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I want to address what [a poster] wrote here: "The pro-8 campaign was literally nothing but a pack of outright lies and hysterical bigotry. There is not a single remotely plausible reason to oppose same-sex marriage. There's just bigotry."

As I understand it, one of the memes promoted by the pro-8 campaign was that supporting gay marriage would lead to teachers being forced to teach about it in schools, and ministers forced to marry gay couples. There are a lot of religious people who, however they might personally feel about homosexuality, don't feel they have the right to tell other people how to live as long as it doesn't infringe on their own rights. That's why you see greater support among Americans of all races and religions for gay rights in the areas of employment non-discrimination and adoption rights.

However, the anti-gay marriage folks have hugely promoted the idea that supporting gay marriage will take away their rights to believe and practice their religions as they see fit. And frankly, I've seen tone-deafness about this on the left in the recent Rick Warren controversy, not only on blogs, but also by Rachel Maddow.

One of the complaints about Warren (and there are many, many legitimate ones) is that his church practices discrimination because it won't allow gay people to be members. I think the actual wording on the church's web site (since removed) is that gay people are welcome to visit, but if they are living an "active gay lifestyle" they can't be members.

For the life of me, I can't understand why many progressives were so shocked by this. Did they expect a conservative Christian church to say otherwise? Would they accuse the same church of religious discrimination if they said (which they probably do) that only people who believe in Jesus can be members?

My point is, by criticizing Warren for what his church teaches and practices within the confines of his church (and *not* for what he brings out into the public square, which is always fair game), then those of us on the left are playing right into that fear: that if gay marriage is allowed, soon even in churches Christians won't be able to practice and teach what they believe.

So from that perspective, the pro-8 campaign sounds like prophecy, not lies, and the rejection of gay marriage sounds like a protection of one's own rights, not bigotry. (Please note, I am NOT saying this is what I believe, just trying to help you understand the perspective of some religious people).

Republicans (as you well know) have spent the last forty years using the religious wrong to help them with their Divide and Conquer politics. Now that they are trying to embrace "diversity" you hear hit men like Karl Rove saying that they need to recruit blacks because of our supposedly conservative religious values like homophobia. What they don't seem to get is that Republican bigotry is way more problematic to black people than gay rights. Even the most homophobic African American knows that once the Republicans are done persecuting gays, blacks and Jews are next. So while there is homophobia and even some voting against gay rights, black people are not the ones out actively persecuting, lynching and spreading horrible lies about gay people.

So I would ask that folks who blame the black community for the passage of Prop 8 in California to cut us some slack and work a bit harder next time on canvassing in minority majority communities.

You have a greater point, but I have to disagree with you here-- no one would give a rat's ass about Rick Warren at all if he were not a preacher. His religious 'authority' is what's given him a public role, and if his religion says 'fuck you, gay people' then I think we have a right to say he does not speak for us.

Jack T is right, though.

A lot of religious people have a "live and let live" attitude that *can* be appealed to -- but if the message becomes "let us live, and then we'll take away your rights," they'll resist.

Furthermore, as far as the ghetto (forgive my continued generalizations) and not the black middle or upper class, if you are strong enough to hold your square AND be openly gay, you're left to do you. (Keep in mind when youre talking about an environment teeming with dysfunction and pathology, like the "hood" (or a trailer park) people pick on weaker people for all sorts of self-hating, twisted reasons--because these places gradually strip their residents of their humanity...being gay is just one more reason (being too smart, being too nice, being flashy, being too religious, etc.) to pick a fight.)

There's a reason why black gay thug characters like Snoop and Omar (The Wire) or Lafayette (True Blood) resonate. I knew a gang of folk like that growing up--gay men who people were afraid to clown because they'd straight up whup your ass if there was a problem, or tough lesbian girls who hustled and ran the streets with the big dogs, as one of the big dogs, selling coke and weed and shooting and stabbing.

Funny how the less acquainted people are with personal experience in the communities they judge, the quicker they are to form incorrect or inaccurate assumptions.

To me, the answer is to engage, even those that are against you. You can't hide what you're trying to achieve. You can't hope to slip it by with smoke and mirrors. You have to appeal directly to people's sense of family and brother- and sister-hood.

