Savage and others would have us believe. Thinking before writing. It's important. Yepper.
I don't think Savage was arguing that homophobia is a black problem. I think he was just pointing out that while gay people overwhelming supported a black president, black people did not reciprocate by supporting gay rights (i.e. progress for me but not for thee). Since I can think of a bazillion reasons to support Obama that have nothing to do with the color of his skin, I think Savage is off-base, but his larger point -- that people should be committed to ending all denials of rights for everyone, and not just for themselves -- is valid.
"but the roughly 5 percent of Californians who voted against it." Where did you get 5%? The official results were: YES 52.5% (5,417,748)
One more note on that CNN exit polling: look at the breakdown by age: 18-29: 61-39% against the ban Ta-nehisi, you asked how we are going to fix this? Think about what those numbers will look like in 10-20 years. This thing will fix itself. All of the campaigning will make it happen sooner, of course, but the writing's on the wall here. Something big happened that made those who grew up in the 1980's much more likely to support gay equality. Gee, what could it have been?
My own parents voted for Proposition 8. They're white protestants and lifelong Democrats. My sisters and I tried to persuade them, but we failed. I don't know how many people this is true for, but for my family at least the split on this issue lies not between demographic groups but between seats at the dinner table. It's tempting, of course, to rage at the Mormons for putting their institutional weight behind indecent and bigoted nonsense. But I find myself reflecting on why I couldn't frame a persuasive enough argument in my own house to beat it back. For a majority of Californians, there was something deeply appealing about this proposition; I don't think we've fully understood what that was.
Tessa, 5 percent is the number of black voters who supported prop 8, out of the total number of people voting on it. Diana, That isn't in dispute. But voting for a president isn't the same as voting for a ballot measure. Your conclusion only works if you think Barack Obama=Black people. Gays overwhelming supported him because he was better for them. It wasn't a favor, it wasn't the moral high-ground, it was smart and the best thing to do. Seriously, we need to lose the moralizing and the squishy quid-pro-quo-ism. It doesn't stand up to history, and it displays a shocking ignorance of the way actual human beings function. You don't oppose Prop 8 as some sort of favor, you oppose because it's wrong to discriminate against people who are trying to build family together. This isn't a swap meet. We aren't trading favors, here.
I'm late to this but is there a link somewhere to the actual exit poll. Also, everyone from Nate Silver to Karl Rove have said the exit polls were crap.
Ditto that TNC. And ditto Southpaw for looking carefully at what wasn't done by the advocates of voting NO on Prop 8. And most of all, this is a case of us making a pledge of unity to one another: we are one people, and if some of us are discriminated against, we are all discriminated against. It's time to go to work. This issue will be live again in 2 years, I am sure of it. We need to now be asking the organizational and messaging questions that southpaw is asking. And we, all of us progressives and liberals and middle-roaders who think discrimination is wrong, need to be there with our checkbooks and phonebanks and conversations with our families to get it overturned for GLBT Americans who deserve better than this.
I think a better view is that you have a large block of conservative christians (ie many baptist AAs) who vote for the Dems year in and year out. Sometimes race trumps religion (most conservative christians vote GOP if they are white or Dem if black) but on particular issues religion remains the most predictive factor. I am thankful that most religiously conservative AAs vote Dem because the GOP would be in much better shape otherwise. In sum I see majority black support of prop 8 being more about religion than race (ie AAs who opposed prop 8 are probably less religiously conservative than those who supported it). Therefore I suspect race is really a red herring on this issue and religion is more predictive.
I think the question has to be asked also why was it so believable that black people were the underlying reason that Prop 8 failed in the first place. Until that diary went up on dailykos this morning NOBODY challenged the validity of the statistics in a meaningful way and I include myself in that. So far black people have been blamed for the subrime mortgage crisis, the crisis on Wall Street and now for the passing of Prop 8 with little pushback against those memes. And all the while people are hollering that Obama's election makes us a "post racial" nation whatever in the hell that means. Even IF black people had been instrumental to passing Prop 8 where exactly was the LBGT community saying there needs to be out reach to black people or education for black people. All I saw was angry backlash and finger pointing. Just like Coates says Prop 8 is not the presidential election and this isnt some kind of trade off. If somebody is upset that black people didn't vote the way they would like then maybe they should try APPEALING to black people instead of demonizing them. I hear a lot that the fight against Prop 8 was akin to the Civil Rights Movement for black people. Now whether you believe that or not I can tell you unequivically that the Civll Rights Movement succeeded by appealing to white people's better instincts and trying to convince them through non violent means that granting civil rights to black people was the morally right thing to do. Martin Luther King didn't come out brow beating white folks to try to get them to march with him. He didn't come out brow beating white folks when he was arrested for protesting. He didnt come out brow beating white folks when Rosa Parks was arrested for not sitting at the back of the bus. He made the case to white folks that these things were wrong and that they didn't have to and shouldn't go along with it. Barack Obama ran a 50 state strategy that a LOT of people thought was wrong headed but guess what he went into places that people thought wouldnt be receptive to his message and convinced them anyway. Maybe its time for the LGBT to stop assuming that certain sections of the black community ie the black church will not listen to their message and actually try to reach out to them on a personal level. I would bet that doing something like THAT would produce a lot better results than running around pointing the fingers at black folks and blaming everything on their religious leaders.
