Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority

THIS IS A FANTASTIC OP-ED PIECE FROM THE NY TIMES. THE 'NO ON PROP 8' CAMPAIGN LEADERS WOULD BE WISE TO HEED THIS VERY SMART MAN'S VOICE THE NEXT TIME AROUND!!

November 29, 2008

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority

By CHARLES M. BLOW

We now know that blacks probably didn’t tip the balance for Proposition 8. Myth busted. However, the fact remains that a strikingly high percentage of blacks said they voted to ban same-sex marriage in California. Why?

There was one very telling (and virtually ignored) statistic in CNN’s exit poll data that may shed some light: There were far more black women than black men, and a higher percentage of them said that they voted for the measure than the men. How wide was the gap? According to the exit poll, 70 percent of all blacks said that they voted for the proposition. But 75 percent of black women did. There weren’t enough black men in the survey to provide a reliable percentage for them. However, one can mathematically deduce that of the raw number of survey respondents, nearly twice as many black women said that they voted for it than black men.

Why? Here are my theories:

(1) Blacks are much more likely than whites to attend church, according to a Gallup report, and black women are much more likely to attend church than black men. Anyone who has ever been to a black church can attest to the disparity in the pews. And black women’s church attendance may be increasing.

According to a report issued this spring by Child Trends, a nonprofit research center, weekly church attendance among black 12th graders rose 26 percent from 1993 to 2006, while weekly church attendance for white 12th graders remained virtually flat. In 2006, those black teenagers were nearly 50 percent more likely to attend church once a week than their white counterparts. And it is probably safe to assume that many of them were going to church with their mothers since Child Trends reported that around the time that they were born, nearly 70 percent of all black children were born to single mothers.

(2) This high rate of church attendance by blacks informs a very conservative moral view. While blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, an analysis of three years of national data from Gallup polls reveals that their views on moral issues are virtually indistinguishable from those of Republicans. Let’s just call them Afropublicrats.

(3) Marriage can be a sore subject for black women in general. According to 2007 Census Bureau data, black women are the least likely of all women to be married and the most likely to be divorced. Women who can’t find a man to marry might not be thrilled about the idea of men marrying each other.

Proponents of gay marriage would do well to focus on these women if they want to win black votes. A major reason is that black women vote at a higher rate than black men. In the CNN national exit poll, there were 40 percent more black women than black men, and in California there were 50 percent more. But gay marriage advocates need to hone their strategy to reach them.

First, comparing the struggles of legalizing interracial marriage with those to legalize gay marriage is a bad idea. Many black women do not seem to be big fans of interracial marriage either. They’re the least likely of all groups to intermarry, and many don’t look kindly on the black men who intermarry at nearly three times the rate that they do, according to a 2005 study of black intermarriage rates in the Wisconsin Law Review. Wrong reference. Don’t even go there.

Second, don’t debate the Bible. You can’t win. Religious faith is not defined by logic, it defies it. Instead, decouple the legal right from the religious rite, and emphasize the idea of acceptance without endorsement.

Then, make it part of a broader discussion about the perils of rigidly applying yesterday’s sexual morality to today’s sexual mores. Show black women that it backfires. The stigma doesn’t erase the behavior, it pushes it into the shadows where, devoid of information and acceptance, it become more risky.

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.

E-mail chblow@nytimes.com

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND EL COYOTE

I have been with my partner for 22 years now. We are raising a son, who is now two. It was extremely important and meaningful to us, as well as to our family and friends, that we honor our long term relationship - and our son - by getting married. The night before our wedding, my family and friends all gathered at El Coyote restaurant to celebrate. We had a wonderful time at El Coyote that night and, collectively, spent hundreds of dollars.

Now I've learned that Marjorie Christofferson, the owner of El Coyote was a contributor to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign.

I feel violated.

Like I ordered a margarita and a taco, but was instead served the dissolution of my marriage and the loss of my family's civil rights.

