Quoted: Dan Savage on black homophobia

Excerpted by Carmen Van Kerckhove

African American voters in California voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, writing anti-gay discrimination into California’s constitution and banning same-sex marriage in that state. Seventy percent of African American voters approved Prop 8, according to exit polls, compared to 53% of Latino voters, 49% of white voters, 49% of Asian voters.

I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color.

This will get my name scratched of the invite list of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is famous for its anti-racist-training seminars, but whatever.

Finally, I’m searching for some exit poll data from California. I’ll eat my shorts if gay and lesbian voters went for McCain at anything approaching the rate that black voters went for Prop 8.

Source

Share and Enjoy:

Trackbacks & Pings

On California’s Proposition 8: Necessary Links « Off Our Pedestals on 07 Nov 2008 at 8:00 am

[...] to understand why, no, Dan Savage’s column would not have been made all better by his simply blaming “all voters” who voted for Proposition 8. It’s not as simple as Savage – race = [...]
La Alma de Fuego… » Blog Archive » Random Moment of Irritation #3 on 07 Nov 2008 at 12:30 pm

[...] The relative silence of this third player–the lack of interviews, the lack of air time–creates a sort of vacuum whereby nobody is held *accountable* for water hoses or the barking dogs. And as a result, I am starting to feel like these interviews are creating a sense of self-righteousness whereby Black folks are, yet again, being cast as people who should be *thankful* for white U.S. citizens doing what is freaking *right*. (via). [...]
All About Race » Blog Archive » Prop 8 wins - We all lose. on 07 Nov 2008 at 12:31 pm

[...] is a note of frustration being expressed in many blogs that black voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 8. As I expressed in an earlier post, I had hoped that would not be the case. Still, a majority of all [...]
Gross. « Amy King’s Alias on 07 Nov 2008 at 9:08 pm

[...] FAMOUS LOVES UNKNOWN? [...]
Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Prop 8: The Rush To Blame The Brown People on 08 Nov 2008 at 4:12 pm

[...] Dan Savage on Black Homophobia (I don’t support Savage’s article, to say the least, but I’m linking this for the [...]
Convergences (Part 1?) « MotherWilling on 09 Nov 2008 at 9:31 pm

[...] Collection of responses and posts on Racialicious: http://www.racialicious.com/2008/11/08/links-on-prop-8/ http://www.racialicious.com/2008/11/07/on-proposition-8/ http://www.racialicious.com/2008/11/06/quoted-dan-savage-on-black-homophobia/ [...]
My spellcheck would be so much happier if it just learned the word “heteronormative…” « Bi-Furious! on 10 Nov 2008 at 1:03 am

[...] the discussion (I like Dan Savage less because of his unapologetic biphobia; if he keeps up the blatant racism, too, I will simply have to stop liking him). Everywhere I turn the past few days, I run into the [...]
Dan Savage stands up for gay rights. « Electric Blues on 11 Nov 2008 at 10:36 pm

[...] California. Dan Savage has always been a straight shooter, and he doesn’t disappoint in his latest column about prop 8; The Savage [...]
Review: One Big Happy Family, edited by Rebecca Walker | WriteBlack on 20 Nov 2008 at 8:37 am

[...] Savage, who lately seems to have decided that blacks are responsible for the failure of gay marriage initiatives, contributes a thoughtful piece about his [...]
[cis queers win another victory, trans* people still denied protection] « Bad Moon Rising on 29 Apr 2009 at 10:10 pm

[...] It doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a fatphobic, ableist, transmisogynist, racist, biphobic douchebag. I could keep adding links proving my point, but jeezy creezy I’d be up [...]

Comments

Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

Here’s Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s take on it:
http://tinyurl.com/6gvhhc

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 12:52 pm ¶
CEdwards wrote:

Goes back to thinking that blacks are monolithic in thinking.

I’m from MA, a born and bred liberal democrat and pro-gay rights to the hilt. I’m also a black woman. Most blacks in the north tend to follow suit. (Hi, home to legalized gay marriage — thank God!)

However, there are still large pockets of religiously led black communities across the nation who are very anti-gay.

Here’s the thing: In this case, I would say it’s not necessarily race that’s the factor but a religious perspective. Even those who don’t go to church will quote scripture (mostly inaccurately) about the “sin of homosexuality”. I think we have to concentrate effort on those of faith rather than race when dealing with this issue.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:04 pm ¶
DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

why are racist white gays worse than homophobic black people? They are both scumbags in my opinion, but hey, that’s just me…

if Obama had NOT run for prez and Hillary snagged the Prez ticket and ran for office, Prop 8 would have failed. It’s the truth.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:05 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

Here’s Adam Serwer’s (aka dnA) take on it on TAPPED:

“But I think it’s really problematic to view the election of Barack Obama as some sort of quid pro quo between blacks and whites, or blacks and the LGBT community, as though gays and lesbians were doing black people a big favor by voting for the black guy and therefore their support of Prop 8 in California is a kind of betrayal. Those in the LGBT community who voted for Obama voted for the same reason everyone else did: because voting for him was in their interest. Black folks don’t owe white people anything because Obama is the president-elect. Period. You didn’t elect him for us; you elected him because you thought he was the better candidate.”

http://tinyurl.com/5w6qff

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:08 pm ¶
Renee wrote:

I personally resent the implication that blacks were the reason that Prop 8 passed. When one considers the % of the population that blacks make up, Prop 8 passed because whites voted in favor of it overwhelmingly.

@CEDwards I think you make a very salient point about the connection with religion. Though not all blacks attend church, it religion still has a huge impact on the black community. It is not accidental that many of our leaders have been drawn from the Christian religion. The apathy regarding GLBTQI rights is based more in religion than it is with race, blacks are just identifiable because of their/our skin color.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:09 pm ¶
mistersquid wrote:

I’m half black and it angers and saddens me to no end that so much of the black community in the United States harbors so much fear of the gay community.

The failure of socially conservative blacks to understand the value of civil liberties for all, not just an elect few, is the cornerstone of democracy.

In my opinion, Prop. 8 will go to SCOTUS and I strongly believe that SCOTUS will right this whole thing and rule Prop. 8 unconstitutional, being as it is a discriminatory legislative act.

Shame on California.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:11 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

Savage is rightly catching hell from black LGBTs on that thread. He should apologize for his dumbass racism.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:14 pm ¶
Kendra wrote:

Yeah, I too don’t get the whole blaming of black folks on the passing of Prop 8.

I’m certain most of it is due to a religious perspective that was most certainly held by the racial majority in California: whites. I saw white people holding up signs in support of Prop 8 at my school; I didn’t see any fellow African Americans doing that. Even our black campus community seemed pretty hush-hush on their opinions.

Blacks are just the easier scapegoat b/c Barack got elected president. Lame.

It’s always about turning the (white) ruling class against a minority group. Always some misdirected anger to prevent people from actually doing something. We need to get cracking on structural change.

In my opinion, the opponents to Prop 8 didn’t do a very good job campaigning as did the supporters of the proposition. Either that or we really haven’t been talking straight to these people who think they can control adults in their romantic relationships.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:19 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

I’m going to cosign with CE Edwards and Renee.

When I talk to my black friends who are opposed to gay marriage, there’s normally a religious block I hit. At some point in the conversation, someone will go “But the Bible says” which will quickly prompt a reminder from me that we do not live in a theocracy. (Officially, anyway.)

However, I do feel like a lot of it can’t be placed on the feet of the religious community either. There are quite a few people of faith who supported gay marriage to varying degrees. (Everything from 100% support, to “the church shouldn’t have to recognize it, but the government should stay out.”)

I feel like it is more intrinsic bigotry that is often upheld with some religious justification.

Either way, creating a blacks = homophobes post as if this was a national black crisis is a bit ridiculous. We’re still only 10% of the vote.

Though, this does get into some interesting dynamics as to how invested in each other’s struggles we all are…but I think I’ll leave that for the post.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:26 pm ¶
Mike wrote:

I’m dissapointed by the passage of Prop 8, but, I’m reconciled to the fact that people have a right to exercise their vote as they see fit.

But, some have said that new citizens also seemed to vote in majority for Prop 8 (and are also more anti-black). Thus underscores one of my main concerns about immigration: that we will allow immigration to turn back the clock on some hard one gains.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:30 pm ¶
m dot wrote:

hmmm… I’m black. I’m “religious” for the purpose of this conversation. I haven’t yet heard a convincing enough argument for why gays want marriage. Most heterosexuals don’t even want marriage. Let’s be honest: marriage carries with it cultural/societal/religious implications that either attract people to it or steer folks away from it.

I think what most people really want are the legal and tax advantages of being contractually bound to another person – a civil union. And if that’s the case, then sure… let whoever wants one get one. I don’t really care and I live in a country (thank you America) where I don’t have to care about what you want to fight for your right to have it. As a matter of fact, I could strongly disagree, but still participate in the empowerment of all people to have equal access to our best-as-we-can-get equal rights.

I would have voted Prop 8 down if the wording of it only including gay MARRIAGE. If Prop 8 was about civil unions… all the perks of marriage without the religious implications… then sure, fine. It may seem like silly semantics, but the power of words and their meanings and weight to people ought not be underestimated… ever.

m dot

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:34 pm ¶
CelloShots wrote:

Lorri L. Jean of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center spoke at a rally last night in West Hollywood. She chastised the crowd for blaming “our brothers and sisters of color” for Prop 8 and redirected the anger. If there is a group that can be blamed, she said, it’s the Mormon church who funded the Yes on 8 campaign and who actively pursued the deception of voters, black and otherwise, in order to get this homophobic measure passed. It was a relief to hear her so strongly denouncing the racism that was starting to bubble up from the white members of the crowd (and some of the QoC too). Hopefully her message wins out over the MSM’s “black people are homophobes” message.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:34 pm ¶
Erica wrote:

“When one considers the % of the population that blacks make up, Prop 8 passed because whites voted in favor of it overwhelmingly.”

Yes. And: Barack Obama got elected because whites voted for him overwhelmingly.

Also agreed on the religion factor.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:54 pm ¶
tracy wrote:

Black and Latinos make up 15%(?) of california’s population? That may not sound like alot but in a race this tight where both sides are pouring money into their campaigns and the white vote is pretty much split 50-50,
when the black and latino vote is over 70% for one side, it is definitely a factor that pushed the YES side over the top.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 1:59 pm ¶
Ayo wrote:

I’m so disappointed by Dan Savage’s reaction. He’s done what so many right-leaning bigots have done, which is have a knee-jerk reaction and immediately blame race as a factor instead of investigating what went into it. Instead of looking for solutions, he’s looking for blame, and creating a very dualistic us v. them mentality.

I bet if someone looked at the demographics of religion instead of race, they would find that it was religious affiliation that was the strongest correlation. And even then, we shouldn’t be blaming people who are religious but seeing how we can work together and educate each other. I wonder how much outreach actually took place to religious groups and the African-American community to educate them about LGBT issues – I’m guessing not enough, because so many so-called “progressive” movements are woefully neglectful of people of color groups, willing to educate but not be educated themselves.

Unfortunately, many people still view orientation as a lifestyle choice, not a birth trait. I think this is the difference between comparing racial injustice with sexual orientation injustice. We’d all love for everyone to just accept everyone as they are, but the truth is most people can’t make the connection until they personally know and love someone different and are changed by them. That means people have to leave their safe havens and be willing to reach out.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:00 pm ¶
sqrim wrote:

what is this ?
this implies that paternalistic white folk ALLOWED a “black” (aka mixed heritage) president to be elected and thus deserve not only a pat on the back and an assurance that they are post-racial, but also that black folk OWE them something ?
we never got our forty acres and a mule.
we never got to vote until 64 years ago, and have been consistently disenfranchised since then.
black men still fill the prisons.
black folk are still disproportionally poor.
i could go on, but it is obvious that one brown president in the white house does not mean the status of every nonwhite person in this country is magically elevated.
i am a black queer disheartened and upset that prop 8 passed for those gay and queer folks who desire marriage.
and yet i am also disheartened and upset that a smug white dude wants to tell me what black people need to do.
i am so tired of these overly simplistic interpretations of the elections.

fin.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:08 pm ¶
Charity wrote:

But right now we have all the religious implications without the perks. As far as religion goes, we already do have people of the same sex being married by clergy in churches, sometimes pretty mainline churches. Yet for some reason we allow the state to say that those religious implications are somehow unreal. We’re letting the state say, “Those churches that refuse to marry couples of the same sex, they’re the ones whose religious choices we prefer and are willing to sanction.” Where’s the sense in that?

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:17 pm ¶
Tze Ming Mok wrote:

@Carmen: I agree that no Emperor of the Blacks met with the Queen of the Gays to swap Obama votes for anti-Prop 8 votes – or would have any right to. At the same time, that’s no defense of homophobia in any community, and Dan Savage, tool that he sometimes is, has a right to his shot-glass of haterade.

I think we liberal intellectual p.o.cs have to be honest about the conservative, intolerant streaks within our own communities. Frankly, in our own homes and neighbourhoods, we *are* honest about them and some of us are constantly struggling against them from within, to renew traditional and often beseiged value systems for the realities of modern, globalised life. Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s blogpost you linked to is a good example of that need to not blindly accept our ‘community values’.

But let’s face it – for the most part, in public, in the white media for the white public, we’re trying to swerve the discourse away from wife-burning stereotypes and the like. This leads to ever more tiring illogical voltes-face. For example, we are guilty of consistently pointing out a) that minorities are socio-economically discriminated against and culturally marginalised, while b) complaining about being stereotyped as poor or different. There are two commentors above saying that the level of black votes for Prop 8 was not about race, but about religion, it’s just that black communities are more religious… so therefore it’s not about race. Huh? Are we as likely to avoid these connections when race and class intersect?

