Focus on the Family...and Then Some

In the NYT.com, there was an interesting op-ed piece by Charles Blow focused on the breakdown of the vote for Prop. 8 in CA. While it is obvious now that not only Mormons but also African-American Churches, along with Hispanic American churches, Blow breaks down the vote of the African-American churches. For example, by and large in the American African churches it was women who voted for Prop. 8 over men. These women are equally uncomfortable with interracial marriages as well, which is why the similarity between interracial and gay marriage does no good in this community. As for religious argument? Blow said give it up.

However, when it came to what would work, Blow suggested the health issue works best. That so many African American men are on the "DL" (though so are white men), leading to risky sexual behavior:

For instance, most blacks find premarital sex unacceptable, according to the Gallup data. But, according to data from a study by the Guttmacher Institute, blacks are 26 percent more likely than any other race to have had premarital sex by age 18, and the pregnancy rate for black teens is twice that of white teens. They still have premarital sex, but they do so uninformed and unprotected.

That leads to a bigger problem. According to a 2004 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women have an abortion rate that is three times that of white women.

More specifically, blacks overwhelmingly say that homosexuality isn’t morally acceptable. So many black men hide their sexual orientations and engage in risky behavior. This has resulted in large part in black women’s becoming the fastest-growing group of people with H.I.V. In a 2003 study of H.I.V.-infected people, 34 percent of infected black men said they had sex with both men and women, while only 6 percent of infected black women thought their partners were bisexual. Tragic. (In contrast, only 13 percent of the white men in the study said they had sex with both men and women, while 14 percent of the white women said that they knew their partners were bisexual.)

So pitch it as a health issue. The more open blacks are to the idea of homosexuality, the more likely black men would be to discuss their sexual orientations and sexual histories. The more open they are, the less likely black women would be to put themselves at risk unwittingly. And, the more open blacks are to homosexuality over all, the more open they are likely to be to gay marriage. This way, everyone wins.

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Pace! B