But I find myself reflecting on why I couldn't frame a persuasive enough argument in my own house to beat it back. For a majority of Californians, there was something deeply appealing about this proposition; I don't think we've fully understood what that was. Southpaw, the reality is that there are no rational arguments against same-sex marriage that don't start with some incredibly contentious premise, like "breeding is the primary function of marriage" or "Tradition! Tradition!" and go downhill from there, and there are a host of rational arguments for same-sex marriage, beginning with first principles: equality before the law. I know you don't like to think this about your own parents, but I think that you weren't able to persuade them because they're simply not able to work through the irrational arguments in their own heads that gay people just aren't as deserving of equal protection as they are, however they justified that (tradition, Bible, whatever). You don't oppose Prop 8 as some sort of favor, you oppose because it's wrong to discriminate against people who are trying to build family together. This isn't a swap meet. We aren't trading favors, here. TNC: At least for me, it's not trading favors, it's profound sadness (and some anger) that human nature seems to require that we are unable to learn to reject discrimination based on our own experience, but rather, we learn that it's OK to discriminate against others, or at least we fail to learn how to generalize our experience to others. In the case under discussion, one notes that both Mormons and African Americans seem to have failed to learn from their own history. This is, of course, hardly unique to those two groups.
This sucks. It strikes me that this is another variant of the whole "the economy is failing because of the sub-prime mortgages given to... you know" argument. As if the $600,000 houses reappraised to $250,000 in places like Vegas did less damage than the economy than the $80,000 houses reappraised to $65,000. Argh. I get the feeling that if the gay marriage argument were successfully re-framed, it'd go through in a walk... lord help me, I can't think of the proper re-framing.
I don’t think that we can really get at homophobia as long as organized religion remains a sacred cow.
Never mind. Jeez! Shanikka did an adequate job in the above link IMO. I thought it was AP that did the exit polling though. Anyway.... I find it kind of odd that they can't break out the findings for Black Men or for Blacks by Age. The polling looks incomplete to me, almost as if someone was afraid to actually ask blacks how they actually voted.
"I get the feeling that if the gay marriage argument were successfully re-framed, it'd go through in a walk... lord help me, I can't think of the proper re-framing. How about this: Telling homosexuals they can't marry isn't like telling a black baptist woman she has to sit at the back of the bus; it's like telling her she has to convert to judaism or she can't ride the bus at all. Can I get a witness?
"I get the feeling that if the gay marriage argument were successfully re-framed, it'd go through in a walk... lord help me, I can't think of the proper re-framing." Here we go then: Jesus said to love one another as he loved us. How can we love our gay brothers and sisters but tear their families apart. Cue image of critically ill lesbian in hospital unable to be visited by her partner there. Cue image of gay man being deported because he can't marry his American partner, being separated from their 2 year old son who doesn't understand why daddy has to leave. God made us who we are, and God doesn't make junk. God made gay people gay, and we are all his children in his eyes. Who are we to judge God's work? And who is the government to tell Americans who they can and can't marry? Cue image of fallen gay soldier who served in Iraq, with his partner talking about how much he misses him and how proud he is of his service, with an American flag in the background. How's that?
James Brown said it best: "talking loud and saying nothing"! GO TO the Daily Kos! The so called argument on how black folks impacted Prop 8 is sunk. As some have noted that select homeowners caught up in the sub-prime mess are the basis of the current worldwide financial crisis and recession. So should I conclude that Santa Claus will be visiting the ghettos in the imagination of many next month. Scapegoating? How many goat exist on this planet? Sinking Prop 8, a world wide recession in 90 days, and with no accumulated wealth? Too tuff for me! Again ain't nutin but "talking loud and saying nothing"!
