1. voter remarks:
   I think we should push this to the very limit - let’s get rid of all those stupid religiously blinded believers. Let’s marshal all of our forces and vote them all into submission. We can eliminate their marriages, their religions - hell, we can even vote to have all of their children removed from their homes. Let’s change the whole society to recognize that we, the Talented 10th, should be the central figures of the whole civilization.

   
   

   November 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
2. scottyp remarks:
   I find this entire situation extremely disturbing. For too long the gay and lesbian community has been looked upon as a bunch of bed hopping sexual devients and predators.Now we are trying to gain equality with the hetero community to show that we want long lasting commited relationships and have the right to have them validated the same as heteros.We are at the mercy of the state law makers who can decide from year to year if we can marry at all and if the law in your state changes are you still married? what is the government and the community at large afraid of,that we will lead better more productive lives as commited partners? Build stable homes in the community and raise children of our own like the heteros do? Or maybe we will be better parents and create stronger nuclear families than they have been able to in a long time. We must continue to fight for this right in every state in this union. Under the new president we may still be able to make head in this cause. Keep fighting!

   
   

   November 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
3. gyro remarks:
   It’s nice now that minorities who have reached a level of public acceptance where you could never hope to legislate discriminatory laws like these against them are now taking it upon themselves to dole out the very same treatment to us that they’ve suffered. Yes, the election was nice, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a potent bitterness in the disconnection of thought.

   
   

   November 11th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
4. kettle remarks:
   maybe if some of these arguments weren’t being made here at a porn site it wouldn’t feel so ridiculous to read things like “too long the gay and lesbian community has been looked on as a bunch of bed hopping sexual devients (sic)”…

   nothing is going to change until gays can start to show generational contributions - what do you do that builds future generations.

   being married is a status granted by the government because it has the ability to generate children. it’s biological, it’s obvious, and I’m glad there are kids being born out there who are going to be paying the bills when I’m old and gray.

   just because we might happen to love someone doesn’t entitle us to something. it’s the prospect of what we can produce from that love. we need to show that.

   my black friends in CA have long known how their brothers and sisters would vote - they knew that we hadn’t done anything for them except ask for their votes. We’ve got to focus on what we can give. And think it starts with getting over our own hurt feelings and looking at the ways that we might not be the center of everything.

   
   

   November 12th, 2008 at 12:20 am
5. Anonymous remarks:
   “It’s nice now that minorities who have reached a level of public acceptance where you could never hope to legislate discriminatory laws like these against them are now taking it upon themselves to dole out the very same treatment to us that they’ve suffered.”

   As much as everyone loves to focus on this, the fact is that minority voters did not vote all that differently on Proposition 8 than white voters. According to exit polls (which did not take early voting into account), 7 in 10 Blacks supported prop 8, a little more than 5 in 10 Latinos supported it, and 5 in 10 whites supported it. The difference between Blacks and Whites was that 1 in 5 more Blacks opposed gay marriage than whites. Latinos and Whites virtually TIED, just five percentage points difference (that’s 1 in 20) which makes attacks on the hispanic vote for passing prop 8 even more absurd.

   Turning marginal differences between ethnic groups into a full-on bash on those minorities for passing proposition 8 is nothing more than racism, especially given the extremes it’s being carried to; I’ve heard numerous accounts of gay black men (who clearly opposed prop 8 by their appeaeance at a anti-8 protest rally) being called n—-r by mobs embittered white gay men. These are people who have no control over how other people vote and shouldn’t be held accountable purely on the basis of skin color.

   
   

   November 12th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
6. Trip remarks:
   “As much as everyone loves to focus on this, the fact is that minority voters did not vote all that differently on Proposition 8 than white voters.”

   Therein lies the problem you’re not seeing. Those numbers you have there sure look depressing to me because I’d expect them to diverge, not coincide. The message we’re getting is that a fair percentage of other minorities don’t seem to consider gay rights a civil rights issue because it doesn’t come down to a matter of skin color. Our plight is a “choice.” The fact that Prop 8 was funded by the Mormon Church — a religion under-girded by the idea of racial inferiority — wasn’t enough to put them off is even more disheartening.

   
   

   November 13th, 2008 at 10:59 am
7. Matt P remarks:
   Trip, think of it this way:

   African-Americans and Latinos overwhelmingly religious segements of the population. Why? Because their civil rights struggles incoporate a deep religious theme - something particularly true for African Americans - and because these populations are still in poverty, a situation in which religion, particularly Christianity, is a powerful voice that there is something better in spite of little hope in sight in tihs life. Even when an indiviual or group climbs out of poverty that religiosity hangs on for generations.

