Why are posters here, and the media generally, ignoring the fact that these results were driven by Maine's overwhelming number of black churches?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
This is the best blog ever. It is now official.
Yep. Its crack. Its 80s era, old man in the club, can't leave it alone so Imma break its back and knock off its footware, leeroy jenkins-level it up, damn the man, don't fuck up the collards CRACK.
Fool. There's no black people in Maine.
ok, I didn't recognize the handle, so I thought he wasn't kidding at first. Stranger things have been said in seriousness here.
I spend a week or two there almost every summer. I find myself noticing race more there simply because it is so overwhelmingly white. It isn't just that there are no (few) black people, it is the lack of latino and asian people as well. In SF I never find myself going, "wow, an asian person" but when I am in Maine I'll see maybe 1-2 in a week and I notice it.
It's like deja-vu all over again!
what deep theological issue/insight finally brought the southern baptists and the roman catholic church together, love of God, love of neighbor, love of enemies? nope, being against gay marriage, who could have predicted that? my regrets to all of our lgbt peeps on these recent votes/insults, together we will overcome.
Well, the hatred of us homos may have played a role, we shouldn't leave out misogyny and the anti-feminist, particularly anti-choice, movements that brought these two groups together in the 1970s.
The anti-gay stuff brought the LDS into the fold with the RCC and SBC.
"Well, the hatred of us homos may have played a role, we shouldn't leave out misogyny and the anti-feminist, particularly anti-choice, movements that brought these two groups together in the 1970s."
Wouldn't it be fair to look at all those issues as being incredibly intertwined? Doesn't a lot of homophobia really come down to misogyny?
"Wouldn't it be fair to look at all those issues as being incredibly intertwined? Doesn't a lot of homophobia really come down to misogyny?"
definitely. But, in terms of movement organizing and the like, harming LGBT folks was a more minor issue in relation to controlling women's bodies for quite a few years, even if lesbian-baiting was a large-scale aspect of anti-feminist backlash (and even part of NOW itself during the "lavender menace" purge of lesbians). Full-scale anti-gay organizing took off in the 1977 Miami-Dade debacle with Anita Bryant, and then the Briggs Initiative in CA the next year, but it wasn't quite as central a strategy on the Right as it became in the 1990s-2000s.
yeah so i was attempting, and apparently failing at, a bit of sarcasm, at both the hypocracy of some involved and at all of the absurd attempts (and they are all without basis) to find some common causes/meanings in these elections, but thanks for setting the record straight, so to speak.
MAJeff and Stacy,
In all seriousness, how does most homophobia come down to misogyny? I don't understand.
@black yank -- others may have a clearer answer, but my understanding is it comes down to attachment to "traditional" gender roles where women are never equal partners to men. People who are really hung up on man=dominant, woman=submissive paradigms can't wrap their brains around same-sex partnerships, particularly ones involving 2 men, because it goes against the "natural order" of how a relationship is supposed to be.
blackyank,
It's easier if we think of "the domination of women" rather than "the hatred of women." Some feminists have argued that the domination of women relies on very strict gender roles that are based on heterosexual relations. In order for men to effectively dominate women, women can't be lesbians because that makes them less emotionally and financially dependent on men. Men can't be gay, because 1) they are not dominating women (at least in the private sphere) and 2) they are having romantic/sexual relationships with other men which makes them feminized, which undermines the project of male/masculine power. That is, "real men" don't have sex with other men because sex is an act of gender domination and "real men" are supposed to sexually dominate women.
I recommend Suzanne Pharr's book, Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism.
Responding to black yank
I'd defer to the other two discussions (been away from the computer).
It's related to the issue of strict gender roles in a hierarchical arrangement favoring masculinity. I'd also suggest that it's not only about that, but about seeing the issue of gender itself in homophobia--there's often an aspect of doing gender "wrong" in attacks on lesbians and gay men. The whole "who's the wife" or "why do lesbians want to look like men" or "Gay men are all effeminate" types of things.
Obama could have stepped in and made this go the right way. And he was probably operating on the advice of the black ministers. So I still blame the blacks. Hispanics get a pass this time.
I don't know if you're also being satirical, but I half agree with you. Obama is being incredibly weak on gay marriage, and I am starting to think if, rather than just being politically hand-bound, he really doesn't care about the issue. (Cheney has been better on gay marriage than Obama. Let that sink in.)
But I am confident it is white political consultants, rather than black ministers, that are advising him on this. I understand the political calculus involved, I just think it's disgusting.
