The African American Church, Gays (LGBTQ), and Prop. 8 in CA

There is support among many in the African American community for Prop. 8 in CA (see this article from salon.com, click here). Leonce Gaiter reports the following:

According to a SurveyUSA poll, 58% of black voters support Proposition 8, which would enshrine irrational fear and rank bigotry into the California Constitution in order to deny gays the right to marry. Black support is 10% higher than support of any other ethnic group. This is ironic, considering that in striking down the law banning same sex marriage, the California Supreme Court cited the landmark 1967 civil rights case Loving vs. Virginia that struck down the prohibition of interracial marriage.

A majority of California’s voting African-Americans seem blind to that irony, however. They see no kinship to their own past as a reviled minority whose sexual touch toward a single white man or woman would sully the entire “race” of American whites—just as legally sanctioning the sexual touch of same sex partners would so sully heterosexuals’ unions that they will… what? Seek immediate divorce? Abandon their children to the streets? Suffer mass orgasmic dysfunction?

Gaiter continues in the article by citing these two issues pertinent to the African American community:

1. the Bible says gays should not be tolerated, and that Jesus hates "fags." Gaiter rightly argues that no, the Bible does not say this;

2. Gaiter reminds the reader that it wasn't too long ago that the bias against those of African descent with black skin was based upon the erroneous conclusion that the color of one's skin was a result of Ham's sin or Noah's sin.

This bias is not only true in CA among the African American church community, but would probably be even worse in my state of NC.

It is time to change!

Pace, B