One of several letters to the editor published Friday in the New York Times:
To the Editor:
Even as we celebrate Barack Obama’ historic election, it should be noted that according to exit polls in California, 70 percent of African-American voters supported the gay-marriage ban.
I hope that the African-Americans who voted against marriage equality will eventually take to heart the lesson it took white Americans so long to learn: when we deny the rights we treasure to others, we only diminish ourselves.
Jack Drescher
New York, Nov. 6, 2008
The writer, a psychiatrist, is emeritus editor of The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health.
Oh yeah that’s smart. Use your head my friend. There are many african-americans who don’t feel that way.
It’s not all about the black community.
You forget that there are many african-americans who are gay but you never see them. I think the fact that the lgbt community continues to forget that is probably a huge reason why so many blacks voted for proposition 8.
Instead of positioning gays and blacks against each other, marriage equality should be shown to be an issue that is important to the black community. Why? Because there are many lgbts of color who will be affected by this.
Instead of doing this, though, the lgbt community has aided and abetted the false notion that marriage equality and gay rights in general is a white issue. This loss should be a lesson to the lgbt community. Instead of reacting irrationally, do more to bring visibility to lgbts of color.
I think a lot of gay people feel backstabbed because many of them have looked up to A-A folks (mostly women and entertainers), but not every black person is Martha Wash, Diana Ross or Patti LaBelle.
None of the propositions affect me, and it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of racism is coming out after the statistics were shown. Most of those gay people acting this way will feel like idiots next week.
It seems the A-A focus is VERY similar to how the religious nuts tries to convince people that because gays are 10% of the population, they have the higher number of child molestors (even though it’s mostly married straight men going after kids, and the number of openly gay men doing the same is very few, far and in between).
Obviously this little black VS. gay war was started by some religious nut, who didn’t want the focus on their own church. The best thing to do is blacks and gays need to team up, and go after the mormon church – for funding the proposition, and setting blacks up to take the heat afterwards.
David,
I hear what you’re saying, but I can’t relate to your story. I live in fucked-up DFW, and have never (a) heard anyone shout “faggot!” or any other gay slurs, and (b) other than the obligatory run-in’s/catfights with coworkers, I have yet to be confronted or called names.
Back in school (elementary thru high school), of course kids said that word all the time as a put-down or whatever. But that’s expected – most kids are a******s.
If some black guy is hollering “faggot!” at YOU, that’s just his “christian” way of trying to get a date, or at least a BJ. It takes a faggot to spot one, and he called it!
And to answer your question, I’d think both sides could have a nice conversation without name-calling.
One idea, maybe MCC’s could start arranging events with the more liberal-leaning black churches in their cities/towns. And there’s always new members coming in from both congregations!
I don’t do religion or church, but it’s an idea, for anyone who does attend MCC (which I have before, in the past).
A. McEwen — thanks for joining in the discussion! We need to hear more from you. :-)
Thanks, Michael.
Even though I am in South Carolina, I am still concerned about the loss and what happened afterwards. It disappoints me that some of our thinkers went off half cocked and started pointing fingers.
I understand that anger but what they failed to realize is that lgbts of color are caught in the middle of this “crossfire.”
It’s make us feel like a child caught in the middle of an ugly divorce.
And that’s sad because if anyone can bridge the gap between the lgbt and african-american community, it’s us.