I was under the impression that rather than being "weak" on gay marriage, Obama was explicitly opposed to it.
Regarding Cheney, he is actually pretty good on gay rights, better than most dems even. He even opposes the DOMA, unlike most democrats (including Obama). I wonder if his lesbian daughter has something to do with it...
Of course his lesbian daughter has something to do with it. That's the funny thing about conservatives: they suddenly become progressive when their own interests are at stake. I like Andrew Sullivan, but he's one of the worst in this regard: deeply interested in gay marriage, even against the dictates of his faith, because he's gay; but opposed to abortion rights, because he'll never get pregnant. All for the relaxation of drug laws, because he got busted for marijuana possession. Melodramatic in his opposition to the exclusion of HIV+ immigrants, but profoundly disinterested in any other immigration issues. The supposed ability of conservatives to be hard-headed and unsentimental in the defense of the traditional True, Good and Beautiful collapses like a wet tissue in a hurricane as soon their own interests are at stake, and Cheney is no different.
Do you really believe that "for me but not for thee" is a funny thing about conservatives (rather than people in general)?
In other news, Obama doesn't want to give other people's children the opportunity to escape from terrible DC public schools. His daughters go to private school, of course...
I'm enough of cynic and a curmudgeon, at this point, that I'm happy to point out hypocrisies on the left and on the right, and the left has plenty. But I will give them credit for this: liberals and progressives are generally more willing to advocate for the civil rights and liberties of others, and not just themselves. The examples are many: the ACLU defending Nazis in Skokie, the large number of straight people on the left who advocate gay marriage, etc.
I think your description of BHO's opposition to voucher programs is a mis-characterization, even though I'm personally willing to entertain voucher ideas.
@Lemmy Caution
Well said about conservatives like Cheney and Sullivan. It's not so much hypocrisy than it is willful blindness to any issue that only affects "others"--you know, those formless swarming masses of inconsequential people--that really defines their ideology. But when it's an issue they can relate to personally, then they become compassionate crusaders for justice--on that issue only. Everyone else can still go to hell.
You might as well add the Reagan family to this, as they famously bucked the GOP line about stem-cell research during the 2004 election campaign. It's what Ronnie would have wanted. Unless, of course, he never could have needed any benefit from it.
It only took about 200 + comments to get to the nub of the problem, but we can tell everyone that we read it here first. I am sure that it will catch like wildfire through the internet and further enhance Coates' reputation as a straight shooting wild card and his blog on the cutting edge of post-racial America, not to mention provide fodder for print and tv journalists about the extremist pajama party pillow fighting hip hop mouthing set on line. It may be mouthy, but say what you will, you won't find that kind of insight at Crunchy Gods, Rush Limbaugh, or Joe Scarborough--well, maybe Rush Limbaugh.
indeed, we need a new word for soothsayer as it is anything but a soothing activity
Wow, Citizen E, are you TNC's publicist?
The black pop of Maine, to ruin the joke, is 14,000+
I've seen quite the uproar via twiter over this, but this is democracy at work, as unfortunate as it is.
Um, I think the black population being 14K+ of 1,321,504 is the joke, honey.
Im sure that Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan are rushing to craft apologetic missives to the scapegoated Black community as we speak
Naw, they're probably just calling for boycotts of pine trees and lobster.
Can you believe how the pine tree and lobster communities have stabbed Savage and Sullivan in the back after all they did to support the environmental rights movements? Homophobic ingrate flora and fauna!!!
Actually, I'm not sure I get the joke. What is it, exactly? I understand that Maine has a very small black population -- but what, exactly, is funny about that in this context? I swear I'm not trying to be obtuse or humorless, and certainly the knee-jerk reaction of white gays in response to the perception that California blacks were primarily (or even exclusively) responsible for Prop. 8 is comment-worthy (and much commented on). But what joke is being made here, at whose expense, and why? (All of this said in as non-confrontational a tone as possible.)
And to add to this ... a glimmer of hope:
Charles Pugh elected as first gay city council president in Detroit.
Lots of broken satire detectors today.
Every time a blogger posts a satiric entry it's amazing to me how many people don't get it. And every time that happens I marvel at the fact that any of us ever manage to communicate at all. The variety of interpretations of various statements seems limitless.
