By: Me

On the same night America demanded change, the country did more of the same in California when Proposition 8 passed banning gay marriage.

The reason why I’m writing about this is because it bothers me that 73% of African Americans voted against it in California. Fifty-three percent of Latinos and half of Whites were in line with them as well.

Now, i’m not with the talk that’s going around that African-Americans ruined it for the gay population, because Black folk are only six percent of the population in California to begin with so their vote didn’t matter much. Where the blame should be directed is at the heads of numerous Mormon churches, which spent a ton of money to flood the airwaves with anti gay marriage ads that seemed to do the trick in the voting booth.

But back to the reason I wrote this - the overwhelming “against” vote of the Black population. I knew African-Americans were religious, but I grew up in a Latino household and always thought Latinos were way more religious (still do) than anyone and would strike down a law like this without a second thought. I guess I was wrong. I’m a pretty open minded person so it doesn’t matter to me what you’re religious affiliation may be, but what should it matter to you if gay people get married? You aren’t going to attend a wedding and probably won’t hang out with gay folk, so what’s the big deal? Some people just make no sense to me as did African Americans in this situation, who only a half century ago were being denied basic rights and their own marriages were once not even recognized. So to deny a group the same thing is shameful. But of course its cool to vote in the first African American President, but not vote in approval of gay marriage? I know - its pride vs religion, but I still can’t accept it.

All I hear African American females complain about is black men on the DL and how they are afraid of coming out and their ruining the race. But votes like this will continue to keep men in the closet. Of course, we would like these men to be honest with everyone as they should, but it isn’t so simple when your community is so homophobic.

But decisions of these sort in this country always come down to the dominant book, the Bible. Personally, I just don’t understand how people can look to a book to justify a decision, when a century and a half ago that same book was used to justify their enslavement.

“You will be free when you get to heaven.”

“You are the son of ham and so you are cursed to be beneath us.”

I can continue going on with the ways slave masters and even preachers used the bible to justify slavery and racism, but i’ll stop there. Also, when you look at the Black family structure, women are the backbone. Multiple women - mothers, aunts, sisters and grandmothers are raising young Black children “seventy percent” of the time in this country. There goes that number again. So in reality, its no different than a lesbian household. But no one thinks about it in that manner. What we as a people think about is: “They trying to act like their fight is the same as our fight for civil rights.” As if civil rights is something that’s exclusive to Black people. It is not.

Anyone with any type of logic can tell you that the “gay struggle” will never equate to the “African American” struggle in any context. But what I do know is that 44 years ago, two men named Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman lent their hands for us. They risked their lives to help us in Mississippi, a bastion for hate. They battled klan members, crooked police, hostile civilians, and the government to help register African Americans to vote. Now, I know that the majority of the population isn’t as socially active as they were back then, and no one’s going to knock on doors to tell folks to vote to make gay marriage legal. But all that mattered with Goodman and Schwerner is that they lent a hand. THEY LENT A HAND because they felt a group was being unjustly persecuted and that’s exactly where we failed on November 4th as much as we may have succeeded.