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:24 pm ¶
dodgerdodger wrote:

My appreciation and gratitude to the 30% of Blacks who voted against stripping people of their rights and dismantling their families. Those voters should be recognized and commended, as should everyone who voted No on Prop 8.

Talking about the racial dynamic of the vote on this matter in a slipshod or sweeping way erases the presence of that 30%, and of every other Black American who is in favor of equality of opportunity and human rights. It is a temptation that not only discourages the involvement of Blacks in the struggle for equal rights, but also impedes efforts to persuade those who remain against the effort.

Savage’s words were careless and ineffective, and it reflects poorly on him that he did not consider how he would hurt his allies on this issue by kicking off the discussion that way. However, I think a discussion of the racial dynamic of the Prop 8 vote DOES need to occur.
There were also Whites, Asians, and Latinos who voted in favor of Prop 8, but the difference in proportions remains. A 21% difference compared to Whites and Asians and a 17% difference in comparison to Latinos is significant.

Refusing to engage with Black voters is exactly one of the reasons John McCain lost. I don’t think the movement for equal rights in this country can succeed without greater Black support, and I think that even if it could, the victories would be unstable and divisive. So we need to talk about this. Why was the proportion of Blacks in favor of Prop 8 greater? What can be done about that? Are there things that LGBT-rights supporters need to do to overcome the greater resistance? Are there things that supporters of specifically non-Black races (primarily White) need to do? Does the approach need to be any different than the approach toward persuading people of other races/ethnicities?

Savage’s screed is useless. Emotionally cathartic for him, but detrimental toward the effort to end the very bigotry that is angering him in the first place. Nonetheless, there is a hurdle here, and I think ignoring it or looking away is just going to lead us to run smack into it and fall over in a clumsy mess.

Why did Blacks vote in greater proportions for Prop 8? How do LGBT-rights need to alter their strategy to be more persuasive? I think those two issues ARE worth discussing (as has happened in this comment thread already, as per CEDwards, Renee, and Latoya).

And @Latoya, I would be very interested in that post, and I look forward to it.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:25 pm ¶
deathblossom wrote:

I’m so sick of Prop8. On one hand, I am extremely angry at the unapologetic hate being smugly thrown in our faces by Prop8’s supporters about how “majority won, nanana, you can’t just go around changing things”(along with their audacity to say they have “compassion for us” and “hope we can move forward together”), but I can hardly go anywhere to commiserate among my fellow LBGTQ’s because it has all dissolved into “blacks are responsible for this” coupled with racial stereotypes and it’s sad and disgusting. I don’t reject discussions about homophobia in the black community, but I’m sick of it being blamed on us being alien, unfathomable blacks who lack empathy. I mean, the way people like Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan keep mentioning it’s as if they don’t realize by painting it as the black community against the LGBT community that they are highlighting the lack of diversity in the LBGT community with how easily they can separate the two.

Also, the painting of it as the entire “black” community? No one blames the “white” community. The blame the “religious” white community. Well, there’s a “religious” black community, too, and they voted for this crap, but then that would require believing that Not All Black People Are The Same and I suppose that will never happen.

On the other hand, I know how hard it is reaching out to people who feel no qualms shoving hate into their faces. I have absolutely no idea how to deal with my own family, with a mother than has no problem criticizing boyish dressed women as “dykes” and an aunt that is still praying my lesbian cousin will one day learn to love the penis, but I honestly believe that the lack of LBGTQ outreach to people of color is not because they think we are a homophobic bastion of lost causes, but that like many straight white people, they just don’t know how to talk to “ethnic” people.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:32 pm ¶
Cara wrote:

If Prop 8 was about civil unions… all the perks of marriage without the religious implications… then sure, fine.

I’m an atheist. I’m straight. I’m married. The government allowed me to be. I didn’t have to get marred in a church. Am I not really married? Should I not be allowed to be married? Would you vote to take the right from me and only give me a civil union because it doesn’t have religious implications? And if you wouldn’t vote to also take my rights away, how the hell can you use the above argument to justify the fact that you voted to take the rights of same-sex couples away? Because that’s what you did.

Whatever. I’m fucking pissed about Prop 8 and every single person who voted in its favor. Every. Single. One of them.

And yes, Dan Savage is being a major asshole here, too, and it especially pisses me off because I really like Dan Savage. On the other hand, while I don’t think it’s right for him to take out his anger racially at all, and while I agree that black voters don’t owe any of us who voted for Obama anything, I also understand that he’s likely in a hell of a lot of pain right now about the fact that he as a married gay man has yet again been marked as a lesser citizen who shouldn’t even be allowed to exist. But he should be taking it out on all voters equally. Because they all deserve it equally.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:42 pm ¶
Atena wrote:

@ m dot – Is there a convincing reason to institutionalize the denial of marriage to anyone who can find a cultural or religious agent who will sanction their marriage?

I think the issue of why gays and lesbians want marriage is largely irrelevant. People want to get married for personal reasons. Any marriage recognized by the state is recognized for its civil union aspects, not its religious or cultural aspects.

Regarding Dan Savage, I think this is a letter he should have written for catharsis’ sake and then deleted, or at least sent to the draft folder for further review. He’s obviously upset, but the momentum of this particular foot-in-mouth action will make dislodging said foot more difficult that he may have anticipated.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:43 pm ¶
Barbara wrote:

What really bothers me is that I was not particularly surprised when Prop 8 was voted for. Where was Dan Savage when California passed 187 or 209?

These propositions, once they end up on the California ballot, tend to go the way of the conservative. Affirmative Action is gone – due to proposition, illegal immigrants are denied services, and now no gay marriage.

I’m a Cali native who lives in the midwest and I was not surprised given how proposition voting has been going.

That said, I call bullshit for blaming Black folks over this.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:46 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:

To frame Prop. 8 as a black and white issue is incredibly myopic of Mr. Savage. The numbers posted by CNN show there’s plenty of “blame” to go around.

Black voters made up only 10 percent of an already small voting population. Latinos, as it turns out, make up 18 percent, almost double that, and we voted 53-47 in favor of the proposition. Does that make us “more liable”? (Full disclosure: yours truly voted No on 8.)

Maybe we should get pissed at California’s senior voters: the CNN exit polls show that 61 percent of all voters 65 and over were Pro-8.

Maybe our ire is better reserved for the Utah-based Mormon-affiliated donors who bought promotional time for the Yes on 8 movement. Perhaps they were afraid of gay couples stampeding through their state like so many Mongol hordes on the way to the chapel?

Or maybe we should be angry that not enough voted at all on the issue. There are more than 23 million eligible voters in CA (about 17 million registered), yet Prop. 8 passed with a total of 5 million votes. That’s less than 25% approval. So, somewhere in our fair state, somebody who is ostensibly against Prop 8 didn’t put their ballot where their mouth is. What I’d like to know is, why?

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:53 pm ¶
Cynthia wrote:

My latest Facebook status says something along the lines of : I thought people in California were enlightened. Guess not.

In any case, I don’t understand why people bring religion into this. There are also those who believe that churches would be forced to marry gay people. Wrong. Catholic churches, for example, have the right to refuse to marry divorced couples, interfaith couples, etc…

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 2:57 pm ¶
Brian wrote:

@m dot, you simultaneously made a bad argument and then dismantled that argument in the same post…

you say you don’t see why gays even want to get married, and even straight people don’t (which is wrong) but then you end by saying the power of words should never be underestimated. Marriage is a word and it means something to a lot of people. The difference between being able to tell someone you are married and telling them that you have a life partner is a huge difference. You said so yourself.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:03 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

As others have pointed out, even though 70 percent of the Blacks voting in CA voted yes for this horrible law that’s still a small percentage of the TOTAL vote. Most POCs I know (myself included) were HORRIFIED when this passed. I think the key thing here is that he’s more hurt than anything because he simply expected more, but rather than just saying that and asking WHY they voted the way they did, he implied that Black people in general are a bunch of homophobes and that’s horrible.

Contrary to what Dan says, there’s more than “just a handful” of racists in the gay community. I go to a lot of Gay Pride events in support of LGBT friends and relatives and over the years I’ve noticed a splintering of sorts. 15 years ago there was one huge Gay Pride bash. This year, I went to the main Gay Pride event, a Black Gay Pride AND a Latino Pride. Both groups stated that often they felt like they weren’t included in the gay community at large, so they just started doing their own thing.

Whether it’s for religious reasons or not homophobia in the Black community definitely is something that must be addressed.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:10 pm ¶
bea wrote:

From my perspective, the implications of this article are complicated.

I can see why many people commenting on this feel Savage is being racist by interpreting the statistics from a racial rather than religious perspective.

However, I think he makes a very important point.

We all need to stick together in the fight against bigotry, no matter what our religious background is. I would think people who have suffered at the hands of racial bigotry would not turn the other cheek or condone it in another form- homophobia.

Religion has been used by people throughout history to justify bigotry and intolerance.

@m.dot: The word marriage is a legal term with legal implications. It also has emotional and religious connotations for both gays, religious people and hetero-secular people like myself. As for the religious connotations of the word- well, if gays want to be included in the religious definition of marriage, they would would be waging this battle in churches and other religious institutions.

As an issue being voted upon and argued in court, it is being broached in the legal and social realm; a realm that should transcend all of the various religious opinions in our nation. This is an issue of civil liberties, not religious opinion.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:10 pm ¶
M wrote:

@m_dot and others –

I think that the proponents of “gay marriage” need to be more clear. The thing is, gays can already get married in the eyes of God. That’s not the problem. I know many devoutly religious gays whose churches will perform gay marriage ceremonies. We may not be able to get married in all churches, or even your church, but that’s fine. Churches can discriminate about who they will marry all they want. They do already, and it’s perfectly legal.

The problem is getting married in the eyes of the state. And here, we’re supposed to have freedom of/from religion. The idea that a majority of voters can force their version of religion on others is ludicrous.

I’m all for changing the terminology. If it’s in a church, it’s a marriage. If it’s in city hall, it’s a civil union. This applies for every couple, gay or straight. All gays want is the same legal binding contract that straight people are able to enter into. That’s all the gays were asking for. I think in all the anti-Prop 8 propaganda, the message was lost.

Anyways, the core of the problem is that anti-gay sentiment is usually, but not necessarily, tied up in religious intolerance. If minorities are generally more religious, well, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s not the problem. It’s important to recognize that the connection here is religion – not race.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:14 pm ¶
livininphilly wrote:

You know I really liked Dan Savage… but now I just can’t read him. As a black lesbian this really really disheartens me. I’m so very tired of having to fragment myself and my identity which is what this entire election has forced me to do. For Savage to denounce black people for voting against prop 8 in large numbers silences the voices of black gay LGBT people. Black homophobic people aren’t the enemy, homophobia is. Anyone can be homophobic and its not limited to any one race. This article is the type of bull shit inflammatory rhetoric that brings out racism w/in the LGBT community. It’s there and Savage is showing his with this piece.
Furthermore what about those gay people who don’t even support marriage? Some gay people may have voted against prop 8. I personally don’t believe that gay people should be fighting to get the right to be married, and yes I am gay. I wouldn’t vote against it though. I’m just saying the institution in this country that marriage is is completely fucked up. I would like states recognition and to get the benefits but thats about it b/c no person will ever tell me that what I share with another human being isn’t sacred and special. I don’t need validation but I do need protection for my spouse and family. If they want to call it something else, i’m ok with that too as long as I get the full benefits. It’s a damn shame how all of the resources and activism that the gay community has at it’s disposal is going towards fighting for this and not going to fighting against HIV/AIDS which is still a very, very big concern especially among young MSM of color.
It really does suck to lose prop 8 but blaming black folks is only going to further alienate the black community from your cause. Yes this was a historic presidential contest, yes we made a lot of gains but when 4 states ban gay marriage and 1 state bans affirmative action then we know that we have a long way to go and it will do us no good to play the blame game right now.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:15 pm ¶
Kandi Henry wrote:

I was very disappointed to hear about Prop. 8. There are many reasons why it didn’t pass. Not just one demographic was responsible for that. It’s sad. Something needs to be done to undo this injustice. But we have to look at all the people who supported this oppressive proposition. ALL.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:19 pm ¶
Natalie wrote:

I am simultaneously very excited about Obama’s election and sick over not only prop 8 but all the other anti-gay legislation that passed this election.

I think there’s a disconnect that assumes that all people who voted for Obama would be progressive in terms of race, sex, and orientation. Similarly, that people who experience one kind of oppression would feel sensitive and attuned to other kinds.

I think neither of those is true. I think a lot of people who voted for Obama, white and black, are probably still some combination racist, sexist, and homophobic, but nearly everyone was sick of the Bush bullshit of the last eight years. So Obama’s election, by itself, doesn’t really say a lot about the general progress of progressive values in America.

So, I think I understand where Dan Savage is coming from– Obama’s election is touted as this great progressive move, as if American is now something one can feel unmitigated pride in being (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “Now I feel I’m a patriot!” in the past couple days), and there are still huge gaps in equality being pushed under the rug of self aggrandizement. I too feel that the sorrow we should feel about this homophobic legislation is being ignored in our joy over Obama’s election.

The specifics of what Dan said are out of line, not least because these struggles are interconnected, and no one is equal until everyone is. Anti-racism is not something you do to get tit for tat, it’s something you do because it’s right, and it’s good for you too.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:19 pm ¶
RoslynHolcomb wrote:

California is a very strange state, and I say that as a former resident of Alabama. A state where we feel fortunate if a governor manages to serve his term before being indicted.