   Now this is how the gay rights movement has responded - by disparaging religion. I saw more anti-religious no on 8 messages than pro-religious no on 8 messages, and now, lo and behold, the majority of protests upon prop 8’s passage are taking place outside Christian churches, without making a clear distinction between protesting the way religion is being used and the presence of religion itself.

   White gay men are identifying as “athiest,” are bashing religion and God, and are identifying as “libertarian” and bashing social programs that help people in poverty, which is perhaps the farthest from African-American cultural values one can possibly get. It’s no surprise that there is a linguistic disconnect between the two groups.

   At the same time, there is this supposition among gay men that African-Americans should just merge with the gay rights movement as a default - as if there were no need to make that case, it should just happen automiatically.

   Gays have made a strong secular case for gay rights based on individual rights and inividual freedom. That has won with upper middle class secular white people who were initially reluctant to embrace gay rights. But the African-American civil rights movement was more of a collective, community struggle, of strength in numbers and a strong beleif in God. Social-justice-minded African Americans are still in that mindset. Gays have yet to make their case to them.

   
   

   November 13th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
8. Trip remarks:
   Conversely, both God and the Bible were invoked/brandished when it came to justifying segregation. And certainly the term “Christian” has in many senses become Neo-Code for “white, middle-class ‘pure-blooded’” Americans who are apparently our designated overlords. Barack Obama’s race seemed to nullify his Christianity in that context. You could argue the homophobia that seems to be endemic in the black community walks hand-in-hand with that Ol’ Time Religion. Nevermind that both female liberationists and gays made their case with blacks when they partnered with them during the Civil Rights Movement. One minority supporting church-sponsored Gay Jim Crow Laws to justify trampling over another is wildly hypocritical.

   That seems to be how it works with God: he only ever seems to benefit his name-droppers of the world who have social standings that are constantly in jeopardy of being sullied by the lesser people of the world.

   
   

   November 13th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
9. Sam remarks:
   I have a hard time swallowing Kettle’s story. That is, to say that we have not contributed, that we have not proven to be of value to society. On the contrary, we have contributed for generations. And of no small accomplishment is the gay gene which stubbornly persists, crossing centuries and species. Of the latter, it can certainly be no accident, and likely the result of darwinian success and a benefit to the species. Of the former, we are americans who fought in every war, cooked in every kitchen, birthed babies, schooled children, invented and invested, and propped up civil society. The only difference, is that we have not done so FORMALLY.

   And “gay” rights are only part of a larger story. Without the hurdle of marriage being overcome, and gay families accepted into the mainstream, and therefore gay existance being accepted, the real story of us as diverse people cannot be heard. There’s less a rigid, homogenous gay community than there are people within other groups who happen to be gay. We congregate for safety, and comfort, and political power, but we can be very different from one another. Without the public getting the basics down - what a gay person is, why he or she loves, etc, how can they possibly understand the variations? And one day when they do see more of the big picture, they’ll think about their own sexuality without fear, and feel less of a need to put themselves (and everybody else) into straight/gay boxes, or masculine/feminine boxes.

   The clear contribution of every minority is to free the majority, not just themselves. We are a better, freer and more moral people for having gone through the painful civil rights struggle of former slaves. We are better for accepting and fighting for our jewish population. We are stronger for raising up women to equal status, for encouraging immigration, and for uplifting the disabled. Each time, after each fight, our nation benefits as a whole. And it is frustrating that our neighbors, after all these generations, still don’t understand that. We have to reinvent the wheel all over again. We have to baby step, and explain why we are human, don’t have tails, don’t have horns, don’t have our black color rub off, don’t always eat watermelon, aren’t lazy, aren’t pedephiles, or sex fiends, or deviants. That we work, love, laugh, grow up in families and make our own when we are of age. And hopefully, one day they’ll look at us and not say, oh right, that’s uncle bob. That’s aunt susan. That’s my son and his partner. And think, of course, it’s always been so.

   
   

   November 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
10. tony remarks:
    Thanks, Sam, and that is my perspective, too, though far more eloquent.

