Black Homophobia Could End Gay Marriage in Calif.

I'll say it right up front. I support gay marriage. So I guess it's a good thing that I live in California since it is now legal for gay couples to marry here. Well legal for the month at least. You see, Proposition 8 on the California ballot seeks to end gay marriage rights; and the proponents of Prop 8 are counting on black Californians, expected to come out in droves to vote for Barack Obama, to push their closed-minded initiative over the top.

That projection disturbs me on so many levels, but Professor of Law at American University, Darren Hutchinson of the blog "Dissenting Justice", believes that if blacks vote down gay marriage, they are engaging in constitutional bigotry. ...

Although Obama opposes the California ballot initiative, Project Marriage, an organization that favors the measure, believes his candidacy could help its cause. The organization hopes that Obama will bring out enough black socially conservative and evangelical voters who, though Democrats, are pro-life, antigay, and committed to conservative religious values. Black religious conservatives, unlike white evangelicals, tend to vote for Democrats, due to the party's more liberal record on civil rights in modern U.S. history. But conservative organizations have successfully exploited social conservatism among blacks to advance discriminatory agendas, particularly in the area of gay rights. This has created some highly unusual political coalitions. One black minister from Chicago, for instance, boldly proclaimed that he would march with the Ku Klux Klan in order to protest the legalization of same-sex marriage (yes - this really happened).

Further Hutchinson argues that blacks voting to ban gay marriage are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

My argument does not seek to equate homophobia and racism (a misguided analogy that gay rights advocates frequently invoke), but rather to demonstrate that they both constitute gross departures from the norms of equal protection and due process that are central to any progressive and anti-racist understanding of the constitution. Because anti-gay laws and policies undermine and erode these norms, black homophobia is inevitably anti-black.

I would also add that when Democratic politicians (regardless of race) oppose same-sex marriage, they too legitimize discrimination.

Hutchinson has written an insightful article. I recommend you read it in its entirety.