Blacks Tipped the scale for California's Gay Marriage Ban
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An article from Minority Reporter in Rochester.
Check out: http://www.minorityreporter.net/web_edition/November_15_2008/November_15...
The painful truth is that Proposition 8
would have gone down to flaming
defeat if blacks hadn't backed it in
droves. Proposition 8 was the ballot initiative
that defines marriage as strictly
between a man and a woman and
embeds that in the California state constitution.
Just one month before the election most
polls showed that a majority of
Californians rejected the measure. But
then something happened. A slew of Yes
on 8 signs and stickers popped up
overnight on lawns in my neighborhood
in the predominantly black Crenshaw
area near South Los Angeles. The week
before that a well-heeled core of preachers
who head fundamentalist leaning,
mega and medium sized black churches
held a rally and then took to their pulpits
and bible thumped their congregations
to pass the initiative. It worked.
Associated Press exit polls found that
seven in 10 blacks voted in favor of the
proposition, while Latinos marginally
supported it and whites were split.
The cruel irony is that the holy passion
that propelled black voters to storm the
polls in near record numbers to vote for
Barack Obama tipped the scales in favor
of Proposition 8. That wasn't the only
Obama irony. Prop 8 backers flooded
mailboxes in mostly black neighborhoods
with a mailer that featured a stern
faced Obama and his horribly out of context
quote saying that he opposed gay
marriage.
Whether the preachers got a generous
infusion of cash for their services touting
Proposition 8 is anybody's guess. The
money trail in these shadowy campaigns
is always hard if not impossible to track
down. But even if a penny didn't change
hands between the Prop 8 campaign
and the ministers it wouldn't have
changed things. The preachers would
still have scripture saber rattled Prop 8.
Even if the ministers hadn't said a mumbling
word one way or the other about
gay marriage, a significant number
maybe even the majority of blacks would
still have voted for it.
