Black Voices On Pres. Obama’s Gay Marriage Stance
In gaging the reaction to Obama’s announcement of his support of gay marriage, I thought it might be interesting to hear the opinion of black voices across our country. Although it was easy to find black pastors who differed with Pres. Obama because of their Christian faith (Imagine! Pastors choosing the gospel over Obama!), I thought Carl Jeffers brought up an interesting point as well. He prefaces this by saying that it’s clear to him that whether Obama wins re-election or not, our next President after him will be white, and the one after that (Not sure that’s a given, but that’s his premise). Given that, he says Pres. Obama has missed his opportunity to put black issues on the table. He says he understands the political dangers in speaking out on race, but, as he points out, that didn’t stop Obama from speaking out on gay marriage.
So certainly it is ironic that while caving in to the dangers of speaking out so forcefully on issues of race, our country’s first African-American president has instead chosen the issue of same sex marriage to take a stand that might be controversial, unpopular, and fraught with political danger….
Jeffers supports the President on gay marriage, he just wonders why Obama doesn’t do the same for black issues.
But the deepest concern comes from black pastors, which feel Obama has betrayed his Christian faith. Which is why Obama called the black leaders who had supported him after his announcement. As the New York Times reported:
About two hours after declaring his support for same-sex marriage last week, President Obama gathered eight or so African-American ministers on a conference call to explain himself. He had struggled with the decision, he said, but had come to believe it was the right one.
The ministers, though, were not all as enthusiastic. A vocal few made it clear that the president’s stand on gay marriage might make it difficult for them to support his re-election.
Many black pastors are no longer supporting Obama for election over this, although there are those who are are disagreeing, but still showing support:
The Rev. Emmett C. Burns Jr., a politically influential black minister, held an event Sunday at his Rising Sun Baptist Church in Baltimore, Md., to publicly withdraw support from Obama over his same-sex marriage support, CNN reported. “I love the president, but I cannot support what he has done,” Burns was quoted as saying at the church. He also predicted that Obama’s stance would lead to his defeat in November.
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Dr. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Redmond, Wash., told The Christian Post last Thursday that he would never vote for someone who believes in same-sex marriage and abortion, “regardless who it is, regardless how white they are, regardless how black they are.”
From NPR:
The Reverend Patrick Wooden, senior pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ, in Raleigh, North Carolina had this to say on the President’s announcement of support of gay marriage:
I am going to do all that I can to influence as many people as possible to think for themselves and allow the God of Christianity and the teachings of Christianity to have more influence in their lives than any person who may be holding any political office, even if that office is the presidency of the United States of America. This particular decision I find appalling, and I could not disagree with the president more on it.
I think these examples are just the tip of the iceberg in the black church. I have friends who are black pastors here in Houston. They make no bones about the fact that black pastors across the country are feeling the same way as Rev. Burns Jr. and Rev. Wooden. I don’t think it helps when the left compares gay marriage to the civil rights movement. This is deeply offensive to those who feel this way in the black church. Fighting for interracial marriage was still about marriage between a man and woman.
Even liberal well known black activist Tavis Smiley disagrees with Pres. Obama on this issue because of his faith.
NewsOne also points out the problems with black women having to choose their pastors over Obama.
It’s not as if black women didn’t know that Obama supported gay marriage already, but there’s a huge difference between believing something and announcing it. Church women are good at overlooking huge flaws in the men they admire, sometimes to their own detriment. But when the man of her dreams draws a clear line in the sand, a woman can be forced to make a decision she would rather not have to make.
Another telling challenge for black women might be the pronouncement of President Obama as “The First Gay President.” Having their man stolen by a homosexual is probably the greatest nightmare of nearly every black woman in America, and I can’t begin to describe how many church-going black women were infuriated by a gay blogger projecting homosexuality onto the president.
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Black women have been President Obama’s most loyal constituency. Asking these women to abandon the teachings of the pastor and bible that they’ve loved for so many decades could possibly be too much to ask.
We keep hearing poll after poll about Americans support or non support of gay marriage. I’m not buying any of them. I think that there is a deep seated belief in marriage and what it means in this country, even if we do a lousy job at showing it. I think most Americans do not want the definition of marriage, being between a man and a woman, to change. I think most people understand the legal needs of gays in unions, and that is why most support civil unions. They feel it gives the legal protections we expect in a secular society without touching the sacrament of marriage. I wonder if we will ever learn the art of compromise on controversial social issues?
Will blacks who disagree with Obama on gay marriage rush out to vote for Romney? Probably not. But I do think enough will just stay home to soothe their conscience to do damage to Obama.
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1. Obama has done as much or more than any recent president in matters of equality and equal rights– including in matters of race.