The real demographic in the Prop 8 vote was inland vs. the coast. But insofar as homophobia in the black community is concerned, I hope this one thought by a white educator is in ok taste, and not taken as simple tokenism, but isn't it time to educate people about the great James Baldwin, one of our history's greatest novelists, who wrote with blistering fire about black life including the church in ways few have ever equalled:
Okay. So while we're crunching numbers, I think it's interesting to look at the breakdown by county. Two of the biggest (democratic) counties voting against the measure were L.A. and San Diego: L.A. County: San Diego County:
"Each percentage point increase in the percent of the county’s population that is Hispanic increases its support for Prop. 8 by 0.05 percentage points...More Hispanic residents means greater support for Prop. 8. In a county like LA County, where Hispanics make up slightly less than half the population, this means an increase of 2.5 percentage points in favor of Prop. 8 compared to a county where there are no Hispanic residents." "Likewise, all else being equal, more African American residents mean greater support for Prop. 8 in a county. Each percentage point increase in the percent of a county’s population that is African American increases the county’s support for Prop. 8 by 0.23 percentage points..." Now, not sure why Kevin doesn't isolate the white vote and run the stats again, that sure would be useful (and just as relevant). Still I do think it's interesting to see that IF those two minority groups had voted in higher percentages against Prop8, it might not have passed. Since we're crunching numbers...
I like it Tony. I was thinking along the same lines. How about: Civil unions give gays the same rights as everyone else. And those buses still took you where you wanted to go, no matter where you sat. It isn't about getting where you want to go. It's getting there with your dignity.
You're overlooking one key fact that seems to be enraging Savage among others - the belief that African Americans ought to know better. How long ago was the Loving decision? African Americans had been discriminated against in this very way - being told who they could and could not marry and that their marriages (those between a black person and a white person) were against the laws of nature. But they perservered, and that thought process was relegated to irreverancy. Now African Americans are using that same hateful logic, taking away the right of marriage, from others. It's not that they caused the loss, but the fact that now that they are not the targets, they are joining in on the discrimination. It's a feeling of betrayal, and I'm surprised that you don't understand it.
I just wanted to comment on this: "Ta-nehisi, you asked how we are going to fix this? Think about what those numbers will look like in 10-20 years. This thing will fix itself." The problem with this kind of thinking--and there's a lot of it out there--is that gays aren't gaining, they're falling behind. Florida passed an amendment to their constitution on Tuesday. For there to be gay marriage in Florida, we're not just going to have to wait for a majority in favor of it--but 60%. Over the last twenty years, anti-gay measures have passed 30 times. A Democratic administration has given us Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. There is more anti-gay discrimination enshrined in law in this country than there was when I became an adult. All the progress that gays have made over the last twenty years have been social--from us taking risks and forcing people to change how they viewed us. We have gained no significant rights that did not require a majority vote. (Don't talk to me about civil unions--the only reason they were so easy to give was because they merely institutionalized rights you can get through contract.) Demographic arguents are just stupid. What are we supposed to do? Pray for pandemic flu? Go firebomb a retiremen community?
DCwolverine, the answer is very simple. Opponents of the ban should find the reddest, redneckiest county in the south and get the signatures to put an advisory referendum suggesting that interracial marriage be overturned. It would pass 70-30. Then I think the message would be sent.
I'm still embarrassed by the fact that 70 percent of those who did vote, voted yes. It means we have serious work to do. - TNC I'm not. So far the evidence does not support that number.
Telling homosexuals they can't marry isn't like telling a black baptist woman she has to sit at the back of the bus; it's like telling her she has to convert to judaism or she can't ride the bus at all. Can I get a witness? Posted by Tony Comstock | November 7, 2008 11:31 AM I will have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I don't think you win an argument with a person who has made up their mind on the basis of their faith by trying to make it analagous to a hypothetical situation dealing with a member of their faith. Most people would just dismiss it out of hand because to them you would be trying to compare follwing their religion with something that their religion teaches them is an abomination. The tone that I think would be most effective is not any kind of an analogy. That is where most people are going wrong in the first place. When you try to say the LGBT movement is like another movement be it civil rights or women's suffrage you run the risk of alienating the people who were involved with those movements. What you have to do is make it a human emotional issue. You have to present them with straight forward evidence of the effect Prop 8 has on their fellow man and woman. Not gay men and women but people, human beings who happen to have a different sexual orientation than they do, but are no less human. When you frame it in terms of love and not sex I think more people can understand where you are coming from. And biggest of all I think the most common sense argument is this, banning gay people from getting married will NOT lower the number of people who are gay. So what purpose does it serve to deny them the ability to marry other than just to punish them for their lifestyle? Most people including evangelicals dont like the idea of punishing someone simply because of their beliefs. In that situation you won't have to make the connection to civil rights or women's rights, it will just come naturally Now ultimately I want to say that I don't know if any approach will make a dent or not in the evangelical community because its hard to say what people will do or say when it comes to matters of their faith. But I do think its about time somebody came up with a straight forward approach instead of trying to identify themselves with past civil rights movements or coming up with analogies that don't work. Part of the reason in my opinion that Prop 8 passed is because the Yes on 8 people gave the populous their straight forward vision of what Prop 8 would lead to. Mind you most of what they said was based on lies and misleading statements but the point is they didnt try to just make it a referendum on faith. They also made it about gay adoption and promotion of gay relationships in schools and the affect on traditional marriages. Again it was all bullsh!t but for many it was plausible. For people who wanted to vote for Prop 8 but didnt want to be seen as intolerant or homophobic this gave them a helluva way out to be able to vote for it. Its time that the No on 8 people come up with a way to give them a helluva way in to vote against it!