Oh wait - that is what happened.

I was horrified to realize I'd funded my own discrimination.

Needless to say, this was a terrible shock. Like buying a hunting rifle for a neighbor, who then turned around and shot me in the ass. I can never step foot in that restaurant again. To me, it's akin to asking a black family to frequent the soul food restaurant owned by a Klansman, or a Jew to dine at the Kosher Deli run by a Nazi war criminal. People who are not gay may construe these comparisons as overheated. Those who are gay, growing up terrified to even hold the hand of the person they love, will not.

Since the gay and lesbian community has been disrespected and marginalized for so many generations now, no one realizes the full scope of the shocking, violent, often murderous discrimination that continues, to this day, to be levied against our people. Even the gay community itself doesn't fully realize it. We've been so busy creating our own little safe havens, protecting ourselves from the hatred and bigotry that we know is out there, that we've neglected to come together as a people - outside of the occasional White Party, of course, or the latest farewell tour from Cher.

But it's serious now, and I think people have suddenly realized it. The bubbles have been burst, the safe havens ransacked. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I looked into the eyes of my two year old son, just waking up in his crib, and my heart broke. I couldn't imagine how I could possibly explain to him the five million people who just voted against his family, against his Daddy and his Papa, against the wedding where he so admirably carried his parents' rings down the aisle. I could feel the hatred seeping in through the windows of our home, the slime dripping off the walls. I felt victimized. I even considered taking my ring off.

But then the love, support and strength started to trickle in, bubbling up through the phone calls and the emails, and a new determination started to harden in my stomach. The day ended at the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vincente, with my husband by my side and my son in my arms, surrounded by a chorus of thousands, chanting for the restoration of our community's equal rights.

My shattered marriage was pieced back together by that strong, bracing chorus, and a new day was born for our community.

With that new day comes new strength - and new responsibility. Personally, I think the "blacklists" that are being sent around, outing contributors to Prop 8, are a bit much. I think it's time to educate, not attack, and we all know where the education needs to take place. I can't step back into El Coyote for very personal reasons, but I'm not going to picket outside the office of some Mormon orthodontist in Orange County for his $500 contribution. But I do hope Marjorie Christofferson - and that orthodontist, while we're at it - does learn the lesson. She needs to know that we, as a people, are not the monolithic evil her Mormon church has convinced her we are, but rather the individual human beings that have comprised her staff, her friends, her community and customers - those same people that have kept her restaurant in business for years now, bought her house and sent her children to school. Her church asks her to separate the "sin" from the "sinner," because they know this makes it easier to discriminate. She has been convinced that she's supporting the opposition of sin, and not discriminating against her friends and customers. She is wrong, and the Mormon church that brainwashes her into believing this is wrong as well.

More importantly, however, I've come to believe that we need to defend the Mormons' right to be wrong. Yes, you heard me. The Mormons should be able to say and do whatever they want within the four walls of their own church. But that's where it must end. Their specific religious beliefs should have never been allowed to come within shouting distance of the state's constitution.

I was married to my husband in a Lutheran church by a loving, intelligent, devout pastor, who sanctioned our marriage with all his heart and soul. He believes that God was present in that church, at our wedding. And so do I. Nobody - and I mean nobody - should be allowed to mess with that.

That is my church - our church - and everyone else needs to stay out of it. That, my friends, is what's known as religious freedom. Remember that old chestnut? The whole basis of this country's founding? Is this ringing any bells? My Lutheran church does not believe the way Mormons believe, and Mormons don't believe the way Lutherans believe. Or Episcopalians. Or progressive Jews. Mormons don't want gay marriage? Great! Then we won't get married in your temple. You can no longer protest gay marriage on religious grounds. You can only protest gay marriage on your religious grounds. You leave our church alone, and we'll leave yours.