It happened to me recently. There was a Kos diary reporting that John McCain had described the public option as a "banana option." People were trying to figure out what he meant by that, and I said, "The first thought popped into my head is that it's a reference to Banana Republics, which we know have a strong tendency to have a government-run health care system, as opposed to the pure free-market systems typical of industrialized nations." Two commenters immediately tried to "correct" me on my misinformation. I wouldn't call what I said satire; it was just snark. But the same idea applies. On the net, you can't see anyone's body language or hear their tone of voice, and it's easy to miss irony or sarcasm.
Actually, I guess satire and sarcasm are hard to detect even in "real life" where you get to read vocal tones and body language. There was a recent study to that effect. So we should be kind, I suppose.
Of course we miss it in real life too. But it's so much easier to miss it when all we can see are a person's words.
Oh, honey. Read Jezebel sometime. They don't even have a satire detector to break. Lost by the post office apparently; it was in the same shipment as their irony indicator and the dry wit radar.
The joke being pretty funny aside, how exactly do you compare the completely separate political climates surrounding the Maine vs. California votes? I still don't see why it's scapegoating to point out why two groups who reliably vote Dem went for Prop 8 at a near 60% clip.
This isn't exactly a moment of vindication for anybody.
Here's what I don't get...My father was a Presbyterian minister, I have attended a wider sampling of "black" congregations of almost every denomination, than (in all seriousness) 90% of ALL Americans. The GAY choir director, music director, deacon, etc, is a FIXTURE in comfortably more than two thirds of ALL black churches. How is it remotely possible for significant numbers of black churches to publically exhort their membership to vote against full acceptance of PILLARS of your OWN church? WTF?
I recognize that in most instances these individuals are not "out". But neither is the congregation blind and oblivious to what is obvious. The stereotypical "gay flamboyance" among these individuals is just that - stereotypical for black choir directors. How can this level of cognitive dissonance be sustained? Somebody propose some mechanism for this, please - let me buy a clue, vowel something... cause I don't get it.
It seems like the staff of these churches have a very high proportion of gay people. I know Sullivan has said that a lot of the hard core Catholic clergy are as gay as Liberace.
Churches in general seem to be the biggest single beard out there--- I'm not gay, I'm just way into Jesus. The pushback from the heavily gay clergy is partly because if gays are accepted as full members of the church then they don't they 1) don't get to remain in the closet with whatever sexual hangups got them to take a vow of celibacy and 2) they spent a lot of time preying they could have used getting laid (which must be infuriating).
Basically if you're a gay clergy member, you have to feel like accepting gays would expose you and make all the self-denial you went through pretty meaningless.
That's all I got on the psychology of gay-dominated institutions being against free range gays.
"a lot of time preying" - ha, love that. I don't think it was on purpose, but please tell me if it was!
I'm white, and I have a white friend who is, I think, pretty closeted but probably gay. He loves church music and is super involved with it . . . and yet would probably not be comfortable with gays in the church for the very reasons you state.
I think there is a lot of truth here. I wonder if there is also the "sex must always be in the context of marriage and must include the chance of pregnancy" view that is coming into play. To an extent, I'm taking about the straights here as well.
Being born and raised Roman Catholic, I have a pretty good understanding of how the church works. Before gay marriage became an issue, one could characterize the RCC view on homosexuality as moderate. Church doctrine is that being gay is not sinful in the slightest, only the sexual act is. While I didn't agree that homosexual sex is always sinful, the distinction between an orientation and an act seemed more humane than the views of a lot of other churches.
For the RCC, abortion has been a huge issue since Roe V. Wade. Communism was an equally major issue until it's decline in the 1980's. But you never heard too much about gays until the issue of gay marriage came up. Hell, years ago, you'd hear more about Hollywood movies judged "morally objectionable".
Now, gay marriage is up there with abortion, trumping all other issues. Although I can't say that I expected anything different, I still have been solely disappointed. I guess part of me hopes that there is something else that is motivating people I know and respect to hold the views they do. I want to think that it's not just a loathing based on feelings of "ickness" and a few vague lines of scripture.
I'd also add, that homosexuality became bigger issue as JPII and Bennie and the Bishops attempted to deflect the attention from the Church's active complicity in child rape toward blaming gay men more generally.
Churches in general seem to be the biggest single beard out there.
Funnily enough, the gays in my college during the 80s who weren't comfortable coming out just yet all dated evangelical girls. They called them "Jesus Beards." It was perfect; you never had your masculinity called into question because you had been dating a month or two (...or six) and you hadn't tried to get into her pants yet. You were just a "decent young man."
Back home in Massachusetts, my late mother was involved in church choirs for almost 20 years.