I’m black, not gay and I’m appalled at the passage of Prop 8. As a former social worker the law in Arkansas leaves me with my mouth open. I have to hope that they have more foster parents available to them than we do in Alabama, because I can’t imagine throwing out perfectly good foster parents otherwise.

But, I digress. First, this is a classic case of divide and conquer. Instead of pointing the finger at the bigoted, overwhelmingly white CLDS who spent $22 million to get this thing to pass, it’s much easier to claim that it’s black people’s fault.

Further, I think the GLBT community itself dropped the ball on this one. I think there was a certain complacency. Certainly, I didn’t hear anything about it until right before the election itself. Where was the uprising against such draconian legislation?

Rather than complain about other groups, why not lay the blame directly where it belongs. The LDS did this, and they are entirely responsible. To claim otherwise is just foolishness of the first order.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:23 pm ¶
leftofemma wrote:

I’m just wondering what level of outreach the No on Prop 8 people had to the black communities in California. It’s not anyone’s fault if there wasn’t a lot of outreach, but it could have made a difference. Maybe they didn’t have the money or a lot of people knocking on doors like Obama did.

I think that a lot of people in the older generation, in addition to pointing towards religion, still think that being gay is a “white people problem”. Like Latoya said, investing in other groups’ struggles would be another post, but I don’t think you can blame one group for selling out another in this issue. It’s just more complex than that.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:24 pm ¶
Jamerican Muslimah wrote:

I am a Black American Muslim who considers myself “pretty religious” and I do not support the ban on gay marriage. As a Black person I remember that it wasn’t so long ago when we couldn’t get married either. After all, where does the tradition of jumping the broom come from?

Aside from that, I agree with the comedian who said that the gay community has every right to be miserable with the rest of us married people, lol.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:28 pm ¶
StarInaPaperCup wrote:

Couldn’t the argument be settled by some basic number-crunching? Black people made up about 6% of the population in California as of two years ago, but I don’t know what percentage of the recent prop 8 voters were black and what statistical influence it had on the outcome.

I have an inkling that it was a significant influence, but I still don’t think that black homophobia has important political consequences for gays as a general group. In my experience, homophobia within the black community most deeply affects (no surprise here) the members of that community – black queers.
Blacks don’t vote Republican, blacks aren’t the ones raising loads of money to take away people’s rights, blacks aren’t the primary promoters of “ex-gay” programs that make the lives of queers miserable. The list goes on.

Admittedly, I’ve experienced more homophobia amongst other black people than I have amongst whites, and I think there’s some truth to the argument that homophobia is a bigger problem in black communities.
However, I also think that it’s primarily the problem of black queers, not of queers as a whole. It’s generally not the place of white people to speculate on the inner workings of the black community.

……………………………………..

“I haven’t yet heard a convincing enough argument for why gays want marriage. ”

@m dot

I’m black and queer; and I’d imagine that “gays want marriage” for the same variety of reasons straight people do. Granting gay people marriage rights infringes on no one; churches who condemn gay marriages wouldn’t be forced to perform them, and no one’s gay marriage has caused the world to implode yet.

Also, I’m curious about which “religious implications” you’re talking about. There are a lot of religious communities in American; which were you implying? Implications of Universal Unitarianism? Reform Judaism? Episcopalianism?

All three of those churches (and others) approve of and perform gay marriages, but I doubt they’re the ones you were referring to. The assumption that the norms of one particular strain of Judeo-Christianity should guide ’semantics’ for the rest of America is blatantly offensive. Quite frankly, the idea reminds me of Eurocentrism in religious form.

To give an example: Many sects of Judaism don’t condone marriages between Jews and non-Jews, and won’t perform these marriages.* Is that a justifiable reason for us not to use the word “marriage” to refer to a Jew-Gentile couple? If a Jewish guy wants to marry a Catholic woman, should we refer to their partnership as a “civil union” instead of a marriage to avoid stepping on people’s toes?

If not, why apply that same sloppy reasoning to gay couples? The fact that a certain religious community disapproves of gay marriage should have no bearing on what relationship gay people can have with other churches or with each other.

*This is actually a great example. It’s perfectly legal for Jews to marry non-Jews, yet rabbis never complain of being forced to perform these marriages, and no one’s ever argued that these marriages violate the sanctity of Jewish marriage. Interesting, that.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:32 pm ¶
Erin Leigh wrote:

Okay:

1) Those of us who live in Seattle have known for a long time what an asshat Dan Savage is. He’s mysoginist and racist, but tries to spin it in such a way that most people don’t see it for what it is. He’s unbelievably rude and belligerent to anyone who disagrees with him.

2) The problem with Serwer’s argument is that it also assumes that there are no black GLBT folks. It again assumes that gay = white and that’s a BIG problem.

3) M.Dot – are you really advocating for “separate but equal”?!?! REALLY?! because that’s what civil unions are. When we call commitment between a man and a woman “marriage”, but we call it “civil union” between two people of a same gender, it’s NOT the same thing and you are smart enough to know it. Civil unions do NOT afford the same rights and recognition.

When your partner is dying in the hospital and you aren’t allowed to see them because you’re not “family”, THEN tell me that it’s the same thing.

It’s about basic human rights and if you can’t see that, I don’t even know what to say.

It absolutely breaks my heart to realize that the people of California think more of farm animals than they do of LGBT people. (And don’t get me wrong, Prop 2 is necessary and important – I would’ve voted for it if I lived in CA.)

It’s a slap in the face, it’s telling people that they are less than and it’s appalling. Always.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:33 pm ¶
Natalie wrote:

M.Dot: I find the argument that doesn’t support gay marriage because ALL marriage is insupportable to be a huge cop out, akin to people who say “I’m not racist, I hate all people equal.”

Well, bully for you, do you think that cleverness absolves you of responsibility toward other people in the real word where marriage as a construct isn’t going anywhere and does mean quite a lot to many many people?

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:42 pm ¶
babybro wrote:

Well count me as part of the 30% of blacks who voted No on prop 8 in California. I disagree with certain aspects of what he said, solely as other people mention the tit for tat perspective. With that said, the number still pinpoint a lot, and that is blacks who have voted for this prop are far more than the majority homophobic. The numbers definitely doesn’t lie so there is no point trying to refute that.

The thing that’s funny is that someone mention it’s more important to consider religion as more of the reason than race. However, there will always be a reason for people to be prejudice towards a group of people. Yet no one provides excuses or reasons when some whites perform racist acts. A white lady will catch hell for holding her purse closely when a young black male walk past, even though she might have been robbed previously before by black males, yet in this aspect, religion negates the excuse that a lot of black people in california are very much homophobic. I don’t know, I just find it hypocritical how some people always defend our brothers and sisters no matter what they do, and yet won’t apply that same mindset or reasoning to our brothers and sisters of a different color.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:51 pm ¶
Michelle wrote:

I live in Southern Cali. I got a flier in my mail box with pictures of Pastor Tony Dockery, Pastor Ed Smith-Zoe, Dr. Phillip Goudeaux and Bishop Donald E. Green, all Black men. Next to each man was a quote in the support of Prop. 8. On the other side of the flier there is a pic of Pres. Obama with Mrs. Obama in the background and there is a quote that says “I’m not in favor of gay marriage…”

Prop 8 passed with a very small margin of victory. I agree that there is plenty of blame to go around, but I do think that this is an opportunity to educate about 70% of Blacks in California about the dangers of bigotry.

I know for a fact that if you go to Faithful Central Church, with a congregation in the thousands, or West Angeles Church (I am a member), the preachers are clear that homosexuality is wrong, wrong, wrong. More than wrong, it is a sin and you will burn in the fires of hell for an eternity. However, we need to take this opportunity to be true Americans. A true American, a true supporter of Democracy and equal rights will be able to hold their view of homosexuality in one hand but also their knowledge of the constitution in the other.

History will judge ANY people who stand against Gay Marriage the same way that history judges Bull Connor, George Wallace and the authors of the ruling in Plessy v Ferguson.

Lastly, I have done the research. Civil Unions are NOT the same thing. And separate but equal institutions were ruled unconstitutional years ago. The issue is that the majority of Black people have aligned themselves with institutions that historically don’t have the best interests of the Black community at heart. Focus on the Family, Knights of Columbus, the Mormons, have supported policies that have eaten away at the heart of the Black community for years. The Black community should never have stood in solidarity with anyone who would seek to discriminate on any basis. Because guess what? Our own best interests are not being served.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 3:53 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

I think the most important issue that needs to be addressed is that unlike the Civil Rights movement, The United House of Gaydom is NOT united. There is way too much splintering going on regarding certain issues, too much “oh, let the White/Black/Latino queers deal with that in their communities; it’s not our problem” when it should be a GROUP effort, and sometimes that mentality comes back to bite you in the ass. From what I’m reading, I didn’t see a lot of group canvassing going on, and while some effort was made in some communities, there were others that was pretty much ignored (ie: Asian communities, older black communities).

Want to know who didn’t ignore those communities? Churches. LDS. All with their own agenda to push.

There’s plenty of blame to go around here.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 4:15 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@babybro –

I am not seeing in the comments where people are using religion as an excuse for bigotry. In my summation, a lot of people are chafing at the charge of black homophobia being an issue, as if all blacks are inclined to think one way. I’m currently debating looking for a demographic breakdown of other states, because it could literally just be that particular black voting block in California.

However, religion is one of those things that makes reason difficult to argue, particularly if you’re coming from different faiths or perspectives. Some people (like the white guy who drives the no homo van around Capital Hill about once a month) really do believe that the scripture bans homosexuality. I’ve found that other people who are Christians can argue scripture with scripture, but people can be really wrongheaded in how they interpret religious texts.

Moreover, religion is a really strong block. While I have been able to successfully advocate for gay marriage among people who are a-religious/casually religious, people with a very particular brand of faith seem to be resistant to all messages to the contrary.

Speaking for myself, I prefer to argue along the lines of Constitution, as any sort of ban on gay marriage (based on religious principles) is violating the first amendment. And, I’ll need to dig up the link, but I believe SCOTUS will back that. And a state constitution needs to take their cues from the federal one. It also gets into a lot of fun discussions about religious persecution, but that’s for another time.

Either way, religion is being brought up not to excuse the behavior, but to better diagnose a strategy for fighting these things in the future. I’m not sure a generalized discussion about “black homophobia” is going to have the same effect as a targeted focus on the groups who are more likely to back those kinds of amendments – and black is a bit too broad of a designation.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 4:18 pm ¶
Atena wrote:

Okay – this is the dangerous thing about statistics.

There is a difference between “70% of blacks in California” and 70% if the African Americans who voted on the proposition. The latter is a smaller number. I’m not saying it’s an irrelevant number, but it is a different number. Don’t use them interchangeably.

And for the record, I am truly disappointed about the sickening passing of Prop. 8 because I think it sets a dangerous precedent and is a cultural backslide. I am a newly religious black feminist who got married to a man because we wanted to and we could. There’s nothing special about me that differentiates me from my queer friends. If they want to get married (with all of the conflict and historical baggage that it entails), they should be able to.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 4:24 pm ¶
Enrique wrote:

[Mod Note - See comment moderation policy. - LDP]

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 4:25 pm ¶
Marco wrote:

I find it the way we’ve been approaching the Prop 8 debacle problematic. The way folks have been discussing this issues is as if Black folks and the LGBTQI community are inherently separate.

That is, we endow LGBTQ issues with a default whiteness and issues concerning Black people with a default heteronormativity. This serves to obscure Black people who are within LGBTQ community, and vice versa.

I was disturbed when I recently heard a brother remark, “the gay people even have their own neighborhood in the city” as if Black people aren’t gay.

It’s more of a technical issue but I feel a very important one.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 4:41 pm ¶
Cara wrote:

why did he focus on “race”….”religion” is the issue; and ppl of color are devoughtly religious!!

what…so wht gays voted fro OBAMA and therefore all blks owe gays a vote against prop 8? I don’t understand the logic….

I was completely against Prop 8!!! And I voiced my opinion as often as I could. I don’t appreciate how quick DS was to jump to the conclusion that Blks are the culprets here.

I voted for Obama b/c he was the most qualified candidate – not b/c he was blk. Therefore ppl have the right to vote for or agains a proposition depending on their personal beliefs – no matter how f’d up those beliefs are!

(I don’t like defending a side I don’t agree with – but this is the USA abd ppl have a right to express their opinions and vote the way the choose to. Nothing is in the pocket here and it shouldn’t have been assumed so.)

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 4:54 pm ¶
Corey S. wrote:

If people are angry about the black community voting for prop 8 then they should talk to the black community.

The HRC does not focus it’s efforts on the black community. If they would go and talk to the pastors and the reverends, some headway might be made. It will, indeed, take a long time, but it is possible. The gay community has to become actively involved with the black community. And you must avoid anger at all costs.

To sit and point and be angry will do absolutely nothing.

You have to try to talk to people who do not want to talk to you. Raging in Hollywood and West Hollywood will do nothing. Talking percentages does nothing. Having a conversation might.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 5:26 pm ¶
Marge Twain wrote:

I disagree with those who claim Dan Savage should only talk about the religious role in opposition to gay marriage and not acknowledge the role of race. He doesn’t make a generalization about all black people, and it’s a real thing that 70% of black voters voted to send us back to separate but equal institutions. He doesn’t lay all the blame on black folks, he says, rightly, that 70% of those who voted are not being allies.