This has all gone dangerously beyond what is already a violation of church/state separation. Now that over 18,000 same-sex couples have been married in the state of California, many of us in churches who welcome and celebrate our love, this has become a matter of religious freedom, pure and simple.

Leave my marriage alone. And, while you're at it, leave my church alone too.

Same-Sex Couples: Denied Basic Rights

Same-Sex Couples: Denied Basic Rights

OMG!!

Opponents of gay marriage have tried hard to paint things as if gay people are given all kinds of rights, and “moderates” try to say that since many states have civil unions, this should be good enough. Both things are completely untrue.

First of all, gays and lesbians have few even basic legal protections: According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which advocates for equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people, in 34 states, it is completely legal to fire someone from their job based on sexual orientation; in 44 states, it is legal to fire a transgender person. And with regard to marriage, only one state, Massachusetts, has granted marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (Since this article was posted, Connecticut has since legalized gay marriage. Yay New Haven and Hartford!) 45 of the 50 states have laws either explicitly defining marriage as between a man and a woman or refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. And, as many gay rights advocates have argued, civil unions are no substitute for the protections that straight couples get when they marry. A report from the federal government’s General Accounting Office lists more than 1,138 legal and financial protections granted to opposite-sex couples but denied to same-sex couples.

If you are a same-sex couple in the U.S., you face, at best, an endlessly confusing patchwork of different laws, rights, and protections, which you constantly have to navigate and which are vulnerable to attack, depending on where you live and where you work. At worst, your relationship is explicitly forbidden basic rights regarding the ability to raise children with your partner or make medical decisions for them.

Take what happens when someone in a same-sex couple gets sick or injured. The HRC reports that the Family Medical Leave Act, a federal law granting 12 weeks of unpaid leave to allow someone to care for a spouse, does not apply to same-sex partners, since they are not recognized according to that law’s definition of “family.” Depending on the state and even the city, hospitals either will or will not let someone visit their same-sex partner when visits are limited to “family” only, or to allow someone to make decisions for their partner’s medical treatment. If someone in a same-sex couple dies, their partner may or may not have a right to inherit their property if there was no will, and might not get bereavement leave from their job. The web site PlanetOut reported that in 2003, Bill Flanigan lost his lawsuit against the hospital that kept him away from the bedside of his partner, Robert Daniel, while Robert was dying. Bill and Robert were registered as domestic partners in San Francisco, and Bill had even obtained a power of attorney to make decisions for his partner, but he was kept away and denied the ability to carry out Robert’s wishes to not have a breathing tube inserted. Lambda Legal’s David Buckel commented on this lawsuit: “When the government won’t let you marry, not even protecting yourself through legal documents will guarantee that the person closest to you will be allowed to be by your side during times of crisis… We are a nation divided by discrimination in marriage—and Bill and Robert paid a terrible price for that discrimination.” (EqualityMaryland.org has a long list of similar cases.)

When it comes to the right to have and raise children, same-sex couples have few, if any guarantees. Four states explicitly forbid lesbians and gay people from adopting children. If you are in a same-sex relationship and you and/or your partner have children from a previous relationship, or if you decide to become parents together, you enter another frightening patchwork of laws and regulations. Four states explicitly forbid the other half of a same-sex couple from adopting the child their partner has fathered or given birth to. And according to the HRC, in 27 states the right to do this is either “depending on the jurisdiction” or there is no clear precedent, which leaves couples in a frightening legal limbo. Even states that allow for gay or lesbian people to adopt their partner’s child have a myriad set of rules and prohibitions that make this very hard. Where these adoptions are not allowed, and one partner dies, children have been removed from what may be the only remaining parent they have ever known, and placed with their closest biological relatives, even if the child has never met these relatives before.

On the federal level, gays and lesbians are not allowed to sponsor their partner, or their partner’s children, for immigration purposes, and since they can’t get married, they have essentially no right to legally live with their partner in this country.

For more resources, visit hrc.org, EqualityMaryland.org, or lambdalegal.org.