2. No surprise here on African-Americans’ views on gay issues.
I can go on for days about why we black folks (in general) oppose same sex marriage but I won’t. LOL! Personally I won’t stand in the way with a vote against same sex marriage. But I really don’t have a strong feeling either way. But it’s a damn gutsy move by President Obama.
I always find these sort of topics about we black folks entertaining and interesting. Black folks got accused of just voting for Obama because he was black. When all evidence and history show that Hillary Clinton would have gotten the black vote as well. Black voters are Democratic voters. No more no less. YET we (on average) are more conservative socially on certain issues than the average Democrat. Makes for interesting conversation over the BBQ grill.
No, black folks will not swarm in droves to the Romney side. Mitt Romney looks, acts, walks, and talks just like the fictional “The Man”. And “The Man” is a powerful image and not solely without basis in truth. President Obama would have to go completely, stark raving insane for him not to get majority of the black vote.
Oh Lord, where to begin…
“The Rev. Emmett C. Burns Jr., a politically influential black minister, held an event Sunday at his Rising Sun Baptist Church in Baltimore, Md., to publicly withdraw support from Obama over his same-sex marriage support,”
—Gotta love those one issue voters. Also I thought churches were supposed to be apolitical. Why is he holding political rallies at his church?
“Asking these women to abandon the teachings of the pastor and bible that they’ve loved for so many decades could possibly be too much to ask.”
—Uh… it’s the pastors’ interpretation of the Bible that same-sex marriage is “wrong”. The Bible does not say or teach that gays are wrong. Also same-sex marriages (though rare) have occurred throughout the millennia.
“[Carl Jeffers] says Pres. Obama has missed his opportunity to put black issues on the table.”
—Obama has put black issues on the table. Change does not happen overnight and ultimately people are responsible for improving their own lives. though others, including government, can help. Tough that Jeffers thinks that all blacks would rise out of poverty and receive a first rate education (as examples of some black issues, but not strictly black issues) just because Obama was president. If you see him, please remind him there is a whole other major political party out there that doesn’t believe in having any policies to address these issues. And instead this other major political party takes form the poor and gives to the rich.
“They feel it gives the legal protections we expect in a secular society without touching the sacrament of marriage.”
—Please tell me how allowing two people who love each other threatens your opposite-sex marriage? These people want their way, without respecting the rights and views of others.
I think I’ll just stop.
Interesting. I’m sure that there are some black people who are very uncomfortable with the idea of gay marriage, and Obama might lose some of them. Then again, in my work with LGBT activism, there were a great many civil rights leaders from the ’60s who considered this fight a very natural extension of the anti-racism work they’ve been doing for decades.
I am a bit confused at the idea that Obama hasn’t brought up or championed race issues. Now, it could certainly be said that he has not put a great deal of focus on issues that are generally considered “black” issues (gang violence, education/healthcare/etc in majority-black areas, the War on Drugs, prison/justice reform, etc), but as far as talking about race, he’s done quite a bit — a lot more, anyway, than presidents of the past. The fact that the GOP rains down on Obama the fiery lava of Mt Doom every time Obama indicates he might know something about race relations notwithstanding.
I think that this could very well have a slightly negative affect on Obama’s numbers with black people, but I also see the possibility that it could have a more significant positive affect on gay marriage numbers with black people.
Oh and whenever a politician makes an announcement like this, on any topic, there will be a knee jerk reaction from people on both sides of the issue. Some people will “stick to their guns”, while others will change their tune as the news sinks in and they have time to adjust.
There is a lot of time between now and the elections for people who are uncomfortable with this to examine their feelings and fit this one issue into the bigger picture.
Given that McKinley is a highly partisan blogger from Houston with a major case of ODS I’m just not sure how much of this article is meaningful.
The Moderate Voice doesn’t seem to be concerned with how moderate (or not) the authors included are. Both left and right radical thought seems to find it’s way here (as long as they express themselves “moderately”). Luckily, most commenters here are able to cut through the buzz. It’s a constant challenge to logic and facts – and that’s good critical exercise.
I personally believe that Obama does the most to promote race relations by not putting issues forward as black issues, but rather as issues that effect groups not categorized by race. Obama is best served by by staying as far away from the caricature of a black president that his opponents assume.
And as my friends here in Atlanta constantly remind me, he is half white, if white people are going to deride him because of his race they are going to have to stand up for the white half. (This is meant to be mildly humorous. Race can’t fade as a determining factor in people’s outlooks until we can laugh about it and the ridiculous attitudes that it supports.)
A quick question for Jim Satterfield. I am afraid that I am going to have to turn in my internet warrior merit badge, I had to look up the meaning of ODS, Obama Derangement Syndrome. Does this mean that she believes that Obama is deranged or that she is deranged about Obama? [/rhetorical question]