Wanda Sykes said something similar on the Ellen show. She said that a lot of black folks don’t make the connection between racial bigotry and homophobia. She said that despite what black people have been through, too many choose not to see the parallel discrimination and that’s something they need confront. Is it okay when she says it?

I do get the defensiveness. My instinct is to bristle when non-Indians bring up things like bride-burning, skin color and caste issues in India, but I don’t deny that those things are true and that the deep religious and cultural roots of misogyny and classism in Indian society prevents a large part of our community from seeing these as problems. Indians of all classes and genders unite against racism and religious bigotry and that actually makes it harder to see how they are perpetuating other oppressions.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 5:37 pm ¶
La Macha wrote:

you know, I think debating whether or not the latino/black community has homophobic tendencies is beside the point. Yes, they do. We do. It’s as simple as that. Every community under the sun has homophobic tendencies.

The problem comes in organizing. One of the articles I read about this stated that a latin@ organizing in her community had to print off her own signs/pamphlets (http://vivirlatino.com/2008/11/06/more-prop-8-black-and-latino-blaming.php) because the national gay organizations working against the proposition didn’t even have any signs in Spanish or Vietnamese.

The mainstream gay/LGBT orgs do not do much of anything at all to pay attention to or otherwise integrate themselves into communities of color. They’ve blatantly ignored queers of color for decades, hence the need that many queers of color have felt to form their own organizations. And many of those organizations are dealing with horrible problems like police brutality, chronic homelessness, and sexual violence and simply don’t have the time or the resources to put into organizing for marriage rights.

I think rather than blaming all The Blacks or The Latin@s for not ’standing by us’ when ‘we stand by you,’ it’s time for mainstream gay/LGBT orgs to look inward and consider how their abysmal record on racism manifested itself in this election (along with the elections in Arizona and Florida).

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 5:44 pm ¶
RainaWeather wrote:

If Dan Savage weren’t gay himself, he probably would have supported prop 8. He already hates everyone else. The only thing stopping him from being a full on homophobe is that he knows what homophobia feels like.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 5:47 pm ¶
Safiya Outlines wrote:

This just makes me so glad that in the U.K, the issue of gay marriage was purely a parliamentary matter of law, rather then something for people’s consciences.

E.g:
1) Being gay is not illegal in the U.K (as long as you are above the age of consent which is 16 for everyone).
2)The right to marry/ form a legally recognised partnership is a fundamental human right.
3)There is no legal reason why gay people should not enjoy this right.

= The Civil Partnerships Act 2004 and gay people are able to enter into civil partnerships which offer the exact same legal benefits as marriage (including immigration rights).

This is probably what will end up happening in the U.S anyway.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 5:50 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:

Yeah, finding out about prop 8 after the Obama victory was a real buzz kill. I’m always dissappointed when marginalized groups can’t empathize with each other. However, trying to discuss gay marriage with a really religious person never got me anywhere. Unless God comes down from heaven and tells the person otherwise, he or she will not see a gay person as just a person who should have the same rights as they do. There’s always this hellfire and damnation thing that permeated how gay people are perceived.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 5:57 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

I see a lot of oppression olympics going on here, under the surface.

Nobody should be discriminated against, period. The fact that black people who voted on the proposition did so overwhelmingly in favor is not insignificant, because by any definition it was a statistically relevant sample. That is, if i took a poll with hundreds of thousands of participants, you’d all think it was pretty good. So it does say something about the attitudes of the AA electorate in California, like it or not. Just like the fact that Obama lost the white vote in Mississippi says something about the white people there.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Proposition 8 passed with 5.3 million votes to 4.8 million.

Let’s assume 6-7% of the electorate was black. (It was actually probably slightly higher).

That means of about 10.1 million votes you get about 600,000-700,000 black voters. If 70% vote yes that’s 420,000-490,000 people who voted for it.

If we assume the higher end of the vote (7%) and assume that in an alternate universe black people split 50-50 you would lose about 140,000 yes votes. That brings the total to 5.15 million yes and 4.95 million no votes.

Basically, what it means is black folks were a big part of the margin of victory, but not all of it.

The Latino vote also played a part in putting it over the top. Assuming a 60-40 split and a percentage of the vote around 15% (probably low) then out of 10.1 million votes you have 1.5 million Latino voters, 900,000 of whom voted yes.

Let’s assume that both black and Latino voters split 50-50. 150,000 black votes go to the no column, and 150,000 latin votes join them. That puts the yes vote down to 5.0 million and the no vote up to 5.1 million.

So while neither group is “to blame” for this, they both did make up a sizeable portion of the margin of victory and the gop did a good job in targeting them (which they admit they did).

Simply put there is religiously based homophobia in the black and latin communities, period. All the dancing around won’t change that.

There is a strongly conservative (not necessarily in the political sense) streak in the both groups, as evidenced by the kinds of churches they are usually in. it is one reason that the GOP “base” was doing a lot of outreach for a while to black and latino churches.

Before anyone jumps on me, I am not saying Dan Savage is right. Nor am I approaching it in a tit-for-tat fashion. I am saying that a heavily religious group of historically oppressed minorities helped put a discriminatory measure over the top. Not because they are evil or whatever, just because in a relatively conservative religious environment that kind of stuff is going to happen. But this shouldn’t surprise anybody.

After all, more people in West Virginia identify as Democrats than Republicans, but they didn’t vote for Kerry, or Obama. Obama’s being black probably didn’t help, but something tells me there’s more than just race going on here, since Iowa and New Hampshire are whiter than most states and went for Obama in a big way.

In similar fashion, the reasons people voted for Obama were related to race, but that wasn’t the whole story, either.

And lest anyone get the wrong idea, the huge evangelical presence in the drive to pass this thing as well as the LDS says to me that we have to tell these two groups, they can do what they want, but going after other people is not cool.

White evangelicals make me a lot madder than Dan Savage is at the way the vote broke down, since more than one of those churches has decided to “pal around” (in Palin-speak) with white supremacists who want me, and probably everyone who reads this blog dead.

The only solution I can come up with is to make sure that LGBT groups do the necessary outreach, and don’t get caught flat-footed again (the LDS has been working this thing for a year or more, the LGBT section of the ACLU hasn’t). I think the 50-50 split is achievable, but you need to connect the struggles of gay people to those of PoCs in a deeper way. I know loads of black folks who think “white” when they think “gay” and just like their white counterparts think “gay” means “what I see at a gay pride event in San Fran.”

Yeah, people shouldn’t focus on that. People shouldn’t eat McD’s food either. Blame pop culture and the way every news channel always pulls out stock footage of the guy in bondage gear or some crazy outfit.

—————-
(Understand, the Bible is clear as anything about gay people — it says in both Deuteronomy and Leviticus that you die. Period. So what? The Bible also says if a man rapes a woman he gets to marry her [Deuteronomy again] and that slaves should obey [OT and NT both] and that women are unclean to enter the temple for 14 days after giving birth. What the Bible says in this sense isn’t terribly relevant, but let’s not kid ourselves about it).

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 6:03 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

Exactly, Corey. What upsets me the most is that while he’s entitled to be upset, he did NOT address this in a matter in a way that would be conductive. If he had just stated that he was angry and upset by the ruling and that so many minorities voted for it and opened the floor up as to WHY, he could have actually gotten some really good dialogue going that would had been a nice start to helping his own community get more united.

Instead, he put people on the defensive, implied that gay votes for Obama were strictly tit for tat, and splintered his own community even more. This is really making my head hurt.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 6:18 pm ¶
kg178 wrote:

Dan, I’m a straight married A-American in Chicago and I feel your pain. I take one exception with you equating your struggle for gay marriage with African-Americans struggle for equal rights. In my mind, the two are not equal.

I did pay attention to the results of Prop8, wondering how I would have voted. Still not sure. I don’t believe in a “god” so that’s not my issue, as it would be for my mother, brother most African Americans. My belief is that the definition of marriage should be one that could naturally produce offspring. Two males or two females can not do that, and that would have been my hesitency to vote for gay marriage. I’m all for gays having the same legally status as married people, I just have an issue with the definition. But my daughters think differently, so maybe with time and continued effort, things will work in your favor.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 6:38 pm ¶
Winn wrote:

I am a black, bisexual woman who is appalled that Prop 8 passed. Had I lived in California, I would have done everything within my power to agitate against passage of this discriminatory legislation. I understand the rage and shock that many in the GLBTQ community who are in support of the extension of marriage rights (as a couple of people have pointed out, not all in the community are supporters of gay marriage), not just in California but nationally, must be feeling now. But as many prior commenters have pointed out, blame for the passage of this legislation cannot be placed on the small pool of California’s overall POC population who were eligible and registered to vote, and then actually did so. As Atena pointed out, this is either a misunderstanding or willful distortion of statistics.

One thing missing in this discussion may be the larger gulf between the normed “white” gay community and the stereotyped “black” community. Namely, the conflation of the struggle for gay rights with the struggle for civil rights, and the “appropriation” (you can argue over the use of that word, but many people have wielded it so it is not my original idea) of tactics, strategies and symbols of the civil rights movement by the gay rights movement. Many blacks who might otherwise be more able to see solidarity in shared oppression instead see whites reaping the benefits of hard work done by blacks, as has occurred in many other liberation movements modeled on civil rights (I am aware of the antecedents of the civil rights movement in the independence movement of India and other freedom movements, but I don’t think the influence of the American Civil Rights Movement on later liberation movements, especially in the US, can be denied). When many people of many racial backgrounds still believe that homosexuality is a choice (even the continued use by some of the term ’sexual preference’ instead of ’sexual orientation’ suggests this idea is still entrenched even for many who consider themselves progressive), it is easier to understand why some in the black community would resent the linkage between a movement to free them from segregation, discrimination, denial of opportunity, and even tacitly approved domestic terrorism with a movement of people they may see as making a “lifestyle choice”, especially one that many of them consider to be a serious sin. It is too easy to be dismissive of religious arguments, and too easy to ignore the very real historical, cultural and political reasons why the heterosexual black community might not feel any particular affiliation with the larger gay community, especially when that community is often presented by the media as largely male, affluent, and almost exclusively white.

This is why the outreach argument is so important. This is not about that term I hate so much: Oppression Olympics. It is about education, finding common ground and providing historical perspective, all to promote mutual understanding and support. Meetings between GLBTQ organizations and black churches, community organizations and advocacy groups should be encouraged. Blacks should speak up in their own communities against discrimination and homophobia, just as whites in the GLBTQ community need to address racism and economic disparities. Conversation needs to occur, not blaming and recrimination. These conversations will be necessary to strip away the veneer of privilege that currently mars communication between the two communities and continues to marginalize and silence the voices of GLBTQs of color.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 6:42 pm ¶
em wrote:

i think someone else from seattle mentioned that dan savage has major fucktard moments. this is one of them. my personal dan savage moment of clarity was when he came out with a front page article in the stranger supporting the war in iraq. it was in this moment that i saw him for the political hack that he is.

furthermore, dan savage represents what i view as a very self-interested affiliation with social progressiveness on the part of MANY affluent and white people in the GLBT community. not all, but many. it kinda drove me crazy when my dear friend and roommate of three years wouldn’t pay any attention to social justice issues unless it related to the GLBTC.

as i’m reading through all the comments i think i’m starting to lean toward the following conclusions. you could surely argue that while SOME of the people who voted against the ban are religious, MOST of the people who voted for it are religious.

and again, the intersectionality of social justice movements is really rearing its head here. this was a debacle of epic demographic proportions. a demographic clusterfuck, if you will. and maybe the best way to move forward is to take a closer look at how to build alliances with others in the movement.

i too, look forward to that post you hinted at, Latoya.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 6:49 pm ¶
Charity wrote:

My belief is that the definition of marriage should be one that could naturally produce offspring.

So, if my husband has a vasectomy, should our marriage be dissolved? And thanks to some pretty nasty health problems several years ago, I may very well be sterile. (Certainly it would be a very bad idea for me to try to become pregnant, so functionally, I might as well be.) Does that mean I can’t be married?

As for Dan Savage — as another Seattle resident, I want to chime in on the general opinion that he’s an asshat. He’s misogynistic, racist, and very weird about fat. He has a long history of biphobia, too, maybe rooted in his early personal experiences. What gets me most about Dan is that he doesn’t seem to be able or willing to think coherently. At all. I remember his coming to speak to my college once and, when challenged on his obvious biphobia (which, to his credit, he has managed to tone down in the last ten years) he came up with this big sneering speech about how he loved “real bisexuals” and could, apparently, pick them out of a crowd of people who merely openly identify as bisexual, those being apparently the scum of the earth. Not forty-five seconds later he was yammering on with some kind of half-baked Theory-influenced bafflegab about how sexual orientation was a social construct without “real reality”. (Hard to forget a phrase like that.) Uh, Dan, pick one. Em has it: “hack” is exactly the right word.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 7:28 pm ¶
Prometheus wrote:

I don’t think Dan Savage is being bigoted at all. And contrary to some of the opinions listed here, I don’t think he’s intending to blame African Americans for the passing of Prop 8 particularly. He is simply pointing out a real stance that many of us have witnessed from spending time with our friends and family. Homophobia is a very real and troubling problem in the African American community as well as other communities of color, and I don’t think that is a generalization at all. Furthemore, we ALL have prejudice. We are not immune to the amount of heternormativity that exists in our (US) culture. Just because you believe in gay marriage (or civil unions for that matter) doesn’t mean you’re not homophobic. I’m not hating, I’m just saying.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 7:29 pm ¶
Lauren O wrote:

My belief is that the definition of marriage should be one that could naturally produce offspring.

So infertile people shouldn’t be allowed to get married? People past the age of childbearing shouldn’t be allowed to get married? If I got in a car accident or got a disease that rendered me unable to have children, would you honestly tell me that I have no right to marry the man I love?

