In the end, every member of the liberal coalition except one came out and voted against Prop h8, which took away the right of gays to marry in California. And that was: black people. Yes, black people, past victims of "seperate but equal" laws. It was heavy turnout in the black community for the election of Barack Obama that passed Prop h8 in California, that legalizes "seperate but equal" for gays regarding marriage rights. I was looking at the turnout and votes for various heavily-black precincts in Los Angeles on the night of the election as they were reported, and on average *70%* of blacks voted for Prop h8. Everybody in the black community “knows” that the worst thing you can be is “gay”. Thus the promiscuous behavior amongst black men to “prove” their “manliness”. In addition, the black community in general buys the silliness that the tighty righties dish out about how gay people are gay by choice, not by genes. The gay kids I grew up with in antediluvian time certainly did not choose to be ostracized, pantsed, and all the other torments that gay kids got from their peers in our schools in those days, but according to the tighty righties they *chose* to be tormented. What utter nonsense.
But that is all remediable by education. Which did not happen. The gay community has made no (zero) attempt to make itself known to the black and Hispanic communities. There was no (zero) door-knocking in black and Hispanic communities. No (zero) attempts to talk to prominent black ministers to get their support. No "No on 8" signs printed in Spanish or Vietnamese (another major minority group in California). There was no (zero) "No on 8" advertising on black radio, on Spanish-language television, on Vietnamese-language radio. The only people the No on 8 folks went after were white college-educated middle class people, leaving everybody else fertile ground for the hate groups to go after. When an unprecedented number of African Americans turned out to vote for Obama, and 70% of these African Americans voted for Prop h8, that was the end of the game right there.
Granted, the timing was not in No on 8's favor, it was dictated by the Prop 8 people. But you do not always get to choose your battleground. Statistics show that the gay community is wealthier and better educated than the community at large. They ought to be able to put together a better political campaign than a bunch of ignorant hillbillies from Utah even if at a disadvantage in terms of not being able to choose the time and place for their battle. But this was just an abysmal showing by the gay community and the civil rights community as a whole, entire major voting populations of California had not even the slightest attempt made to reach them, with predictable results.
This is not Ronald Reagan's America. This is modern multi-cultural America. You cannot win if all you go after is white middle-class people. It just doesn't work that way. The gay community and civil rights community needs to learn this and learn it hard, or they will continue to get their rears handed to them in these kinds of campaigns.
– Badtux the Numbers Penguin
It's a sad fact that a history of persecution doesn't seem to make you more sensitive to the persecution of others. The Puritans were chased from their homes by state supported religious persecution, then established a theocracy in New England. Mormons were driven from the country and then conducted the Mountain Meadows Massacre when other religious people settled in their territory. Blacks have suffered historical persecution rivaled only by the Jews, yet often Blacks and Jews are at odds. And as you eloquently mention, blacks don't see the parallels between the their history and the current situation of gay people in the US.
ReplyDeleteThat's one reason why I didn't go apoplectic when Prop 8 passed: no substantial movement against it really materialized. The gay community will just have to try harder the next time around...
ReplyDelete