Black churches are probably the reason Illinois didn’t pass same sex marriage today.
Chicago Sun=Times story
…Stubborn resistance within the House Black Caucus, a 20-member bloc of African-American lawmakers who have faced a withering lobbying blitz against the plan from black ministers, has helped keep Harris’ legislation in check, with several House members still undecided…
The black churches were very determined to at least delay the legalization of same sex marriage in Illinois. Why? Jesse Jackson has never, at least to my knowledge, been vociferously against same sex marriage. His son and his son’s wife are due to be sentenced in Federal court later this summer so I assume his influence was negligible during this debate.
Barack Obama’s United Church of Christ has been in favor of marriage equality since around 2004. The president supported marriage equality and was in Illinois this week.
What is it about a handful of “Dr. Rev.” types who wear $1000 suits and are quick to deplore racial profiling, yet are so eager to pressure their lawmakers to delay the vote in favor of marriage equality?
Is it just a few black Democrats wanting to duck and cover until the Supreme Court ruling?
I dunno. Maybe “marriage equality” is against their understanding of Christ’s message, same as White church leaders. Maybe race has nothing to do with it and you’re reading more into it than is there.
When you’re talking about the single largest denomination that’s a pretty big “outside.” I think you are operating under the mistaken belief that, if one is “liberal” about some things, one must be liberal about all things. Have you ever talked to members of those so-called Black churches? Their theology is conservative and they are, too. More conservative than most White Christians. There is no reason to expect them to welcome gay marriage.
Also, your OP edges into the realm of unflattering preconceptions. You should watch that.
Theologically conservative evangelical churches are in general opposed to same sex marriage, whether those conservative evangelicals are white or black.
The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and the Episcopal Church in the USA does not have a whites only policy. I would find it very hard to believe the Episcopal Church is ‘tiny’, but this is based on my own bias. I can say the church was mentioned on the floor today of the Illinois House of Representatives during a personal point of privilege to a female legislator in a long term same sex relationship.
I grew up in a family that was AME, which stands for AFRICAN Methodist Episcopalian.
The reason was because back in the day, black people in the Episcopalian church did not have equal standing and had to be up in balconies instead of on the floor pews and other such nonsense.
Anyways, the entire point of the thread is that black people suffered lack of civil rights and the right to marry who they loved within living memory, and now deny it to gays. This hypocrisy is very fair game. Also it’s a complete BS, copout argument to claim gay marriage is against Christ’s message. No one of these black churches fighting tooth and nail against marriage equality is trying to deny the right of atheist money lenders who hate the poor and crippled from getting married and those people are more against “Christ’s message” than someone who happens to be Gay but follows Jesus’s message in every other way but that small detail.
I am so tired of us all pretending that Bible-backed homophobia isn’t just an after-the-fact justification for some simple minded souls just hatin’ gays cus they do. These same bible thumpers eat shellfish, mix fabrics, and work on the sabbath, let’s stop pretending the Bible is more than an excuse for their hate.
There’s some of that, but I think it has more to do with (what seem to me to be) obvious parallels between anti-miscegenation laws and anti-SSM laws.
It continues to astonish me that people who within living memory were the victims of laws restricting who they could marry don’t see how similar this fight is.
I don’t expect conservative religious black people to be liberal in other ways. For example, I wouldn’t expect them to be pro-choice. But I kinda do expect them to have the historical perspective to be pro-SSM. Obviously, that’s not the way the world is, but it’s harder for me to understand.
I’m not sure what makes you think that African-Americans felt all that strongly about “anti-miscegenation laws”?
I know that a lot of white people, such as Howard Stern, think the Civil Rights movement was about “porking white babes” but for most blacks it was about breaking down Jim Crow and breaking down anti-miscegenation laws was way, way down on the list.
I’ve met plenty of black people who celebrated the Brown decision and the passing of the Voting Rights Acts and Civil Rights acts, but few who really felt that strongly about the Loving v. Virginia decision.
For that matter, while it’s not as strong as it was when I went to school, I’ve met quite a few black people who have really strong moral objections to blacks and whites going out together.
Waiting to Exhale was a hugely successful novel among African-American women and one of the major messages of it was that it was very wrong from black men to have sex with white women.
I certainly don’t think that most African-Americans would like to see anti-miscegenation laws put back in place nor do I want to imply that most African-Americans are bigots, but I’ve always thought that white people who tried to use anti-miscegenation laws as a reason why blacks should support SSM were displaying that in many ways they still don’t get it.
This cries out for a “some.” Some black people are opposed to same-sex marriage. Polls have showed different numbers as far as how many people from which group think what. Some show black voters are less likely than white voters to support same-sex marriage and others say it’s about the same. All the polls show there’s been a large increase in support from African-Americans since Obama announced he supported legal recognition for same-sex marriage, just as there has been a large increase in support in recent years. If that’s the case, the story here is that people with conservative religious views are less likely to approve of same-sex marriage than others. We knew that already. And yes, in the case of black religious leaders I think it’s unfortunate that they don’t see the parallel between this and the civil rights movement, but people are frequently short-sighted and self-interested about things like that.
What do racial profiling and gay marriage have to do with each other? Please explain. I’ll wait.
The “Dr Rev” thing is cute. Why not just admit:
a) you don’t really know anything at all about black churches, don’t care to know, are entirely comfortable making an argument out of ignorance, and
b) you don’t care for black Americans, and would prefer that they were not in a position to exercise the same political power that other American citizens are?
Given a, b, above, nothing that you have to say about black Americans will be worth a damn.
I’ve read the book (white female here), and while I certainly wouldn’t call interracial-mating issues a “major message” in it, that was definitely a salient theme. As a black female blogger writes in “Sometimes the White Girl (Or Guy) Isn’t About You”,