For those of you crunching numbers, I find this map (click on the "available races" menu and go down to Prop 8) pretty useful. Can't believe we lost LA and San Diego.
"It's not that they caused the loss, but the fact that now that they are not the targets, they are joining in on the discrimination. It's a feeling of betrayal, and I'm surprised that you don't understand it." @ DCWolverine: I don't think anyone here is confused about the irony of the oppressed becoming the oppressor and how reprehensible that is in the black community. The issue at hand is that some people are treating this as if black voters singlehandedly turned the tide to prop 8, which is a fallacy. Just because this does not solely fall at the feet of blacks, that doesn't mean we don't have a problem with homophobia within the community. The bigger issue at hand is religion. As long as the marriage equality proponents cannot sway the hearts and minds of the religious community that both bankrolled and supported this foolishness en masse, nothing will change. Also, can we discuss the ridiculousness that is a 51% majority being able to make a drastic change to a state constitution? WTF?
@sgwhiteinfla I think you've misunderstood who my proposed audience is. I'm not interested in "converting" people (black or otherwise) who have made up their mind on the basis of faith. I don't believe their position changed, either by rational argument, or by presenting more images of non-threatening lesbian women picniccing with their photogenic young children.
The question I have echoes a rather pointed critique that comes from the right, but still has the ring of truth to it. Would you have all this equanimity if it were poor rural whites supporing, by an over 2 to 1 margin, a bill that re-segregated schools? Would you try to nuance their bigotry? Say that outreach is necessary, that anger is counter-productive? Minimize the efficacy of their votes? Blame the opponents of segregation for a badly-run campaign? I do not think you would. You would berate them as ignorant, trailer-dwelling white trash, at least in private moments, and then use a somewhat more guarded language to describe them publicly. (That's what I would do, too.) How would you respond to someone who, two days after such a re-segregation vote, tried to nuance the role of rural white voters?
....and yet all of these arguments continuously ignore those who are both black and gay. As usual, gay = white and black = homophobic. Yep, got it.
What some of you folks need to realize is that a lot of Black people don't see the GLBT community's struggle as analogous with the Black folks civil rights battle. Like someone said earlier this isn't about civil rights for a lot of Black folk it's about religion. I completely disagree & think it's very much about civil rights. I also do not think that you can equate it with what Black people went through. I think when most Black people think about the oppression of our people in this country interracial marriage would not be one of the top ten things mentioned. That's where the correlation between the two groups are. To compare Black folks' struggle with that of GLBT folks is pretty off base to me. GLBT folks have never had to deal with the scale of oppression of Black people in America & they never will.
Not much to say on this. The fact is though, 70% of the black community, particularly those older than 30, voted for this amendment. And yes, exit polls are crap, but they usually are crap in a liberal direction. So it might be higher, for all one knows. Now - does this make the "black community" more homophobic than say the Mormon community, who bankrolled this sh*t? No. Does this make the black community more responsible than other who voted yes? No. But let's not avoid the fact that, yes, 70% voted yes on this. Now, you can break this out in different ways. For example, has there been a breakdown based on religious affiliation? Protestants? Catholics? (We know that Mormons would go 95% for this.) Most likely, the more salient fact is that 90% of traditional churchgoers - black, white, or otherwise - voted for this in CA. One of the lessons to be drawn then, is to place gay marriage in a positive religious context. Otherwise, this will remain a point of contention forever. What are THOSE arguments?
Rob, don't be fatuous. Of course, 30% of African Americans opposed Prop 8, and there are black gay men and women. Likewise, there were white Alabamans who opposed segregation. We could still characterize Alabama in the 1960s as a very racist society. Same here.
There's nothing wrong with white people noting that black people are disproportionally hostile to gay rights. What matters is the attitude after. It's the difference between "you've got work to do" and "we've got work to do."