Not that I have any special understanding of the answers. But clearly the anti-Prop 8 push in California was terribly flawed, and I can only hope that there are some smart people out there who will try to repeal this thing by using some smarter and more honest tactics next time.

As to TNC, he has always been very, very clear about his support of gay marriage, and it's crazy to think some of his readers don't get that. Maybe they are just trolls.

I also give him props for talking about the homophobia in the black community. I can't say I have ever experienced it first hand, but I certainly have second hand - if you count having listened to thousands of hours of hip hop since I first got King of Rock on cassette back in 87 or 88 or whatever it was. Love to hear TNC talk more about homophobia and hip hop (though I guess he's probably done it hundreds of times already...)

Did you even read the post? Seriously...

You seem to be deriving this:
"However, the anti-gay marriage folks have hugely promoted the idea that supporting gay marriage will take away their rights to believe and practice their religions as they see fit."

from this:
"Persia, I'm not saying he should speak for gays. I'm saying that if he says, "Gays can't be a member of my church," let him say it. That's *his* church, *his* beliefs, and it doesn't affect you. If he says, "Gays can't get married," that's a public statement, and yes, jump all over that. But by criticizing the first statement, instead of sticking to the criticisms of the second, folks on the left are playing into the fear of religious conservatives that, "First we'll have gay marriage, and next thing you know, our preachers will be arrested for saying that homosexuality is wrong!"

and the trouble is that this fear is not only illogical but dishonest. It is clainming that condemnation of Warren by private citizens is the same as government repression of Warren. It's just a lie, that's all, and so it just confirms negative stereotypes about his followers and peole who think like them, that they are lying and dishonest, since what they are doing is exactly what they accuse the gay marriage proponents of, using the government to push their agenda.

"And frankly, I've seen tone-deafness about this on the left in"

I think what you are seeing is that people are pointedly ignoring the idiocy of these people. Remember that we are ending and era - FINALLY - when the James Dobsons in this country had the federal government on a leash. People have heard all this stuff to the point of tone-deafness. I know how skilled people on the Religious Right are at presenting themselves as and believing they truly are the victimized and marginalized minority - they seem never to have gotten over Abolition and being beaten in the Civil War - but where they are tone-deaf themselves is that they are unaware that no one is falling for their lies any more.

Very good point, Jim. Thanks for making it.

I love how measured and sure you've been on this. Eleventy-billion points to you.

Rachel Maddow wasn't condemning Rick Warren for not allowing homosexuals in his church with regard to Prop 8. She was condemning this with regard to the fact that he'd been chosen by Obama to speak in the inauguration, and was making a point of saying, "this is what he believes, and it is being endorsed by the incoming Administration because Warren is being given an official role." I viewed it much more as a statement on the Obama Administration than as protesting Warren's church.

So: not that Warren shouldn't be allowed to say what he wants in his church, but that Obama shouldn't be giving someone who believes that his seal of approval.

And of course, no one on the Left ever sees the need to remember that Warren won't be talking about gays in the prayer!

In any case, the unrising against Warren giving a prayer has been a total fiasco for the gay rights movement, because it's made them look completely unreasonable to most Americans.

I hope that Melissa Ethridge's example of engagement with Warren will help some very good-hearted if misguided people re-evaluate how they are going to attack this issue. Because in the end, gay Americans aren't going to win equal marriage rights by making war with Preachers.

I agree.

It's very interesting that the same gay Obama supporters who argued that just because Reverend Wright was his pastor for many years, this did not mean that Obama necessarily endorsed every POV view Wright had -- now believe that ONE 3-minute remark by another pastor with whom Obama has had little to no contact . . . is exactly that.

Either neither situation is endorsing a pastor or both of them are. We can't have our Wright defense and eat it too (to mangle a metaphor).

TR: So Republicans are essentially equivalent to the Nazi Party? Considering their the second in a two-party system that must make life for you feel very tough much of the time.

Apparently the word "endorse" is causing some confusion. Let's go with "finds acceptable" or "doesn't condemn"; I hope we can agree that a single person can do either of those things about two contradictory viewpoints. So when Maddow then reports that Warren has said on video that being gay is the same as committing incest or being a pedophile, and that that is the person who Obama "finds acceptable" or "doesn't condemn", I can see why it's an issue for gay Obama supporters.