    
    

    November 14th, 2008 at 12:58 am
11. Matt P remarks:
    Trip, you’ve lost me. Are you suggesting that African-Americans shoudln’t be Christian because slaveowners and segregationists were Christian? The Christianity they celebrate is completely different - nearly unrecognizably different - from the Christianity their oppressors followed, and still is to this day. Heck, the modern Evangelical movement appropriated more traits from the Black churches than vice versa. But in any case, if you try to convince any person in the world to give up a good thing he/she loves because some other “bad” person does it too I doubt you’re going to get very far. When Blacks during the Civil Rights movement read the Bible they thought it was about them - today they think it was the driving force behind the movment - and they’re not going to give Christianity up because of someone else’s use of a couple obscure biblical references.

    Female liberationists and gays “made their case” with gays during the Civil Rights movement? That’s your best answer to the utter lack of cooperation between gays and Blacks for the last 30 years? You’re basically saying “hey man, I talked to your great uncle, and if you never heard what I told him, fuck you.” As if every African-American today is still on tap with the gays who were “making their case” during the 1960s. What case have they made to African Americans since then? Obviously not enough of one. If your drain clogs, fix it. If it clogs again a year later, don’t say hell I fixed it once last year and that should be enough.

    What is, in the end, your thesis? That African-Americans should be more pro-gay than they are? Alright fine, everyone “should” be more pro-gay. That they are somehow more obligated than a white prigeleged person to be pro-gay because they are Black and oppressed? You lost me there - If I’m going to hold anyone more accountable for his or her views than someone else, it’s the comfortable person, but otherwise, I just don’t see how holding someone to a HIGHER standard because of his or her skin color is ever appropriate. We’ve obviously failed to communicate our case with the African-American community, and by failed, I basically mean, we haven’t really tried. And I don’t think this kind of standoffish, embittered attitude we’re taking with them now is going to make an inch of progress.

    
    

    November 14th, 2008 at 1:09 am
12. Matt P remarks:
    *female liberationists and gays “made their case” with Blacks

    
    

    November 14th, 2008 at 1:10 am
13. Trip remarks:
    “Female liberationists and gays “made their case” with gays during the Civil Rights movement? That’s your best answer to the utter lack of cooperation between gays and Blacks for the last 30 years?” The flaw in your thesis is that it’s contingent upon

    There was a spirit of equal rights for all that’s been lost, yes. Having faith is one thing; using to it to marginalize another is the exact point when Oppressed becomes Oppressor. It’s hardly obtuse to expect that minorities be more self-aware and cynical toward the very rhetoric that’s been used against them. The flaw in your thesis is that it’s contingent upon the socially undesirable having to in effect ingratiate themselves with a corrupt social order under God’s benevolent aegis — to adulate those whose right are (apparently) God-given in the hopes of being thrown a bone.

    What you’re describing is the noble suffering /transformative power of faith gateway to acceptance theme that was meant to seem profound at the time in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” — scathed by the “great uncles” of the Black Power Movement years down the line– but that ultimately cemented long-standing stereotypes and accommodationist theory that the black community came to loathe as inherently infantalizing, condescending, and dehumanizing.

    So yes, there is a troubling irony to be seen there.

    
    

    November 14th, 2008 at 10:02 am
14. Matt P remarks:
    “There was a spirit of equal rights for all that’s been lost, yes. ”

    So you think if we had polled African-Americans on gay marriage during the Civil Rights era, we’d get more than thirty percent support which is what we get now?

    Here’s something: on the Arkansas gay adoption ban, Blacks actually voted MORE heavily against the ban than whites. That could be just because of cultural differences between California and Arkansas, but it could also be that when it comes things that are clearly, obviously bona fide civil rights, Blacks do come on board, but people just don’t see how same-sex marriage vs. a civil union is equivalent to not having to cede your bus seat for a white person. There’s still an argument to be made, and you don’t have to be the one making it if you really think it’s all just hopeless, but it still stands that gays have not reached out to the Black community so I’m not at all surprised that the Black community is less pro-gay.

    
    

    November 14th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
15. Sam remarks:
    Ok, I’ll join this running debate:

    “It’s hardly obtuse to expect that minorities be more self-aware and cynical toward the very rhetoric that’s been used against them.” Matt P, I haven’t heard a legitimate counter to that statement. You simply haven’t made YOUR case, in my humble opinion.