@sgwhiteinfla I think you've misunderstood who my proposed audience is. I'm not interested in "converting" people (black or otherwise) who have made up their mind on the basis of faith. I don't believe their position changed, either by rational argument, or by presenting more images of non-threatening lesbian women picniccing with their photogenic young children. Posted by Tony Comstock | November 7, 2008 12:07 PM Here is why I again respectfully disagree. You want to know what issue MIGHT be analagous to gay marriage to religious folks in my mind??? Abortion. Abortion is seen as a wedge issue in every election but still Obama received a portion of support from evangelicals even though most of them are against abortion. Why is that you think? Might it have something to do with pro choice people taking the time out to convince some of those evangelicals that having abortion legal is a lot more preferrable to having women going into back alleys for home made abortions? Might it be because the pro choice people have successfully convinced most Americans that it is unreasonable to demand that a victim of rape or incest be made to carry the product of those encounters to term? Might it be because instead of demonizing people who are against abortion instead pro choice people made it into a human issue and about how outlawing abortion would hurt certain segments of the population? It is and has been a HUGE mistake for people to just accept that religious folks will never change their minds on any given issue. And its that defeatist attitude that will ensure that LGBT NEVER makes in roads with religious folks which will pretty much ensure that it will be a LONG time before there is enough support for overturing a ban on gay marriage. If you decided that you can't change the minds of the people who voted against you what exactly do you think is another viable option?
Lemmy Caution did you miss the part about the point of this post & some of the other commenters here No one is arguing that Black folks are right to vote for prop 8. The point is that to cast Black people as the sole reason this thing passed is way off base. It's just one of many factors but yet so far we a being scapegoated by many in the media & LGBT community as THE reason this passed.
Yes, blacks are being scapegoated. And yes, the problem will solve itself. But that's not enough for me. We need to articulate clearly why we want the word "marriage" to apply to same-sex partnerships. We need to change a few minds about this. And the only path to that I see is personalization. It's not a "gay couple" in the abstract, it's Andrew and Martin and their adorable twin girls. It's George Takei and Brad Altman. It's Ellen Degeneres and Portia Di Rossi. It's Nikki and Jean, partnered 30 years. Every mind I know that has been changed has been changed that way. Mine included. One final point. Gays may have strongly supported Obama, but their support was down 11 points versus their support for John Kerry. In an election where Obama gained 8 points relative to Kerry in the population at large.
What some of you folks need to realize is that a lot of Black people don't see the GLBT community's struggle as analogous with the Black folks civil rights battle. That couldn't be clearer, actually. As a Jew, I see it all too familiarly in the attitude many Jews have toward comparisons between historical oppression of Jews and Israel's treatment of Palestinians: they get very, very angry that you would dare to make the comparison.
Eddy, what you say is true. The math could really be read either way, but the passage of Prop 8 is not itself solely the responsibility of African-Americans. But again, if you learned that 70% of white gay men and women voted for re-segregation, would you take pains to observe that they weren't solely responsible? And more pointedly, how would you respond to language that focused on mitigating their responsibility? What do you think would be the political result of a 70% re-segregation vote among gays and lesbians?
"Why is that you think?" Why? To quote the first black president, "It's economy, stupid." I believe that the 1:1 analogizing of LGTB civil liberty issues to racial civil liberty issues is both ineffective and counter productive. More over, I believe the wholesale acceptance that the racial civil liberties model as The One True Model both of what civil liberties are, and how those who have been denied civil liberties is wrong-headed. People of all races and religious beliefs know that the fight for LGTB civil liberties is not the same as the fight for racial equality, and without a framework for understanding why, although it might be a different fight it is still a just fight, those who are more conservative (in the traditional sense of the word) are going to vote to leave things the way they are. Prop 8 was passes by a narrow margin. There are better places to go looking for the votes needed to repeal it than in the dens of religious intolerance.
Antid, that could cut both ways. A refusal to see analogous experiences for their similarities, rather than their differences, is a kind of insular obstinacy. I would remind people just where the pink triangle symbol came from. And I would encourage people to look at hate crime statistics over the past several decades.
Actually the only major thing that thing that changed in the analysis was that the percentage of the yes votes went from 52% to 52.5% in the final numbers. Those additional votes meant that the differential of the black vote (69% yes compared to 50% yes for Hispanics and 45% yes from whites) was no longer enough to be the decisive factor. Dan Savage's rant was wrong. From the narrow point of view of prop 8, it turns out that the difference in black opinion was enormous but not quite decisive. From a broader view, it remains that 70% of black voters seem to dislike the idea of gay marriage compared to the approximately 50% of most other groups. (45% of white people in CA and 51% of Hispanics). Interestingly even among really obvious groups like evangelicals the percentage is only about 59%, and among Catholics it was 58%. I can't find anything on Mormons as a group. This tentatively seems to support the general rumor that it is really hard to be a gay man in a black community (at least in California). My gay, black friends have always suggested that, but I didn't really understand the magnitude. The blame game on Prop 8 isn't worth it, and just distracts attention from the other issues.
Lemmy: Yes, that's more or less what I was trying to say.