Amen. If people could get this simple concept through their thick skulls, the world would be a far more peaceful place.

You're right. In my private life, I would attend a gay-friendly church (and have) with people who agree with me. If I were President of the United States, I'd have to recognize that I'm the leader of people who don't agree with me, and I would want to make symbolic gestures to co-opt/include them while working towards substantive policy changes that they won't like.

As was mentioned on a previous thread, if Prop 8 had failed, no one would care if Rick Warren slept in the freaking Lincoln Bedroom. And Prop 8 passed because the gay community didn't reach out to churchgoers who AREN'T as right-wing as Warren, to Black churchgoers who they NEVER associate with, and ... well, they fucking dropped the ball. The Mormons organized, organized, organized in a way that would make Axelrod proud, and the anti-8 folks raised money to defeat it at their goddamn SF wine tastings with people who look like them, agree with them, and share exactly the same POVs as them -- and never left the rez. If the Obama campaign had acted that way and said, "He's wearing a trucker's cap and has a gun rack on his pick-up; don't bother" -- we'd be inaugurating President McCain.

Bless Etheridge and her essay and her meeting Warren. She's the only gay icon out there who seems to get this.

I am going to say what has been on my mind for some time and that is that black women like myself have been making demands for a dialogue about sexism and have been ignored and even met with hostility. Black GLBTs have been asking for a dialogue about homophobia and have been ignored. However now that the white GLBT community and white liberals demand a talk about homophobia, we must do it. Classic. This has nothing to do with you TNC but really my sentiment from looking through the web. I simply decided to vent on your blog...but anyway...

As I was saying homophobia and sexism need to be discussed together because they are interconnected. They come from the same place. I find that too many are just too in the dark in regards to black sexual politics and how it has been constructed and developed. Its like discussing poverty without discussing the root causes of the poverty. Within the cause, there is a solution.

Religion is one thing but it does not explain homophobia in mainstream hip-hop. What explains homophobia in hip-hop is what explains misogyny in hip-hop and that is what we should be discussing---black sexual politics.

Toby.

You get an F. You are completely lost in this whole conversation, go update yourself and come back. Actually let me help you,

Here is a quick run-down

1. The 70% number is in dispute
2. Ta-Nehisi is calling for more of a dialogue on homophobia and is acknowledging (yet again!)the homophobia within our community.

Juba.

You said this,

"Yeah, usually when you hear about violence against gays in this country, its not a black face doing the gay bashing in my experience. It's usually a conservative redneck or blue collar white ethnic--a Bensonhurst kid or Long Island kid or homophobe Mass-hole, or a good ole boy from the Carolinas or Iowa or Wyoming."

Yea, it was and still mostly lily white states where ballot inititiaves for and against gay rights have problems. I wonder who they scapegoat. Oh yea...I forgot their is no mention of it. I wonder what the numbers are for white women providing that they suffer from sexism and should be more sympathetic.

Also, I live in Brooklyn, Bensonhurst is hostile towards anyone who isn't straight and Italian. My cousin was stabbed there back in 96. Its hate crime central. Long Island inherited this crop of people who ran when they began seeing people who were not straight and Italianin their neighborhood.

Thirdly, My close friend spoke about the fear that his mother had (he is white and gay) of him going to a large state university. From what I hear, those big jock schools are not a friendly place for gay students. I find that in NY where I counsel black and Latino GLBT youth, they usually chose (like many white youth) to go to small liberal, liberal arts colleges (Oberlin College, Eugene Lang, Purchase College).

What I also find interesting is that at the school where I work with students out here in BK, some of the most popular kids are gay and lesbian. Half of the women's basketball team is lesbian. Everyone loves this gay kid named Charles, he hangs out with the females and the guys tolerate him "as long as he doesn't make a move" (one kid told me). Its cool for girls to be bisexual these days. And yes, there are homothugs.

Nonetheless, there is visible and harmful culture of homophobia and sexism that must be combated.

I am done with my rant and as I said above, there needs to be dialogue that includes both homophobia and sexism.