The last choir she was involved with was an Episcopal Church choir. She was the choir director for this one. It was a relatively small group and as far as I know, there weren't any gay or lesbian members.
All the other choirs she was a member of were Roman Catholic Church choirs. The choir she was involved with for the longest amount of time was also the largest choir in terms of number of members.
This one large choir I speak of.....it was full of gays and lesbians. It was actually funny, approaching ridiculous, that there was a Roman Catholic Church choir where the straights were completely outnumbered. From what my mother told me, it was basically her and one or two other women. That was it, everyone else was homosexual.
I don't sing but I have always gotten a kick out of church functions, especially those that are catered, so I was around a lot of the choir members from time to time.
The lesbians were somewhat low-key, out but not visibility so, not to newcomers anyway. But the gay men were openly flamboyant. They weren't doing anything undignified or improper, they just couldn't help but "be gay".....in the way they talked, the way they walked, they were living stereotypes.
My mother had to turn down the affections of a lesbian choir member more than once. Two gay men, they were a couple, once came over to our house to do a light redecorating session. And wouldn't you know, they were damn good at it.
I can't explain any of this. Maybe it was because the choir itself sounded great. And churches need good choirs. (You show me a dying church and I'll show you a crappy choir.)
Andrew Sullivan had a great post about this very dynamic a few days ago. The Roman Catholic Church, (and they can't be the only denomination), lives and breathes showy liturgical spectacles. And no one does a showy spectacle better than a gay man. The only thing different about the choirs my mother was involved in was that most of the gays and lesbians involved were not self-hating.
Cranberry and lobster lovers are incredibly homophobic. And racist to boot. Which only serves to marginalize a group already so much maligned: gay and lesbian Black cranberry-juice-drinking lobster eaters....
Seriously, though, this time it seems even that the anti-Question 1 campaign was run fairly well (unlike w/Prop 8). The vote seems to have cut down geographic lines, with small town and rural voters in support of the equality repeal. More analyses will likely further reveal religiosity differences that correlate with that. Perhaps we need to consider whether there needs to be a different strategy.
Only different strategy I can think of--large scale--is waiting for the old people to die. And I'm only half-kdding. The vote on the UMaine campus last night was 81%-19% against Prop 1.
Major social change isn't going to take place during short-term election campaigns. And what we're talking about is major social change with regard to the position of LGBT people in society. "Reaching out" to people during a campaign isn't going to get rid of the "Gays are icky" feelings, and the lies about teaching gay sex in schools should marriage occur are effective. No matter how many times you say, "They're lying about this issue, and they're lying about us," the lies work.
I'm stuck in North Dakota, though. We can't even get non-discrimination legislation passed. We're a long-ass way from having relationship rights taken away from us. We don't have any rights to take away here. And, with all the young people who flee this state (the only state to have lost population over the twentieth century) we're, well, screwed.
Yeah, the only place to go next time is an ad campaign with the mug shots of priests and Mormon deacons, displaying their very unpleasant habit of sexually abusing members of their churches of all ages and genders.
Sadly, even that wouldn't work because then we'd be causing a conflict. Oh wait, we're already causing a lot of conflict by Familying While Gay. At what point do the mushy middle figure out that the way to never hear about our family problems again is to stand up to the fools who persist in attacking us?
Provincetown severely undercuts the cranberry argument.
Dunno, I wonder whether they should reconsider treating civil unions as an unacceptable compromise. I feel like, why throw away a compromise that would offer most if not all the legal privileges and rights of marriage just because its considered a demeaning denial of full humanity?
Truth be told I dont think the state has any right to even engage a religious ceremony, which is what marriage is, and I wish everyone would have to settle for civil unions and choose their religious ceremony on their own time.
To me that would be the ideal end game for this issue. But I wont hold my breath.
Well, the media isn't going to cover the role black churches played in Maine because the mainstream media is overwhelmingly black-owned.
Yeah, didn't you know that?!?
Why do you think that there are so many stupid white talking heads on cable news today? "They" are trying to make the white man look stupid. It's the perfect way to legitimize the political disenfranchisement of white voters across the country. "White people are so stupid, they can't be allowed to vote on issues crucial to the running of the country".
Look at Glenn Beck, look at Sean Hannity! Do you think that anyone could be that stupid naturally? Why I'm betting that Sean Hannity is a Shakespearean trained actor. Why he is stabbing his own people in the back, I have no idea. He probably just hopes for a plum spot in the new dictatorship, following the takeover. All of this socialism talk, it's all a feint...a red herring...a diversion.