My language has not focused on mitigating Black folks responsibility. Lemmy, you said what I said was true then go right back to trying to lay it all at our feet. My answer to your question is yes by the way because the LGBT community wouldn't have been the biggest reason a measure like that passed. It's the same thing for Black people. Black people represented 7% of those who voted for prop 8 what about the other 44%? This argument, once again, is not about denying our part in the passing of this it's about denying that we were THE mitigating factor. Yes a large number of my people in Cali. fucked up but you can't place all the blame on us. As T-NC has said before about other issues this is about taking an American problem & turning it into a Black problem.
"Cue image of fallen gay soldier who served in Iraq, with his partner talking about how much he misses him and how proud he is of his service, with an American flag in the background." Elegant solution, Breukelyne, but there's one problem. Something very similar has been tried and it has failed. There is a disabled Iraq veteran, Marine, lost a a leg to an IED,gay as the daisies. he has testifoed befroe congress. jhasn't helped a bit. The probelm has been identified upthread. it is not ethnicity, it is religion. It is the religuion that has to be attacked and destroyed. Has the Black Church earned eternal gratitude and a glowing reputation for the indespensible role it played during the Civil rights Movement? Wonderful; I don't give a shit if it moved heaven and earth - it isn't good enough. It has fallen short of the glory of God. It is damned along with all the other religious organizations and "churches". How to attack? Homophobia is a wonderfully powerful weapon and one that clergy especially are vulnerable to. Outing will either destroy the churches' leadership or credibility of the weapon. Destroying the credibility of the weapon will weaken homophobia itself. It will become old news.
Some useful data from Pollster: Sebastian, counter to what you say above, pollster seems to indicate: When comparing the findings from The Field Poll's final pre-election survey of likely voters (n-966) to the Edison Media Research exit poll in California, the biggest differences relate to the turnout and preferences of frequent church-goers and Catholics. The Field Poll, completed one week before the election, had Catholics voting at about their registered voter population size (24% of the electorate) with voting preferences similar to those of the overall electorate, with 44% on the Yes side. However the network exit poll shows that they accounted for 30% of the CA electorate and had 64% of them voting Yes. Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the Yes side. The pre-election Field Poll showed 72% of these voters voting Yes, while the exit poll showed that 84% of them voted Yes. If both that 64% of Catholicss, and that 84% of "regular churchgoers" is accurate, then again, we have a religious problem, much more than a "black" problem.
The most bizarre aspect of the "teh blacks did us in!1" argument is the vast amount of cognitive dissonance it requires to translate the votes of what is increasingly shown to be a marginal percentage of the total vote into a greater force than the institutional effort by the usually apolitical Mormon Church (consisting of letters to congregations, Web videos, ground troops, and outreach efforts with the Protect Marriage Coalition that resulted in $14 million dollars in donations) to derail the Court's ruling. And yet, in the conversation waging on the internet, even the appeal to religion seems racially coded; it's not general religion people are pointing to, or the LDS church specifically, but those ever-powerful Black Baptist churches. While many jump to create parallels with interracial marriage, the Mormon Church has the same flashpoint, having been persecuted by US law for their marriage practices, and sometimes being forced to flee to Mexico. And yet, the condescending "Can I get a witness?" talk doesn't address the folks who bankrolled the whole operation. In this vein, there is much to be said about the failure of the "NO on 8" as a campaign. This is not to distract from the ethical and moral failure of those who voted for the propostion, of course, but there should be acknowledgement of what seemed to be complacency for what was, ultimately, a political fight. In the wake of our loss, people are now lamenting how we need to educate (which begs questions of mainstreaming and assilimilation and is the sort of rhetoric that pushed my views more on the Michael Warner than the Andrew Sullivan side of the marriage debate long ago). NO on 8 should have been able to mobilize the same sort energy that fueled the Obama ground game to canvass and fight for a right that an entire generation has little problem with (speaking of The One, I will add that Obama should have spoken up against the proposition much earlier and with much more force. Alas, politicking!). Lastly, and most obviously, it would do us all well to shun complicity in further erasing queer people of color, remembering that creating a gay-versus-black dichotomy assumes that there are not those who are both (we should, naturally, neither erase gay Mormons, or those who opposed Prop 8, and so on).
Some international perspective here, for what it's worth. My point is: legal marriage rights are an uphill struggle for the GLBT community. I agree with Tessa this problem will disappear as the older generations disappear into the sunset, but that does not mean everybody should just wait around for twenty years.
If this thread were about Mormon participating in culture, Eddy, I'd be laying out the blame, too. But a 70% rate doesn't just contribute to the votes: it helps make the case for those people who claim that the struggle for equality for gays and lesbians is not a civil rights struggle. Again, I ask you: if there were a vote to re-segregate, and gays and lesbians supported it at a 70% level, what would you be saying then? Would you say, "oh, really, we can't blame them - after all, the Catholics supported it by 51%"? Would you really? Why aren't you willing to follow along in this thought experiment?