I don’t plan on having children as it is. Should I be barred from getting married? Or should I be able to get married even though I don’t want kids, while gay people who do want kids shouldn’t be allowed to? Because that’s just completely illogical.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 7:41 pm ¶
Casual Observer wrote:

How did the finger pointing come to us?? Once again Blacks being blamed for something. I could have SWORN that the MORMONS were the ones who conceived of and funded this proposition, yet it is the Black and Brown people who get blamed??? This is crap. Why don’t I hear about how up to 98% of Mormons were sending in large amounts of money for funding? Booooooo

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 8:12 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

http://www.youtube.co/watch?v=9_tblWCegZc

Many of you have probably seen this Rinku Sen video but I thought I’d repost it in case anyone wants to send it to white gay friends like I did.

Dan Savage exemplifies for me [as does Andrew Sullivan] everything that is wrong with white gay men [and white lesbians too but we don't run the gayborhoods]. How can you decide not to believe racism is a problem among white gays just because some black people are homophobic? What kind of logic is that?
Clearly he’s never met queers of color, and its not a surprise that they wouldn’t want to hang out with the likes of him.
And I wish I knew of a better way to talk to my fellow white queers about homophobic people of color we encounter, but they keep lapping this kind of shit up as if solidarity only exists to be traded, never shared out of respect for humanity.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 8:16 pm ¶
Angel wrote:

kg178

Would you suggest that individuals pass a fertility test before being allowed to marry, since you think only those who can naturally reproduce should be married?

I know it’s an old argument, but like 20% of married people need assistance in that regard, they cannot reproduce “naturally.”

Which reminds me how disgusting the ban on gay adoption is.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 8:47 pm ¶
wanderlust wrote:

I live in California and I have debated with my Yes on 8 friends for endless hours. It all comes down to their religious beliefs. They do not see it as discrimination whatsoever. My friends are of color and yet they do not see the struggle of equality. I am Asian American and my mom who is in her 60’s disagrees with Prop 8 and her argument is that it is not fair to deny a certain group of people rights.

The bottomline for me is that it is really hard to “educate” my Yes on 8 friends on the issue because it will always come down to religion and whatever I say will never convince them that it is okay for gays to get married. In their eyes, marriage is between a man and a woman.

Regarding kg178:
What if two straight people infertile? Are they allowed to get married since they will not be able to naturally reproduce?

I think the state should grant all citizens civil unions. The church or any other religious institutions can call these civil unions marriages if they like and can deny gays to be married in their church if they like. They are already denying some people already.

Bottomline is that I think that the church/religious people should have no say in how the state views marriage. Marriage afterall is a contract between two consenting adults. LGBTQ individuls all want the same rights that are granted to straight married couples.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 8:48 pm ¶
space wrote:

I think it’s inaccurate to blame the blacks for this one, because, although 70% of blacks vs. 49% of whites voted to ban gay marriage, 59% of the people who voted to ban gay marriage were white. Whites could have beaten it with firm support of gay marriage just from their own ranks, but no, they were divided on the issue.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 8:54 pm ¶
Antonio wrote:

I’m beyond angry at the way Dan Savage reacted. As a gay black man, I’ve gotta deal with rampant homophobia in my family anyway and then to turn around and listen to his bullshit pisses me off. I can already think of a few friends I’m going to avoid for the sake of not blowing my top if Prop 8 comes up. Here’s an interesting take on black homophobia:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8051

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 8:55 pm ¶
Cara wrote:

My belief is that the definition of marriage should be one that could naturally produce offspring.

Where the hell do you get that idea from?

Again . . . I’m straight. And I’m married. And my husband and I are not having kids. So, should we not be able to be married? Or is the fact that I have a vagina and he has a penis enough? Because that is in fact what your argument comes down to. “I believe that a marriage should be between someone with a penis and a vagina.” And for that matter, what about infertile people? Infertile people can’t naturally produce offspring. So is it about the reproductive choice? The reproductive capacity? Or the genitals themselves? Because you kind of suggest all three, and they’re not the same thing.

Really, I’m curious in a really perverse way where the hell people get this shit. And I’ll tell you that on a purely self-centered level, I’m really sick of listening to people define my marriage when explaining how the would-be marriages of gay people aren’t as good as it. Because my marriage never is what same-sex marriage opponents say it is. Ever. Which leads me to believe that they a.) think I shouldn’t be married either, b.) don’t care about the experiences or opinions of anyone but themselves, regardless of sexuality, or c.) will just say anything they can think of to justify why gay people aren’t as good as them.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 9:19 pm ¶
Michelle wrote:

Marge, preach sista!

The outreach is so important. You could go to Black pastors and build a strong argument for how gay marriage laws are in the best interest of Black Americans. You could make the connections. You could do many things to build an alliance amongst likely voters.

So, what next? Cause this heinous piece of so called legislation has to go, ala Bush!

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 9:43 pm ¶
Erin Leigh wrote:

@kg178: you said “My belief is that the definition of marriage should be one that could naturally produce offspring. ”

So…a straight elderly couple should not be able to marry? A straight couple who are infertile should not be able to marry? A straight couple who choose not to have children should not be able to marry? What about straight couples that choose to adopt only?

With all due respect, I think you need to examine your logic and your heart on this a little more.

@La Macha – hear, hear!!!

@Kaonashi – you expect too much of Dan Savage. Like I said earlier in the thread, this is how he operates. I’ve had email exchanges with him wherein I respectfully voiced opposition to something he had said or questioned his opinion and he literally wrote back calling me names and telling me to f*** off. It infuriates me to no end that many people will assume that he is the voice of queer america.

There’s so much work to be done and honestly, I think most of it rests on the shoulders of white people. Too often, we refuse to examine and acknowledge our racism and privelege. We refuse to see that queer POC will have a different, entirely valid view/experience of being queer. We refuse to understand WHY more POC are not involved in the mainstream queer movements (i.e. “i was having a party and i opened my door – why didn’t they come in?”).

It’s worse than naive, it’s deliberate ignorance (deliberate because everyone knows in their hearts that working on racism and privelege is hard and scary work and they’d rather just not. ). The situation won’t get better until more white folks get to work on it.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 10:18 pm ¶
Pheagan wrote:

I agree with those who say religion has more to do with the passage of Pro 8 than race, and I fundamentally believe that oppression olympics like Dan Savage is advocating does way more damage than good.

“I’m dissapointed by the passage of Prop 8, but, I’m reconciled to the fact that people have a right to exercise their vote as they see fit.”

Mike, I have to disagree with you on this. If Proposition 8 was a proposition prohibiting interracial marriage would you be reconciled? Personally, shit like proposition 8 is why I don’t believe in democracy. I believe in liberal democracy only. I believe people should have rights that no vote or majority opinion can take away. And we do supposedly have a liberal democracy– we can’t vote away the Constitution. I remember learning in 8th grade that slavery in many states was perpetuated by a democratic vote, and that is the day that my faith in democracy alone died. There are certain things that have to be guaranteed by ethics, not by majority opinion.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 10:21 pm ¶
kerrita k wrote:

wow! 20 comments since i snuck read this in class and since i got to my car! if oppression led to social liberalism – the world would be a different place, wouldn’t it? and i am offended, as always with dan savage, to think that he voted for obama to do me as an african american “a large.” while i am glad such white liberalism got him elected – there is no advancement or commingling of multiple social agendas because the power differential inherent in such hubris still goes unexplored. and also speaks to a failure of coalition – like the kind he expects in return from black folks!…

-kerrita k.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 10:32 pm ¶
Orville wrote:

Dan Savage is a racist plain and simple he is also a fucking idiot. For one thing, blacks are NOT a monolithic group. Yes, there is homophobia in the black community just like there is homophobia in EVERY community. No Dan Savage is one again doing what some white gays do very well trying to demonize the black race for not supporting gay rights. However, when have white gays supported BLACKS? When have white gay supported black gays and lesbians? How about NEVER.

Is there homophobia in the black community in the USA of course there is. However, blacks in America are still not the law makers that role is where WHITES are in the power gay and straight.

Why doesn’t Dan Savage use his ink to complain about the homophobia in WHITE CULTURE. Why doesn’t he do that? Oops I forgot that’s not his agenda his agenda is to demonize blacks. However, Dan Savage isn’t going to get the support of black heterosexuals because they just see him as another WHITE MALE. And that’s what white gays don’t get some blacks do not view white gays as a “minority group” they view them as part of the WHITE MAJORITY.
It is interesting that Savage decides to attack African Americans while not looking into his own backyard at the racism and of white gays and straights. I am tired of these white gay racists such as Dan Savage suddenly wanting to attack black people. If Dan Savage wants blacks to deal with homophobia it is time for white gays to acknowledge their racism and white skin privilege.
I am an openly gay black man and I have serious problems with Dan Savage’s argument. For one thing although the USA has their first black president whites still are in the power structure. When are white gays like Dan Savage going to deal with the serious racism in the white gay community against black gays and lesbians and heterosexuals? When are white gays like Dan Savage going to acknowledge their white skin privilege? Where was Dan Savage and the white gay organization GLAAD when the racist white gay male comedian Shirley Q Liquor was blazing a trail across the USA?

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 10:52 pm ¶
Orville wrote:

The majority of the people in California that voted against gay marriage were drum roll please….WHITE PEOPLE. So why doesn`t Dan Savage complain about that, Dan Savage is full of shit.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 10:56 pm ¶
Asada wrote:

I’m surprised by the passing of gay marriage and THEN the immediate passing of Prop 8.

It doesnt make any sense! Why did it pass in the first place? And you cant just say “hard working GLBT people”?

I feel, some politicians in California were using this block of people to get elected. What we dont seem to be covering is who was responsible for marrige equality in the first place.

I am embarassed and disgusted, but we have to remember that what goes on in the NORTH is not the same as what goes on in the SOUTH. What people didnt factor was “the silent majority” ( as Nixon called it) of highly religious people.

Those are two diffrent places, despite the fact that cali is world famous for GLBT hot spots like SAN FRANSISCO.

When a large group of people says they are going to fast and pray to stop something, best beleive they are going to get registtered and vote too.

AND YES, part of me is worried about what will happen to Ellen and the 18,000 other people who MARRIED. I hope, for the sake of fairness they can still keep thier marraige rights/status.

Personally, I’m for a more liberal America. IN terms of social issues.

__________________________________
This is a very strange and awkward time to be Black in America.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 11:11 pm ¶
CelloShots wrote:

Dan Savage is an asshat, yes, making racist claims at the drop of a hat. HOWEVER, as plenty of commenters have noted, he does not speak for the queer community. Here in LA, our coalition included many white folks, yes, but also many people of color, queer and straight. And we are NOT blaming the black community. Dan Savage may be, but we are not. Today thousands of people protested the passage of Prop 8 outside the white, rich, disgustingly fortress-like Mormon Temple, not on the streets of poor black neighborhoods.

Working against Prop 8 has forced me to deal, up close and personal, with my own racism. When I was out recruiting, I started avoiding talking to black women over a certain age because I was tired of hearing “I’m a Christian” as some sort of explanation for why they were voting to take away my rights. I started avoiding talking to anyone over 60, in fact, especially black, Russian, and Korean people. I recognized this, and I strove to ignore my own racist assumptions and recruit these folks for the cause anyway.

The upshot is, yes our campaign had problems, and yes some people are now making outrageously racist statements about why Prop 8 passed, but the No on 8 campaign is not the people saying those things, and at least the LA branch of it tried hard not to act on them either (I don’t know much about the northern California campaign). Right now, we on the campaign staff are mostly blaming complacent, white, male, West Hollywood queens who thought they had enough privilege to not have to lift a finger against oppression. And of course, the Mormons.

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 11:49 pm ¶
Asada wrote:

its just sad,
I can understand that somene would not want a person to be married,
but then that leads me to wonder
Am I really safe around a person like that?

If I was sick and dying , could I count on this person to call the ambulance or just help me live, if they view me as sin? As the embodyment of EVIL.

“there is a bigger fear, and its the punishment for asking for a better life”

Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 11:55 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:

It would be interesting to subtract people who strongly identify as Christians from the data and then see how people voted by race. There might not be any differences between whites, blacks, and Hispanics.

Let’s note that the Bible forbids men lying with men, or words to that effect. I don’t think it says anything about women lying with women, or about people of one sex loving each other. In other words, it bans homosexual “acts,” not homosexual feelings or homosexuality.

Californians who are liberal, educated, and rational are as enlightened as you thought, Cynthia. The people who voted for Prop. 8 aren’t.

I think bans on gay marriage violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. But I wouldn’t bet on any court’s ruling that way. That’s why it’s critically important to elect liberal presidents. They appoint the judges who will uphold or overturn the bans.

The saving grace in this debate is that prohibitions against gay marriage won’t last. Today’s youth is more multicultural and tolerant of diverse “lifestyles.” In a couple of decades gay marriage will be the norm and everyone will wonder what the fuss was about. (As they’re already wondering in places like Massachusetts, where gay marriage has been legal for years.)

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 12:01 am ¶
karak wrote:

Most rights activists, especially in the US, look at the black Civil Rights movement as their inspiration and forefather. They view themselves as linked with that movement.

White heteronormativity is the enemy. Anything not that is the enemy of my enemy, or my friend. The GLBTQI thought that other oppressed people would band with them to create greater rights for all. And they were wrong. And that hurts, because someone who understands what it’s like to be disenfranchised just told you that you can stay on that fringe.