All of that being said, I for one would like to welcome our new black overlords. And I'd like to remind them, as a professional educator, I can be quite useful in brainwashing the minds of America's future youth.
Goddammit, Nuada. It's because of people like you that I can't drink coffee or anything else while reading here. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, do you know what coffee snorted through the nose can do to a laptop??
I’m sorry, that actually sounds rather painful.
You…..you aren’t going to try and sue me like that McDonald’s coffee lady, are you?
Just to reiterate the first poster, this IS the best blog ever. That is the first time I have laughed all day and I have been seriously bummed all day :)
No doubt. I don't comment much but I love this blog like people.
Love to the Ta.
Per Melissa McEwan "This country is not, and never has been, well-served by leaving the civil rights of the minority in the hands of the majority. Putting that up to a vote which is subject to deeply held prejudice is ruling not by democracy, but by mob mentality."
Recommend reading it all:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/04/gay-marriage-maine-ballot-initiative
PS TNC Rules
Melissa is engaging in a logical fallacy known as begging the question. Do you think voting majorities in 31 states -- including liberal ones such as Oregon and Maine -- consider themselves to be anti-Civil Rights? Of course not. They just don't consider gay marriage to be a civil right. No one is talking about denying gays the right to vote, or to sit at the lunch counter, etc.
DiH, when was that not the case? When people decline to extend a right, it is always by claiming it is never a right; those who supported anti-miscegenation laws didn't think they were denying a civil right, either.
Aw, Dave. I was laughing myself silly, but now I'm getting vaguely annoyed.
What does it say to you that the Supreme Court found marriage to be a right, in a case involving a state refusing a marriage license to a convicted murderer? While he was sitting in jail? This injustice was reversed, in language that refers to the most intimate of free-association exercise being...civil marriage.
Felons can't vote in twenty-some states, they aren't free to walk up to the lunch counter and order the 50 cent cheeseburger-- but the right to choose one's next of kin is considered so fundamental that even prisoners have it.
As long as they want to marry someone of the opposite sex.
A right that is (albeit grudgingly) extended to a guy sitting on Death Row, that I can't exercise in 44 states because neither my wife nor I can write her name in the snow?
That's so irrational, the Supreme Court of Iowa outlawed it.
Civil marriage, like voting, requires the direct cooperation of the state. Giving that cooperation to some citizens and denying it to others based on their personal characteristics is an act of prejudice. It's that simple.
Deleted. This isn't Andrew Sullivan's blog. Do not post comments intended for him in this space.
Anyone who says that marriages bestow the same rights as "civil unions" has a lot to learn. Start with Googling the phrase "love exiles."
In Washington it does, now. The referendum edits 200+ sections of the state code, in every instance giving same-sex partnerships *exactly* the same rights as male-female partnerships. It's marriage in everything but name.
(Or at least everything within the state's jurisdiction. The federal issue remains, of course.)
Doesn't that seem hopelessly complicated to everyone, when a single change in the state code would do the same thing.
Hm, I was under the impression that it did, more or less, though I dont profess that impression to be a rock-solid one. I'll do as you suggest.
OK so I did a bit of quick research and it seems like the issue is that civil unions are not as strong a set of protections and privileges as marriages are under the laws of our country.
Seems to me then the key would be to strengthen civil unions, not to reject them as a compromise. People who would support civil unions have too strong a set of cultural and religious attachments to the concept of marriage, and theyre not being dispassionate about the issue. Change the argument to a legal one and not a cultural / religious one and maybe this issue can be put to bed (pardon the pun) once and for all.
Should read
but not gay marriage have too strong a set of cultural and religious attachments to...Been tried. Failed.
Hint as to why: Civil unions don't exist anymore, hardly. The three states that passed them without a court mandate have opened marriage to all couples, and everywhere else they have been impossible to pass. NJ still has them, but likely not for long.
The practical answer to 'settle for the rights' is, What does that get me in Florida? In Oklahoma? It's not pragmatic to tell folks that they can't leave their home state and still be married.
Also, what are the child custody and spousal support provisions for ending a CU? All over the place.
I refer to CUs and DP as 'gay marriage'--it's better than nothing for those who die in their beds at the end of a long life together, but for the rest of us, it's far from pragmatic. And that's leaving aside the ethical problem of accepting a lesser form of family relationship, which is not a civil right like marriage is.