Furthermore, the LGBT has every right to be angry with Blacks who voted against this measure. My main problem is a lot of their anger seems directed at ALL Black folk. I'm also just plain tired of being demonized for every damn problem in this country. We have a hand in this stupid thing passing but so do many others & the focus on putting the blame Black peoples backs in wrong. Plain & simple.
Prop 8 was passes by a narrow margin. There are better places to go looking for the votes needed to repeal it than in the dens of religious intolerance.
Here is why that is a losing proposition. If you never change minds then whatever court victory you might find will always and forever be opposed by the same people who voted for Prop 8 and you will be locked in a struggle to keep those rights in perpetuity. The biggest evidence of this is of course Prop 8 itself. It is precisely because nobody tried to change people's mind that after granting gay people the right to marry those same people same people have now voted to take it away. But hey if you think thats the way to go so be it. I just don't think that will ever be a long term solution
I appreciate what everyone is saying here but I think a few days ago, TNC made the point in arguing that we need to come up with an argument that is more than "yuck." And I'm black and I'm gay and I'm telling you all THAT is the largest reason people voted for this proposition. No one ACTUALLY believes what the Bible supposedly says about homosexuality. This proposition and this attitude about gay people does NOT amount to any lofty issues of "faith." It's really about people thinking that what gay people do in their bedrooms is gross. Saying it is about faith is a smokescreen because that would somehow imply that deep in your heart (where your emotions are), you think gay people getting married is bad for society and Jesus would not approve, or were it true, that gay marriage being taught in school is an essential part of Prop 8 and thus, bad for society and Jesus would not approve or any of the other lies they offered (to others but especially to THEMSELVES) as to why gay marriage should be banned and who it would protect. It's all about "a man is not supposed to be sticking his thang up another man's butt hole!" (something my very Baptist black mother once said to me years ago though true there are also white Mormons who are repulsed by gay sex in all its myriad forms). And so I think somehow we have to get evangelicals to rethink in a very public way this underlying disgust of gay sex (and sex in general) but also and maybe more importantly, to get them to see that not only do men who desire men or women who desire women not hurt them or their love for Jesus, it might also HELP raise the rolls on some of their membership if they embraced gay, lesbian, transgender, and questioning people (sexuality and ALL) and their desire to build lives and families together (whether they were LGBTQ people who believed in Jesus or any religious figure or not or whether they wanted to be married or not).
"If you never change minds then whatever court victory you might find will always and forever be opposed by the same people who voted for Prop 8 and you will be locked in a struggle to keep those rights in perpetuity." Perpetuity? Look at the demographics of the yes vote. We need not worry about perpetuity. The question is what can be done now to make it easier for gay men and lesbian women to live fully public lives right now. Their daily witness, as neighbors, teachers, colleagues -- not bucolic PSAs -- is what will change the minds and hearts of those who find strength for their bigotry in their faith. That witness and the arc of history will take care of perpetuity.
Lemmy I answered your question already. Maybe you're not getting this because you aren't actually reading what said. This is what I said above: 'My answer to your question is yes by the way because the LGBT community wouldn't have been the biggest reason a measure like that passed. It's the same thing for Black people." My answer is still yes. As we can see from JC's comment above Catholics were 30% of the electorate & 64% of them voted for it. Now of course some of those Catholics (also my people) are Black but as others have said to focus on Blacks being the problem here is not just misguided but flat out wrong. When you focus on the race you make it that there's something inherent about Black folk that makes them homophobic which isnt the case. As with your example even if 70% of gays voted for segregation I wouldn't think it was because they were gay. You seem to think Black people voted for prop 8 because they are Black & not because of other factors like religion.
"If you never change minds then whatever court victory you might find will always and forever be opposed by the same people who voted for Prop 8 and you will be locked in a struggle to keep those rights in perpetuity." Perpetuity? Look at the demographics of the yes vote. We need not worry about perpetuity. The question is what can be done now to make it easier for gay men and lesbian women to live fully public lives right now. Their daily witness, as neighbors, teachers, colleagues -- not bucolic PSAs -- is what will change the minds and hearts of those who find strength for their bigotry in their faith. That witness and the arc of history will take care of perpetuity.
I'd also like to say word about ballot Propositions. Is this really the most democratic way to decide issues, especially constitutional ammendments? I've been thinking about this question for over a week now, I've concluded, No. Why? Because ballot measures are too easily politicized. That's why we rely on the jurisprudence of our courts...to prevent bias and prejudice. No? Then talk me down.
It's a heterosexual problem. When will heterosexuals stop moralizing homosexuality and stop lording over gay people and trying to dictate what gay people can or can't do?
I'm sure that the spread was quite high among Muslims and Arabs too, though I haven't seen that demographic broken out in a large enough sample. Then again, perhaps the position of Islam within the A-A community plays a role in its disproportionate homophobia. I wonder if polls show a similar disparity in Black men's views towards women's equality too.