Are black people responsible for this measure passing? No. Are white people? No. People with a certain kind of outlook are. And that outlook crosses race lines and gender lines. The enemy is not what they thought it was. And it is much easier to turn on those you thought were your friends rather than those you know to be your enemies.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:26 am ¶
the transplant wrote:

my thoughts on this issue, as a black gay organizer.

http://thetransplant.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/the-suspension-of-disbelief-what-dreams-may-come/

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:26 am ¶
Brian wrote:

Dan Savage is given to these sorts of temper tantrums when the electorate doesn’t do as he wills them to. Remember his immortal “Urban Archipelago” piece after the Bush win in ‘04, in which he suggested that affluent, educated cosmopolitans circle the wagons and offer a big “fuck you” to the rest of the country?

Had it been implemented, that strategy would have given us a President-elect McCain this week.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:35 am ¶
Free wrote:

Dan Savage is a putz. This nonsense has spread as fact across the Internet and beyond. Tim Wise is correct – we have much work to do.

We need to stand up to homophobia, even if that means taking on religious leaders and institutions. Civil Unions are separate but equal: there was strong religious feeling about segregation in schools too.

From the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html
“What the church does is give that perspective that this is a sacred issue as well as a social issue,” said Derek McCoy, African American outreach director for the Protect Marriage Campaign. “The reason I feel they came out so strong on the issue is one, for them, it’s not a civil rights issue, it’s a marriage issue. It’s about marriage being between a man and a woman and it doesn’t cut into the civil rights issue, about equality.

“The gay community was never considered a third of a person.”

Now that’s just wrong.

Much needed critical thinking from Gay City News:

Just as Wolfson … urged patience in analyzing the quality and meaning of exit poll results out of California. One widely discussed result on Wednesday was the finding that while whites opposed the anti-gay referendum by a 53-47 margin and Latinos narrowly supported it 51-49, African-Americans voted yes by a 70-30 margin.

[Evan] Wolfson [of Freedom to Marry], noted that polling data from other state marriage referendum questions do not point to the same sorts of margins among black voters, a point also made this week by the California State Chapter of the NAACP. Wolfson pointed out, for example, that the exit data in California may never yield details on what portion of the African-American tally sampled represented first-time voters, who may have been buoyed by the prospect of Barack Obama’s candidacy but otherwise less engaged in political issues than their more frequent-voting peers.

Ethnic voting patterns do not lend themselves, he said, to analysis separate from an appreciation for context. According to exit polls, Latino voters in Florida supported the gay marriage ban there by about a 20-percent higher level than in California. That disparity, Wolfson said, probably resulted from the greater resources that the No on 8 campaign was able to devote to using Latino faces in their ads and “connecting their stories to marriage.”
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20190147&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=6

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:39 am ¶
ephraim wrote:

the thing with the mormons is that everyone expects them to be homophobic, bigoted assholes. they’re largely run by straight, white men who have everything to gain and nothing to loose by perpetuating a system of heirarchical oppression.

is it really so unreasonable to hold members of other oppressed communities to a higher standard? to expect that people with lived experiences of so called “separate but equal” might have a general distaste for the concept? to be appalled that intersectionality is not so intuitive here?

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:40 am ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

So I’ve been brooding about Dan Savage for hours and I’m back to comment again, forgive me. I think Obama’s getting me more emotional than I thought he would.

What a ruined opportunity Dan! Here we are at this moment that so many of us weep to be a part of because we never dreamed it would happen in our life time, and Dan just went and pissed on it! Pardon my language, but fuck him.

White gays who have any sense in our heads are going to look at this moment as our moment too, because Obama presents us with possibilities we’ve never had. The man and his campaign build bridges- this is a moment for solidarity. Solidarity is about challenging racism on principle, not as an exchange for other support.
People here are talking a lot about religion in black communities and I won’t deny that religious people of all kinds make me nervous at times to be myself. But when I behave with integrity in front of religious people of all ‘races’ I know that I’m giving them a glimpse of why they should stop fearing queer people, and slowly that process works.
Congratulations on Obama’s win, and let’s not let Dan Savage put a damper on this moment.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:56 am ¶
babybro wrote:

@ Latoya

I can see where your coming from to a certain point, however I disagree that some were not using religion as merely an excuse.

With that said, the main point I wanted to bring out is the fact that some people here attempt to analyze the reasoning behind such things exist only when it happens to minorities, especially black people. Yet the same credit or consideration is not given to white people.

For example, some people here has made blanket statements regarding the gay community, especially white gays the same way that DS has remarked about the black community. How are you going to complain about incident when they themselves are committing the same act.

It’s just seems that it’s only okay to make blanket statements if the culprit are white.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 2:22 am ¶
browne wrote:

As a black angeleno that voted no on 8 I will say this. The slant of the black people passed 8 is some absolute bullshit. We are 6.7% of the population in California. It’s such a small number it’s not a true picture of what black people think.

Is 6.7% of disenfrancised people a sample that you can use to tell with an entire group think.

And you know what why aren’t we individuals? Mormons last time I looked were pretty white, but no one is bringing that up (and they shouldn’t) and the fight for rights in the gay movement should focus on religion, the ones of the fundamentalist nature, not on race, because that’s the problem.

The religion that black slaves were forced to adopt.

Do you know why we are only 6.7% of California, because California is a racist, classist, f*cked up place and any black person with sense packed up and moved the hell out.

So who do we have left? Lots of old people and lots of poor people who are very religious. Religious because that’s the only thing that keeps them going, people who in general couldn’t move and then you have the oddballs, people like me, the few liberal African-Americans who have professional degrees, dreadlocks and lots of self righteousness, so self-righteous in fact we never talk to the other 80% of us that are very poor and disenfranchised, but we are all over place writing, speaking, teaching…

We don’t have a real spot like black people have in New York (black people like me in general live in mainly white and latino neighborhoods). We’re really just a tiny slice of California. Without our vote (since that’s who everyone in California is focusing on) Prop 8 would have still passed.

Am I saying that homophobia shouldn’t be looked at in the black community, heck no. It definitely should. This is not ok. The church saying it’s wrong is not ok. And we the few that do know what’s up should probably start talking to the people with the SSI checks.

But to pretend like there isn’t a little bit of racism going on is a little bit of straight up bullshit.

In the LA paper on the blogs there are people saying they want to boycott black businesses and not tip black barristas at starbucks all kinds of nonsense, not the commenters fault they have been incited by the racist LA papers.

It’s like the deep south down here, but with a tan.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 2:50 am ¶
Thomas Bernhard wrote:

Just chiming in to repeat what has been said above about the problems in this piece by Dan Savage. It is more disappointing when people who are part of an oppressed minority don’t see the connection between their rights and the rights of other minorities than it is when other people do it, but prop 8 is not the fault of the black community, or frankly even of ‘religion’ — prop 8 is a nasty and shameful error, funded by professional minders of other people’s business, and that ugly error will be corrected. The very same grassroots networks that helped elect Obama can now be put to use securing equal rights, education, health care, and a number of other things we as a nation desperately need. The energy and organizations did not vanish on November 5.

Stop infighting and get to work.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 3:43 am ¶
Shauna wrote:

First I think that the arguments saying that African-Americans make up only a small percentage of the population in CA is weak, if the numbers he cited are correct. The vote was only decided by about 400,000 so even a small group with 70% voting yes would make a difference.

Second, if the numbers he cited are correct then I would suspect that something beyond religion is coming into play, since most people of all races in that group are religious in the over-30 group, but there is varying percentages in voting yes by race.

I think what made the difference is advertising. I was told that black communities were being specifically TARGETED by the Yes on 8 campaign because they believed that black communities would have high turnout and would be sympathetic to their cause.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 4:28 am ¶
Ananda wrote:

This argument gets tossed around all the time: Black people are more homophobic than other racial, ethnic or religious groups of people. I’m sick of it.

First of all, Black people are not the group behind Prop 8 nor other anti-gay legislation. Second of all, studies have shown, that when you control for things like access to education and information, and higher incomes (i.e. things Black Americans are systemically denied), there is no difference between the levels of alleged homophobia between the Black community and say, whites.

Dan Savage, you are a clever person but your article is so misleading. I’m black and gay, and for you to pit the issues against each other–whether you like it or not that’s exactly what you’re doing–you forget that Black people are not leading the crusade against queers in America. White men are. And most of those white men are self-hating gays themselves.

And by the way, let’s not forget the unabashed racism rampant in the gay community. Mr. Savage was very quick to dismiss what he implied to be the minute existence of racism among white queers—PLEASE. White queers, both as people part of a movement and as a community based on sexual orientation, are some of the most racist people i’ve ever met. So much so that it makes me and my black gay friends feel that i’m not even gay because i don’t put up with that exotification-let’s-f**k a black woman to see what it’s like nonesense.

This is an important opportunity for queers of colour to not allow such misguided, racist, and ignorant statements go. There’s homophobia in all communities, among all groups of people and for a variety of reasons. If you’re scapegoating black folks and pitting us against gays, you’re missing so many important points.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 6:24 am ¶
Myself Again wrote:

In my gay black experience, black homophobia has been marginal and not especially painful when encountered. Various forms of racism from the larger GLBT however have been frequently experienced by me 1) Not getting waited on at clubs/bars. 2) Being rejected because of my race for dating, sex, friendship, etc. 3) Rarely seeing men that look like me shown or talked about in Gay media.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 6:47 am ¶
Myself Again wrote:

And to further illustrate my point,
less than five minutes after posting the above this happened (online).

I said, “Hi. You’re kinda cute.”

He said, ” hey nigger i hope you get poz up and die by yourself. happy hunting”

I’ve been called this word twice in my life. Both times by gay men.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 7:02 am ¶
Jandi wrote:

I understand the feeling of betrayal. It may not be logical but it is there. Logically, we know that 70% of blacks in the the population of California is a way smaller number than 50% of whites. But I guess one would think that people who understand first hand what it feels like to have a different status under the law would be sympathetic to others. Of course that is not the case at all.
This is my take on it. Sorry for whatever part you think I played but dont forget who funded Prop 8 – The Mormon Church- mostly white.
I will tell you this. Most religious black people I know would not go out of their way to start something, but once it was started they had to vote their conscience.
If it is any consolation, it is that the Supreme Court is about to get quite progressive so perhaps appeals will be easier to get through.
Again I am sorry that the joy of this moment was tainted for you. But let us direct our anger to the right people of all castes and creeds to made this happen.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 7:56 am ¶
Logan wrote:

1: There still are absentee ballots, so depending on how those get skewed, the prop could still fail (allegedly 3 million absentee: a 60-40 split on those against can lead to defeat of it, and most likely the absenteers would not have been rallied as much as those living in California for the pro Prop-8 rallies).

2: I can understand a little about his frustration, but it really isn’t shocking. Its always been my impression that the rights movements in US history have always been staggered rather than a sense of unification (ie: the difference in rights for Native Americans, Blacks and other PoC, and Women, even before Gay rights became a significant issue) and that even today, there is a disconnect between various non-White male groups in terms of unity (which has been stated a few times in this thread, even among fellow Homosexuals there were rights groups divided by race). While there should be more understanding and unity among the oppressed (especially due to the marriage issues many Black people had to face in the past), there simply isn’t, in no small part due to the system.

3: While I can’t say this is a fact (due to errors in exit polls, and being uncertain of the real number of voters involved), I’m fairly confident that the voting patterns amongst black voters is the reason Prop 8 failed (not counting absentee ballots). From the numbers I’ve been able to gather, the difference is about 500,000, give or take. Most groups voted around a 50% clip for/against prop 8 (and whites from what I gathered voted 49% for it, to discount one comment I read earlier in the comments). Considering the 2.1 million Black people in California (off an 06 census), for a 70-30 split to have made the 500,000 difference, there would have to be about 1.25 million Black people voting, which is well within the range of what I would expect (and I would think the numbers would be higher considering Barrack was running for president). Lost in Savage’s anger and frustration, I do think that needs some serious consideration.

The next question comes in what is the reason for this. Latoya brought up religion earlier, but there’s a part of me that’s thinking wouldn’t that also factor into the Latino/Hispanic vote (53% for Prop 8: supportive, but not nearly to the extent of the Black vote) as well? I can’t find anywhere the racial breakdown of religious demographics, to back up my thoughts one way or another, but the disparity in the vote makes me think that there has to be something further underneath to skew these numbers (and I’d be interested in seeing any sort of demographics from other states which voted down gay marriage to see if there are similar racial breakdowns in voting, either the other two in 08, or any of the ones in 04).

Finally, random blog I stumbled upon trying to find some voting numbers, which might provide another reason (as well as a counter to the reason) for the disparity amongst black votes (from back in August):
http://fanniesroom.blogspot.com/2008/08/deep-thought-21-gay-marriage-will.html

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 8:24 am ¶
penni brown wrote:

Voting against gay marriage is not the same as being homophobic. I really wish people would stop making it an all or nothing scenario.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 9:30 am ¶
Dawud wrote:

Frankly, I resent two things about this man’s comments.

First, Blacks didn’t vote against gay marriage in California; a majority of all Californians did. Being against gay marriage does not equal homophobia.

Second, I wouldn’t call the vote “anti-gay discrimination.” His statement implies that not allowing gay marriage is the civil equilivent to racial discrimination at the work place because someone is Black who applies for a job. This is another fallacious analogy.

In regards to Bible quoting, which I refer to as cherring picking, this isn’t a theocracy, but let’s get real. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights was written by men who were informed by religion including the Bible and certain “moral” principles.