    Let me ask a question. Why doesn’t the jewish community having the same problem as the black community in relating to strangers in the context of their own history of isolation and descrimination? For the most part, they speak out against discrimination, even if it’s not against them. Why do we not have to organize, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to “make our case”? It’s a distraction. The case we need to be making is to the public at large. Along the way yes, we are hoping certain groups are already on board with us, and it’s sad to see that unfortunately not unfold, but it’s not the same thing as saying that we, the gay community, have control over that. You’re kidding yourself if you think we do.

    A person has to be at a place where there is room for convincing, and if there are blacks who feel they own civil rights, they know civil rights when they see it, and our issues are not civil rights issues, then you’re not going to make any progress on that level. Activists like Coretta Scott King who attempted to include us, were overruled. And speaking of sitting at the back of the bus, Rosa Parks herself, at one of her last speeches a few years ago, spoke her mind and talked about gay civil rights, and was hastily shuffled away from the podium. So any change in mindset and behavior will likely come on a cultural level for them, not on principal. I suspect the adoption issue is exactly that, a cultural decision. Black families want no obstruction to adopting, there are plenty of single black moms, and there are extended black families which include gays. Some of these adoption bans target “single” individuals as a way to catch gays in the net, and that would certainly be a threat to their interests.

    I do think that as black gays come out more, and become more active, then the black community will get involved. In the meantime, we have our work to do on a broader scale, and get our support where we can.

    
    

    November 15th, 2008 at 7:17 am
16. Sam remarks:
    And by the way, Thanks Tony.

    
    

    November 15th, 2008 at 7:23 am
17. Andrew remarks:
    “I haven’t heard a legitimate counter to that statement. You simply haven’t made YOUR case, in my humble opinion.”

    By your case-making formula Matt, would that mean the Log Cabin Republicans are a rousing success when it comes to softening Republican resistance to gay rights? They’ve entered the Republican ranks on the outer wings under the banners of religions and “fiscal conservatism” (oy…). Has their “See! We’re gay for Reagan too!” line advanced gay rights at all? Their whole philosophy is to lap-dog it up and parrot the Right’s line, then have it both ways as the vie for equal rights. They “make the case” by donating to GOP campaigns, who take the money and run without ever meeting them half-way. Are we supposed to pay lip service to God and have emulate the Down Low culture that’s problematic enough the white and black communities to begin with? We’re not just like everyone else and we shouldn’t have to be to receive consideration under the law.

    Last night on Larry King I watched a black minister talk out of his ass in the same way a white minister did, with both

    
    

    November 15th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
18. Matt P remarks:
    Sam, my counter to that statement is this:

    Holding minorities to a higher standard because they are minoritis is basically the textbook, dictionary definition of racism. Of course its tragic that not all minority groups consider themselves allies. Of course homophobia in the black community is just as tragic as racism in the gay community. But it is more than condescending to point to a black person and say, hey, since you’re black, you are more obligated to be with us on gay rights than a white person is.

    Now if you take off the table a punishing and condescending attitude toward a community that has been deeply oppressed in the past - far more deeply and blatantly than gays even - and a community that is still facing extreme poverty today, you are left, not with a moralistic perspective, but a rational one. That rational, pragmatic analysis should dissect the issues that lead to the Black community’s generally-delayed acceptance of homosexuality, and arrive at these answers:

    1) To many in the Black community, the oppression gays face is not the same kind of oppression they themselves faced for the color of their skin. That argument has not yet been made, convincingly, to the majority of African-Americans - people who, I assume, are just as intelligent and capable of grasping the issues at hand as anyone else.

    2) The Black community remains deeply religious partially due to the fact that religion has been used as a way of coping with deep oppression in the past. Because of that, they have ties to the christianity which currently leads the charge against things like gay marriage. In fact, Black evangelical chrisiants are, when polled, no more homophobic or resistant to gay rights than white evangelical christians (if not in fact less homophobic), and secular blacks are no more homophobic then secular whites. Thus is it only reasonable to expect that, given the religiosity of the Black community, that resistance to the marriage equality movement would be higher there than it is in the general population.

    3) Racial differences aside, one of the largest factors in determining a person’s own attitude toward gays and lesbians is education. The Black community still lags far behind whites when it comes to college degrees and even high school diplomas. That taken into account, our first priority should be to improve access to education for young Black adults and improve the quality of education in inner city neighborhoods.