With you there Tessa. Props are terrible. Leaving aside the actual issue this one is still especially heinous because the Cali constitution has been amended by a bare majority. That's ridiculous.
@ Tessa: that is precisely my point. In no state should a 51% majority be able to dictate what goes into the constitution. Such a slim margin can dictate the course of action for the entire state? Total joke.
Eddy, you're right up to a point. It would be ridiculous to blame blackness itself for this, or to extend "guilt by association" to people (many of whom, of course, are gay or lesbian themselves, or at least voted no on 8) to black people. What the anger is directed to is what is understood, mostly rightly, as a real cultural-political bloc that involves the black churches and other community groups as their guiding forces. There are "top-level" containers for political identity. They don't always map onto race, but in this case, I think they do. And to say it is a "religious" thing makes the mistake, I think, of eliding the singular role that black churches play. I can't help but feel the long-term political fallout of a 70% pro-segregation vote among gays and lesbians, if it were out of sync with the rest of the populace, would be profound. But still, as Kenneth Tynan said, "it is not enough to praise: on must distinguish. It is not enough to criticize: one must diagnose." The anger will eventually subside. But I also somewhat disagree with an approach that is too conciliatory or forgiving. Racism is now deeply embarrassing even to white people, and they will go to great pains to either avoid it or, at least, hide it. This turn of events did not occur because of friendly dialog. Racism became embarrassing because it was confronted, mocked, raged at, made fun of, ostracized, associated with stupidity and ignorance and backwardness. This is no different.
The problem is that a coalition of haters came together on this issue. So the following people/things are to blame: 1. The Mormon Church (oppressed becomes the oppressor, yay!) That said, if there exists a black/white mixed race, spanish speaking mormon preacher over the age of 65, it should be ok to kick him in the nuts. Watch your back, Rev. Dontay "Chad" Gomez.
"With you there Tessa. Props are terrible. Leaving aside the actual issue this one is still especially heinous because the Cali constitution has been amended by a bare majority. That's ridiculous." What do you want to bet that the people who wrote/approved the California considered themselves liberals with a deep concern for liberty, equality, and justice?
Lemmy, I agree with you up to a point. I understand that apparently an overwhelmingly majority of Blacks IN CALIFORNIA voted for this measure & therefore it kind of puts the spotlight on them but that still doesn't make them THE reason this passed. My question is why do you wish to focus only on Black people & not on the 44% of others who voted for this measure as well? It seems like all you care about. You said "Racism is now deeply embarrassing even to white people, and they will go to great pains to either avoid it or, at least, hide it. This turn of events did not occur because of friendly dialog. Racism became embarrassing because it was confronted, mocked, raged at, made fun of, ostracized, associated with stupidity and ignorance and backwardness. This is no different." It is different though because white people were the main ones responsible for racism. There were plenty of other types of people involved in racism against Black people too but to direct out anger at them would have been misguided. They didn't control things. That's why I said I wouldn't really be concerned about gays voting for segregation. Gays would not make up enough of the electorate for me to be son singularly angry at them.
"What do you want to bet that the people who wrote/approved the California considered themselves liberals with a deep concern for liberty, equality, and justice?" Yeah Tony I bet they were a bunch of big libs back in 1849.
"What do you want to bet that the people who wrote/approved the California considered themselves liberals with a deep concern for liberty, equality, and justice?" Since when are those bad things?
1849? Here's what Wiki has to say about who/when/why: In 1910 Johnson won the gubernatorial election as a member of the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, a liberal Republican movement running on an anti-Southern Pacific Railroad platform. He toured the state in an open automobile. In office, Johnson was a populist who implemented many important reforms. Among them was the popular election of U.S. Senators, which stripped away the sole franchise of the California State Legislature to vote for federal Senators. Johnson's administration also pushed for women's suffrage and the ability of candidates to register in more than one political party, a reform that he believed would cripple the influence of what he viewed as a monolithic political establishment. In 1911, Johnson and the Progressives added initiative, referendum, and recall to the state government, giving California a degree of direct democracy unmatched by any other U.S. state.
Yeah Tony I bet they were a bunch of big libs back in 1849 Actually, Tony's more right than wrong here. The stupidity of the initiative system in California stems from the Progressive movement in the early 20th century (came in in 1911, IIRC), and was viewed as a way for the people to pry control of government out of the hands of a few corrupt industrialists (railroad barons, mostly, I understand). Best of intentions, etc. etc.
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I'm not sure what the numbers are, but I'd guess that because of "ghosts" in the polls-- people who are registered and have moved, died, etc but not been purged-- 90% turnout would be literally impossible.
Posted by NMC | November 7, 2008 10:08 AM