Quoting the Bible or having religion inform one’s political views has nothing to do with wishing to establishing a theocracy based upon a single religious interpretation dominating the society. Religion has always informed views in America but not dogmatically. Those who are against gay marriage within the Black Church don’t sanction polygamy either even though the Hebrew prophets engaged in it and the Bible doesn’t prohibit it.

I wonder how this man would feel about a constitutional amendment that would allow a person to have 4 spouses. I guess that is for another thread.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 10:30 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

“Voting against gay marriage is not the same as being homophobic. ”

Voting against gay marriage is homophobic. There are degrees of homophobia just as there are degrees of any kind of bigotry, but saying that gay people shouldn’t have the same rights as straight people is absolutely, indefensibly homophobic.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 10:41 am ¶
Azarnes wrote:

Sorry for being dense, but how is voting to take away a legal right from a distinct group of citizens not being against those citizens?

That said, I’m ashamed of Dan Savage and think this racist bullshite should stop yesterday.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 10:50 am ¶
Eric Daniels wrote:

I just want to say this as a response to the White Gay community and Savage himself as this was my post and I think it speaks to simple common sense. Obama won because he engaged people who were mostly against the Dems and won the middle also.

Well Jackson after reading yours and Savage’s rant against Afro- American homophobia I have a question for the mainstream GLBT community and it’s leadership. Were you people in the Black Churches, social clubs, Frats and Soros, Black Christian Conferences or talking with young Black People and explaining to those auidences why this was a Civil Rights Issue and countering the Right Wing evangelical christian propgandists because they do go into those areas

I would say no because the White Gay leadership like the GOP never engages Black Folks on any level unless it’s superficial. You pick token blacks who for the most part are BICO just like the right picks Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell and the Reverend “Jesse Lee” Peterson. Your leadership never picks a Black Person who knows how to engage the average African- American. You want blacks who know their place in the pecking order so you get what you deserve when get want black memebers who won’t challenge the status quo.

You can’t complain about an amendment failing when you never did the hard work to engage the average Afro- American Jackson. As a hetrosexual A.A I never saw anyone from your group in Florida where there was also a similar ballot measure and the fact that you are sleeping with a Black or Latino guy/girl does not cut it, benign engagment with the average A.A. is the reason both ballot measures lost and it wouldn’t have mattered if Obama had went into a black church or Dr. King came back from the dead.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 10:56 am ¶
Allison @ Entry Leve wrote:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: black Americans are AMERICANS meaning that we are not immune from the general bigotry and prejudices that flow throughout this country. We drink that homphobic kool-aid and the idea that we would somehow be different because we are black is ridiculous.

Although 70% is a high fricking number. Geez.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 11:16 am ¶
uu wrote:

What I’m indirectly getting from Dan Savage’s posting is this weird separation of gay american and black american. It would seem that “gay” here means white unless it is hypenated with a racial or ethnic title in the front. I guess the only gay folks out there are white.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 12:37 pm ¶
Yvette wrote:

This article would be funny if it were not so sad. (I say the same for many of the comments on the original thread.)

During the campaign, many Blacks discussed our fears should Obama win the election. One was the idea that all sorts of groups would feel that we “owed” them something, as if supporting a Black president was a favor they did for us.

Mr. Savage’s article illustrates this wonderfully.

Homophobia in Black communities (not “The Black Community”) is as complex as homophobia in any other community. As noted here, much of it can be traced to religiosity. But also to such basic demographic things as education/income level and age.

As in other communities, some of it is reactionary–having to do with perceptions about threats facing Black families and Black male-female relations, as well as resentment about perceived appropriation of Black Civil Rights narratives and/or the equating of these struggles. (Note that I am not saying these perceptions “accurately” reflect “reality,” but that they are “true” in that they do exist in some quarters.)

In short, Black folks are not monolithic when it comes to this issue and to suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest (at best).

This is not to say that homophobia in any community is OK. But as others have already articulated so well here, the solution to overcoming entrenched biases is community outreach–pure and simple. A change in attitude among [some/many] Blacks is not “owed” by virtue of past support. (Leaving behind the dubious assumption that voting for Obama indicates [non-Black?] GLBT “love and support” of Black people and issues generally.) Nor does it happen automatically by virtue of the experience of discrimination. Being discriminated against personally and historically is not some sort of vaccination against the possibility of bias towards other groups.

Also, I find curious why this exit poll data of Black voting patterns is being grasped so enthusiastically. As also has been pointed out here and on the original thread this was (a) exit poll data, based on (b) Blacks who make up a small percentage of the California population, likely based further on (c) an even smaller chunk of Black folks voting who chose to vote one way or another on this particular initiative. Perhaps instead of trying to shame all Black people based on this 70% figure, Mr. Savage and others should be trying to engage the 30% who voted against it as well as the ?% of Black voters who did not make a formal stance one way or the other.

Finally, I would hope that this site in particular will address Mr. Savage’s (to my ears) dismissive and hostile stance towards anti-racist work revealed in this statement:

This will get my name scratched off the invite list of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is famous for its anti-racist-training seminars, but whatever.

Way to ridicule efforts at the very outreach that seems necessary to addressing the very problem you note. Yes: “Whatever,” indeed.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 12:39 pm ¶
Iyapo wrote:

Honestly, I have no idea whether the exit polls are accurate or not it is possible that they aren’t and Dan is going off of bogus information. If it is true that 70% of black people who voted voted for prop 8 that would indicate a higher percentage of homophobia in some black communities, but obviously many other factors come into play.
And I don’t care. Homophobia is a problem in many demographics and as far as I can tell stems from certain more conservative christian sects (like free will and southern baptists). Those are the churches I grew up in, in the south, and the homophobic hate was staggering.
I am so sad and angry right now though – I am tired of being hated for being myself. I cried tears of joy when Obama won on Tuesday and I cried again in sadness on Wednesday morning when I saw how much anti-glbt legislation had been passed.
Sorry if I am rambling. I have a lot of mixed feelings running through my body right now.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:05 pm ¶
Yvette wrote:

A further point regrading the exit polling in this case: According to CNN’s demographic breakdowns*, the full sample of the poll was 2240 people. By race, the Black proportion of this was 10% (6% Black women and 4% Black men).

My math is not great, but I believe these sweeping comments are being made on the basis of how 224 Black people responded. Make of this what you will–Just another piece of information to consider.

* http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 1:50 pm ¶
Hot Tramp wrote:

At the end of the day, the passage of Prop 8 is about the failures of the No on 8 campaign. There wasn’t grassroots outreach to communities of faith, communities of color, and rural communities. Yes on 8 was running ads with Latino/a schoolteachers and No on 8 was running ads with DiFi. And No on 8 assumed that Obama voters would support them. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Politics are more complicated than that. And thank God Obama appealed to socially moderate/conservative folks, or his ass wouldn’t be headed to the White House right now to overturn DADT and DOMA.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 2:33 pm ¶
rainaweather wrote:

Wouldn’t it be a violation of ex-post facto law if their marriages weren’t recognized?

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 3:41 pm ¶
Erin Leigh wrote:

FYI – I’ve just created a group on Facebook called “Dan Savage doesn’t speak for me”.

”
For all of us who are tired of Dan Savage and his recent racist comments. For those of us who are tired of his belligerent, asshat ways. For those of us who are tired of his misogyny. For all of us who are tired of media choosing Dan Savage as the “go-to homo”. For those of us who are embarrassed by his behavior, we say loud and clear “DAN SAVAGE DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME!”"

Join and spread the word…

(Mods, if this is inappropriate, please delete.)

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 4:16 pm ¶
Yolanda C. wrote:

At the end of the day, the passage of Prop 8 is about the failures of the No on 8 campaign. There wasn’t grassroots outreach to communities of faith, communities of color, and rural communities.

Hot Tramp: Amen. Cosign on everything you said.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 4:47 pm ¶
StarInaPaperCup wrote:

Am I the only one who finds it offensive that people (mostly hetero people, probably) are actually laying blame on gays for the passage of prop 8?:

“At the end of the day, the passage of Prop 8 is about the failures of the No on 8 campaign. There wasn’t grassroots outreach to communities of faith, communities of color, and rural communities.”

If Obama had lost, would you attribute it to his failure to do enough outreach to tiny, lily-white enclaves in the Midwest or little Mississippi towns?

Although I agree that enough wasn’t done to reach certain people, I don’t think that lays the blame on the ‘no on 8′ at all. Blacks who voted ‘yes’ aren’t primarily to blame, and neither are the ‘no on 8′ white queers who failed to do enough outreach to those people. If we’re going to point the finger at anyone, it should be the (largely-white, interestingly) conservative religious groups who threw massive support and funds behind the issue.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 4:50 pm ¶
Yolanda C. wrote:

Star, for your information, I’m neither white not hetero.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 4:55 pm ¶
Hot Tramp wrote:

Star, if Obama hadn’t won, you bet your ass I’d be blaming his campaign. Just like I did when Gore lost (or “lost,” depending on who you ask) in 2000. The country was starving for change and willing to listen to the Democrats to get it; an Obama loss would have been due to racism in part but also due to sheer ineptitude.

Similarly, California is the most queer-friendly state in the union, and our failure to protect our rights is the campaign’s fault. I’m not hetero, and I donated to and volunteered with No on 8. It wasn’t planned or run well enough. And I hold myself accountable for not doing more.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 5:25 pm ¶
Adri wrote:

shannika’s diary on DKos breaks down the math in regard to the innaccuracy of the exit poll in correllation with the population of Black folks in CA, etc. Very interesting. Check it out:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/7/34645/1235/704/656272

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 5:27 pm ¶
StarInaPaperCup wrote:

Neither am I.

I never suggested anything about your particular background (hence the words “mostly” and “probably”), either.

I drew the parallel with Obama to point out how fruitless (not to mention offensive) it is to blame marginalized groups for the failings of other powerful people.

Yes, it’s true that the ‘no on 8′ people didn’t do enough outreach to POC; but the claim (and it’s a common one) that the passage of prop 8 has more to do with this than with the wealthy, largely white religious groups that threw massive support behind it makes little sense.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 5:31 pm ¶
Nadiyah wrote:

I am a Black woman living in CA and am equally dismayed, frustrated, disgusted, etc. at the passage of Prop 8 and I am saddened and ashamed by the high numbers of Blacks who voted for its passage. I also appreciate the extreme hypocrisy of an election where we vote in the first Black/bi-racial man as President and take away another’s civil rights at the same time. There is much work for me and others in my community to do. However, to lay the blame for this only at the feet of Black voters, to me speaks us tapping into our underlying stereotypes. We have to remember that the same initiative passed in CA a few years ago, when Black voters DID NOT turn out in record numbers. Black people were not the majority of voters in CA, nor where they they only group by any means to vote for this initiative. This is an easy finger to point and I encourage us to think more deeeply about this.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 5:34 pm ¶
ambre wrote:

@ Yvette #100
co-sign!

In my own experience –
Last night I walked into the room where my dad was watching news coverage (can’t remember what network, but possibly NBC) of the Prop 8 protest in Westwood. They showed a protester jumping up and down on a police car and he was “detained, but not arrested” to which my dad responded, “What?! He needs to be arrested! You know that if he was Black or Mexican they would have been beating him down! (MacArthur Park)” Then they showed some PoC members of the Mormon church (who for the sake of the conversation my family recognized as being Samoan) taking down signs that protesters had posted on the church gates. It also showed one of the guys in a heated argument with some white protesters and then cut to footage of a white woman crying and nursing a cut on her face. UM. I mean I know this is mainstream media and I shouldn’t be surprised or anything, but seriously? Why does it have to come to “big brown guy beats up poor defenseless white woman”?

Seeing all this did not help my case in breaking some of the homophobic views of my Mexican, Catholic-raised father, whom I had previously been making some progress with. UGH. I spent the rest of the evening expressing, “not all those people are white and/or gay and/or violent.”

I voted no on prop 8 and I support the protest of its passing, however pointing the finger at one single group is counter-productive. As discussed in this thread, it’s much more complicated than that, and we could all argue into eternity about who is responsible.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 5:40 pm ¶
mickey wrote:

Sorry to have to tell you this Dan, but white gay non-trans males were the biggest reason Prop 8 passed. With a 17 point lead HRC (white, mostly male) became complacent and smug. HRC has a history of excluding people of color and did no outreach to PoC. Your remarks are racist and inaccurate. Instead of whining, get out there now and make a difference with your brothers and sisters and the rest of us.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 6:51 pm ¶
K.lo wrote:

I’m very touchy about this subject.

Like Eric Daniels, I am Florida voter, and I had no idea about Amendment 2 until I saw the ballot.

The night of the election, in all of my euphoria over a win for the Dems and our moment in history, my white friends (gay and straight) refused to let me be happy. I was supposed to be so upset about gay marriage. They felt completely betrayed. They supported a black man, why didn’t the black support the gays.

I don’t know what to say. I voted liberal across the board. What I do know is that I’m tired of having to defend this. I don’t know what Prop 8 organizing was like in CA, but I do know that I only saw two mentions of it in Central FL.

Not only that, but the wording of the Amendment was tricky. I had to really SLOW down to make sure I did the right thing.

So all of this blaming black people really has me pissed off. It seems to me the alternative would be: McCain/Palin in addition to the ban on gay marriage. My friends seem to be expressing the idea that they did blacks (not themselves, not their country) a favor by voting for Obama. It’s the same feeling of betrayal I see from people when they’ve been let down by minorities in other aspects of their lives (I should’ve known better than to trust that Mexican kind of thing).

