Academic

Anti-Gay Group Thanks Obama, Seeks to Exploit Black Homophobia to Constitutionalize Bigotry

By Darren Hutchinson

(reprinted from my blog, Dissenting Justice)

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court invalidated a state law that prohibited same-sex marriage. Applying state constitutional law, the 4-3 ruling held that the law unjustifiably denied equal protection to gays and lesbians. In November, voters in California will consider a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, which would effectively overrule the court’s decision.

Recently, a group pushing for the amendment extended gratitude to Senator Barack Obama as it mobilized voters to support the initiative. Although Senator Obama opposes same-sex marriage, he also opposes the ballot initiative and supports the California Supreme Court decision, a “spinderella“ move that Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton both made during the Democratic primaries. Senator John McCain opposes same-sex marriage as well, but in 2004 he also opposed a Bush-sponsored U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. McCain argued that the proposed amendment was “un-Republican” because it would interfere with state autonomy. McCain, however, supports the California initiative. Both presidential candidates are spinning and tip-toeing on the issue because they want to maximize their appeal to moderate and independent voters, but they also must hold on to support from core groups within their respective parties.

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).

Conservative groups also mobilized black opposition to gay rights in order to secure the passage of anti-gay legislation in Ohio and Colorado during the late-1990s. In Colorado, one conservative group released a video called “Gay Rights, Special Rights,” which visually contrasted scantly clothed participants in gay and lesbian festivals and the thousands of people who attended the March on Washington. The group sought to portray gays and lesbians as a bunch of privileged, promiscuous, party-goers, who do not need “special” civil rights protection. But if we used this same logic and looked at imagery from Freaknic (an annual party sponsored by black fraternities, known for having heaps of alcohol and “hook-ups”) and the March on Washington, then one could legitimately conclude that today’s blacks do not deserve civil rights.

Opinion polls show that all racial groups oppose same-sex marriage. So singling out blacks for condemnation on this issue, as some liberal commentators have done, applies a double-standard. But black alignment with conservative political organizations produces specific harms for black people, which makes black homophobia a self-defeating and ultimately dangerous political strategy.

First, when blacks help to legalize anti-gay discrimination they directly harm gays and lesbians who are also black, including many vocal supporters of racial justice. Also, black alignment with conservative political organizations in opposition to gay rights, emboldens social movement organizations that also resist laws and policies that would empower communities of color and strengthen the enforcement of race-based civil rights. Furthermore, the effort to constitutionalize discrimination against disparaged social groups and to restrain their liberty should trouble all blacks, given the roles that legally sanctioned inequality and repression, including sexual abuse and stigmatization, have played in the nation’s history of racial oppression. When blacks approve anti-gay discrimination and the denial of liberty to gays and lesbians, they condone the very style of legal power that was employed to harm and which continues to harm blacks and other people of color.

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. Accordingly, liberal activists should hold them accountable for their positions, rather than giving them a free pass to abandon their constituents. The left, including the loudly anti-Republican and proudly liberal crowds at Daily Kos, HuffingtonPost, and MoveOn have been noticeably silent regarding Obama’s opposition to same-sex marriage and his conservative stances on other issues (such as his support of the death penalty as punishment for rape and his recently articulated belief that the Second Amendment protects an individual — rather than just a state — right to bear arms). Obama’s election will only bring symbolic progress if, as president, he readily abandons or fails to take on progressive concerns. And he will undoubtedly toss aside progressive issues if the left does not engage in any meaningful analysis and dissent. The right holds its governmental leaders accountable, and it often forces Republicans to embrace conservative values (hence McCain picking the solidly pro-life Palin). Democrats on the other hand have earned an often-deserved reputation for being “weak,” precisely because they fail to defend liberal values against intense political opposition.

I am not sure that California blacks will provide enough swing votes to secure passage of the proposed amendment, but if religious Latinos, another group that conservative organizations often exploit, join blacks in supporting the amendment, then the strategy might succeed. Persons of color need to realize that their support of discrimination against other vulnerable groups weakens an already fragile and dwindling societal commitment to civil rights agendas, and it harms blacks who themselves are gay or lesbian. Thus, their actions ultimately have a detrimental effect on the very communities they claim to serve.

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Full post as published by BlackProf on October 06, 2008 (boomark / email).