    4) In the black community there are many who beleive that homosexuality is a white issue, that there are no gay people of color. This is obviously a myth, but it’s perpetuated by the fact that while the gay ghetto and the black neighorhoods exist often within walking distance of each other in urban areas, you never see people crossing back and forth. The two groups are utterly segregated. I can also attest to hearing stories of gay people of color from California who claimed that their white peers who were canvassing to encourage people to vote no on proposition 8 often declined to work in black neihborhoods for fear that they’d been beat up. Whether or not that fear is legitimate due to a GLBT person’s status of vulnerability (and I’m inclined to think no, it’s not legitimate, because I canvassed those exact neighborhoods myself for Obama in my state, along with a particularly flamboyant Latino friend and neither of us have any problems), I do find it quite telling as to why there might be a rift between the two communities.

    
    

    November 16th, 2008 at 12:16 am
19. Matt P remarks:
    “By your case-making formula Matt, would that mean the Log Cabin Republicans are a rousing success when it comes to softening Republican resistance to gay rights”

    I don’t know whether or not the Log Cabin Republicans are a sufficiently high profile organization to really make headwinds, and I think the market is probably already saturated on the “individual liberties” case for gay rights. I think that secular-leaning Republicans are already with us on gay rights - anyone in the Republican party who identifies as “athiest” or “agnostic” (and no I don’t think there are very many) is probably closer to our side on gay marriage than not. The Log Cabin Republicans do not, however, make any particularly strong religious argument for gay rights, so no, I don’t think they will ever do any good with the bulk of those in the Republican party who use religious grounding for their political positions.

    
    

    November 16th, 2008 at 12:24 am
20. P.J. remarks:
    Lots of words and theorizing going on here. Here’s the stripped-down way that I see it, however: discrimination is discrimination, and it’s usually pretty obvious to all but the most blind among us. It shouldn’t take an “educational campaign” on the part of one human being (or group) to convince another of blatant prejudice against the former. This situation reminds me of a small furor that erupted when the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum opened. A small group of orthodox rabbis protested because at least one of the exhibits focused on the experiences of homosexuals during the holocaust, an argument that—religious/fairytale reasoning aside—amounted to “My oppression is greater than/more legitimate than your oppression.” Fuck that.

    
    

    November 16th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
21. fairytale? remarks:
    As long as you keep making fun of them - fairytale - you are never get them to support what you want. Mocking and taunting usually produce anger, not acceptance or understanding.

    
    

    November 17th, 2008 at 7:49 am
22. P.J. remarks:
    Oh, I wasn’t mocking. Just calling a spade a spade.

    But aside from all that, putting a basic civil rights issue to a popular vote is a fundamentally bad idea. If that had been done in previous struggles (racial segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, etc.), nothing would have ever changed, or if it had, that change would have come decades later. These things, at least in American society, seem to require their being judicially mandated. That’s what had already happened, but a theocratic organization (i.e., the Mormons with their magical undies and all that) saw to the reversal of that. Aren’t we finally fed up with playing the role of the football in the Culture Wars Bowl?

    
    

    November 17th, 2008 at 9:52 am
23. Sam remarks:
    Matt P, I’m simply not buying any of those arguments, although I understand them. This is not about racism, or color. This is not “blame the negro.” This is simply looking at a situation and having certain expectations. It’s about the sad irony of generations of gays marching for civil rights hoping that their time would come, and in 2008, after uniting under the inclusive banner of Barack Obama, find themselves outvoted by the very people they marched with.

    I think it surprised quite a few people that in this day an age, in 2008, there would be preachers in black churches actively campaigning for Prop 8. This community is not just slow to come around to the idea of gay equality, and therefore responsive to some networking, but are the racial group (white, black, asian, hispanic) which MOST supported Prop 8.

    The congressional black caucus once called themselves “the conscience of the democratic party.” That is no longer true. But these things do happen, all events are in the context of the times. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and yet we rightfully herald him as a father of our country. Martin Luther King fought for civil rights, and made a lot of broad statements of equality, and we honor him, rightfully so, even if hypothetically he was homophobic or sexist. Because that was his time. Now it is Barack Obama’s time, a new day, a new step forward, and our backs once again should be a little straighter and our step a little farther from the trees. Yet, here we are in California having a popular vote on another human being’s basic rights.

    Ultimately, this is not about any one group, and therefore it’s useless to lobby any particular group of people, or feel guilty about how you failed to reach out. This is a generational thing for the most part. Eventually, it will happen.

    
    

    November 21st, 2008 at 10:36 am

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