Between Prop 8/Amendment 2 and my roommate –In June she said that she didn’t want a woman PMSing in the White House, and then posted Wednesday saying that the country is sexist and that’s why McCain Palin didn’t win–I’ve had enough.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 7:08 pm ¶
Witchsistah wrote:

This seems to be the tactic of any group that’s trying to assimilate into our dominant, White, hetero, capitalist elite; blame Blacks if your assimilation attempts fail.

So many of you ask why Savage (whose column I used to enjoy but no longer) and other White gay critics don’t focus on the powerful White folk that financed the whole “yes” campaign. Well, THAT’s the group they’re trying to be included in (not necessarily Mormons or religious fundies but with well-heeled, White peeps). You’re not going to rag on the folks you want acceptance from. Best to pick a scapegoat that can’t fight back well. That’s us. Who’s going to come to Black folks’ rescue? Hell, not even most Black folks would!

Plus as others have pointed out, the image constantly put forward by many queer political groups is one that is White (often male but not invariably), well-educated and materially privileged. Not necessarily folk Blacks are gonna feel are getting the shaft in society, especially when many of those folk show their asses to Blacks, which then only supports the idea that queer folk only want to join and become entrenched in the oppressor class over us.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 9:35 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

Question – do people lie on exit polls? Could the actual black vote on 8 be lower than that estimated by exit polling? I presume that exit polling is done face to face -a stranger accosts a voter leaving the polling place, and asks them, in a public setting, for a verbal response on how they voted on various candidates and issues. Are there people who would prefer to look “respectable” rather than tell the truth or tell the interviewer to buzz off? It is known that some people will lie when asked face to face, or live voice to live voice on phone, about their own sexual practices, but will tend to be more truthful when filling out anonymous forms in the privacy of their homes.

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 9:50 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:

I’ve heard a few people here say that being against gay marriage does not equal homophobia. How is it not? I’m asking sincerely because I’ve always constructed it as such so am interested in hearing what the argument is for it not being homophobia.

Perhaps heterosexism then?

Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 10:08 pm ¶
winfire69 wrote:

I am pretty upset that Dan Savage would make a comment like that. I am not Gay yet I support Gay marriage and I am an African America woman. Mr. Savage made a generalization of African American voters base on a small sample of an exit poll. He should not attack the African American community for the Gay movement mistakes. By not reaching out to that community period that is their short comings. We need to find a solution to a problem that has been in the spot light for a few years now. Blaming another minority is not going to solve ur problems. African Americans are not responsible for this country’s homophobia. Mr. Savage needs to become an advocate for communicating between the two communities. Since he is a well known writing for the voice etc… This is his opportunity to use that outlet to bridge the gap!!!!!!

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 12:14 am ¶
monica wrote:

How can 6% of the population be blamed for anything?
But on one hand you can’t assume that all minorities will understand and respect each others plight. Like I heard that even special ed kids make fun of each other like there is a hierarhcy of disablities

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 1:42 am ¶
Charles wrote:

@NancyP: It’s known that people lie in face-to-face interviews about all sorts of things. But on top of that, the smaller the number of people interviewed, the larger the margin of error. So, if African Americans were 10% of the California vote, if exit polls interviewed 0.00001% of white voters, they’d have to interview 0.0001% of black voters to get the same margin of error. I’m not a statistics major, so this is probably off, but the principle holds. This is why many surveys don’t include Asian American results; they don’t interview enough Asian Americans and the margin of error is too high to be considered reliable.

Anyway, even if everyone told the truth to pollsters, unless the pollsters went out of their way to interview more African Americans, the results for African Americans is highly suspect.

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 7:08 am ¶
Charles wrote:

One more thing. There’s still a margin of error on the White vote polls, so the White vote could actually have gone in favor of Prop 8, which would eliminate minority voters from being the swing vote. (But even if minority voters *were* the swing vote, you can’t have a swing vote unless the supposed non-swing part of the vote is close, so focusing on the swing part for blame is like blaming the Titanic sinking on the part of the iceberg that was above the water.)

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 7:45 am ¶
R Brandenburg wrote:

If you think Savage made a generalization about blacks voting against gay marriages, then have a look at what media across the US had to say about the issue:

“Black voters helped ban gay marriage in California” – Detroit Free Press

“Latin and Black Voters Instrumental to the Success of Proposition 8” – Associated Press

“Most of California’s Black Voters Backed Gay Marriage Ban” – Washington Post

“Black voters in Broward overwhelmingly supported amendment banning gay marriage” – Broward Politics

“Black and Latino voters critical to same-sex marriage ban’s success” San Jose Mercury News

“Exit poll: Black voters back Calif. marriage ban” – San Francisco Chronicle

I guess it’s “Back of the Bus” for gays…

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 9:55 am ¶
bellatrys wrote:

“If Obama had lost, would you attribute it to his failure to do enough outreach to tiny, lily-white enclaves in the Midwest or little Mississippi towns?”

You betcha!

It’s called the Fifty-State Strategy, and it exists for a reason: past DNC strategists chose to ignore those little lily-white towns in favor of courting the rich big diverse cities, and it gave them – and us – the past 8 years of Cheneyburton. We bloggers *pushed* and *demanded* that this not happen again, and good old Howard Dean galvanized and organized it at the start, but North Carolina and Virginia didn’t flip this year by magic! Other states weren’t close – despite all the Republican fearmongering, despite all the real residual racism in this country – because of just “Anything But Bush Clone” this time.

If you want something, you have to *fight* for it, in whatever way you can. Some of us being dirt poor gave $20 and our words – to both causes. Some of us were able to do more. But I only saw and heard of organization on the ground in Ca. against 8 through fannish blogs, most of us being *outside* Ca. mind you, and at the eleventh hour, two brothers on Daily Kos with the aid of many other readers were able to put together and broadcast a “No on 8″ ad.

That was the *week* before the election. Can we say “Too little, too late”–?

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 2:58 pm ¶
Yuri wrote:

I, for one, will never tire of the people who have no problem demonizing the entire black population because “black peoples have wronged gays and although they are statistically not capable of doing so, have somehow singlehandedly caused prop 8 to pass, because even though it is technically impossible for them to have ’tilted’ the vote the way we’re implying, black peoples are the most homophobic and ignorantest people of EVER and how dare “those people” not support “us”"–

And then, without even the slightest bit of self awareness, irony or shame, turn right around and co-opt the language and struggles of the black civil rights movement (i.e “we won’t settle for separate, but equal”).

The ironing is delicious.

Posted 08 Nov 2008 at 9:49 pm ¶
kerrita k wrote:

@ r. brandenburg – just because the common/national media said the failure of prop 8 was black people’s fault – doesn’t make it true… (familiar trope – black folks are either homophobes or succubi/incubi). these headlines just makes it easier to ignore the persistent racism, classism and various other hierarchies that exist among marginalized groups. chasms that obama’s victory did not/will not ameliorate. …altho. i am happy at least to have a spot for a conversation about this… :0)

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 1:26 am ¶
Johnathan wrote:

Dan Savage might actually be auditioning for FOX News. I thought he was more intelligent than this. Much like the election of Barack Obama the vote for Prop 8 was multilateral. It is also a fact that had the Black vote been perhaps 50%, Prop 8 still would have passed.

Perhaps your problem is your pathetic campaign against Prop 8. The opponents of this didn’t even bother to go into the communities which they now are trying to condemn. The truth about Gay/Black Gay White/Gay Black relations needs to be told. It is obvious that you have no respect or regard for these communities or you might have brought your case to them. But, perhaps, your arrogance (or fear) prohibited such measures.

Many of you need to wake up and see what is happening here. This is nothing more than an underhanded media ploy to divide and demonize segments of the American community.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 3:14 am ¶
Michelle wrote:

If we do want to solely focus on the Black vote (unfair, but for the sake of argument) then it should be noted that it is POSSIBLE that MANY Black people think the following things;
1. According to the Old and New Test., homosexuality is wrong. That tenet is taught in church and not questioned.
2. Civil Unions provide the exact same rights, so what difference does it make if you call it marriage? Aren’t Civil Unions a compromise? So why are people pushing so hard to get the right to be married? Maybe those commercials are right, gays will force their way into our church and make us marry them!

I am trying to illustrate that it is possible that a certain level of outreach could have been very important in causing a now vilified demographic to vote Prop 8 down. Not everyone truly gets how Prop 8 is unconstitutional. We live in a world where PEOPLE in general don’t understand the constitution, so how can they be expected to see how Prop 8 is unconstitutional? And we can either be responsible about the change we wish to see in the world, and be responsible about what it takes to honor the constitution, or we can complain that we shouldn’t have to do it at all. Either way is legitimate and valid, but which way will be a path to civil rights? It should be noted that voter outreach in the Black community started well before the Democratic primaries. It should be noted that President Obama has been working on securing this victory for over 2 years. So perhaps we should take that into account when looking at how to defeat things like Prop 8 in the future.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 3:19 am ¶
Synaka wrote:

It’s not a new issue. Which I know we all recognize.

But I don’t think it has anything to do with the issue concerning the increasing political scope to redefine family and marriage, be it for queers or anyone else.

But if we are split between the concepts of black vs queer, then I’d rather say it’s all the ownership of rights over suffering.

Queer history vs Black history, and both on either side of the political cries, wouldn’t you say it’s more of an emotional response than it’s a conscious reflection on their history?

It’s post-truamatic stress disorder; it’s soldiers with flashbacks of the war.

Want to bring up a similar history of socio-cultural conflicts when the american jewish communities & black communities. (Which again, was reduced down to white vs black)

Who has suffered more? That one is always fun.

So, of course, we have the same arguments in other cultural groups as well … particularly when we speak of America’s shame and who deserves to win title for the biggest victim.

And that’s basically asking…

Who hates who the most?

Which group is hated by all?

Has been and still is.

America (the united states) hasn’t been kind particularly to anyone.

And it would be heavily biased to name any one group as the ultimate winner/loser. (When was the last time homeland security locked you up in a camp?)

This entire argument in the simplistic pulls on propaganda myths to paint queers as mostly white elitists and black communities as conservative, religious and yet socially defaulted segregationists.

For the middle-grounders, a lot of blame goes to the media (an easy target; news is biased and often aims to incite or edit through a selective narrative to present facts. And today, we’re living in a wikipedia nation.)

But also in this mix we even throw all those who identify as mormon (or any religion) up for sacrifice. Because everybody needs a scapegoat.

It makes it easier to climb above. “At least I’m not *them*” because choice a. b. c. are defined as bigots, not x. y. z.

I see the problem as a condition of politically correct politics.

We really can’t have an open discussion about race in general, let alone to bring in sexuality, gender and religious-related (atheist included!) issues.

Because an “open” discussion can’t mince the politics to present nice words, kind sentimentality, hopeful promises or wishes, and pretend the past (and present!) complications of our history (which extends beyond this tiny little nation, which comparatively is still quite young) doesn’t exist.

And it would have to recognize it’s a personal fight – its the individual experience that makes up the tapestry of the whole.

Because more often it’s the individual that becomes attacked more than the group as a whole. — which means, we might all share the same damage, but most of us survived and only some of us didn’t.

But often instead, the shared experiences which meet an equal representation (where you and I may share similarity in our pasts) take both the best and worst elements of each side, taking away from the individual experience to make us choose what part of us comes first.

So we feel pride and shame in baggage that doesn’t always belong to us — individually.

So when we come to the debate:

Choose only one option to represent you as an entire person.

Political Position.
Race. (Please limit to the most convincing.)
Nationality. (If you’re bi, get off the fence already.)
Gender. (pink and blue rules only!)
Culture.
Sexuality. (Triangle or Square)
Philosophy / Religion.
Age / Generation.
etc.

And by the one you have chosen, this will be your represenation above all else.

But to be A**holes, will statistically gather the numbers for each of those choices to define which choice belongs to which group the most.

For 2009, I predict that the majority of women, will be latina. So if you identify as a woman, you will also be primarily representative of the latino community.

I might be in the minority, but I really don’t think this really has anything to do with Prop8 as a whole.

It’s just for lack of a better context, become a forum to discuss the politics of race relations between whites and blacks through the generalized and biased constructs we attribute to the game of politics.

I’m probably biased, but I believe that both religion and queers are “mostly” just the new pillow sheet.

mutually used on both sides to veil the politics between blacks & whites, and several other groups in the mix…

so the weapons become…
religion = homophobia, sexism
queer = racist, bigot

Though it’s not to say that religion and queers are free from the debate, but I think anyone would have to admit they’re still just props.

Because in the end, whether it’s religion or sexuality, all this has become is just another white vs black debate we’ve all seen before.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 8:44 am ¶
Marco Giovanni wrote:

I have to say I kinda agree with Savage, and as we see evermore that gays are the new mules of the country (see Hurston), we are also seeing the New White Man is NOT necessarily white anymore. Heck, he is NOT necessarily even male anymore. Is he Sarah?

As a working class gay white male professor, I have carried WAY more water to help educate against racism and misogyny and xenophobia–and all the rest–than I have ever spent on GLBT issues. Not to mention AIDS Studies, which is very important to me.

Well, this mule is tired, and a new day has dawned on my teaching, and it will now be very different. Isn’t this the way it always works anyway? I have been told repeatedly, directly, and indignantly by peers and professors that they DON’T teach DEAD WHITE MEN as they were oppressors and are oppressive.

These same profs have also joked to my face that the new grade for a white male grad student is a B plus, so we need to remember Lefties, even minority ones, can be pretty hypocritical. Well, I can no longer affirm their actions.

Besides, I am beginning to think we all bought a very limited idea of identity and difference that too reductively specifies who is the oppressor and the oppressed—like roles out of central casting for the latest comic book cum movie.

I demand for a new accounting of these things, and I am beginning with my syllabus and myself for next semester, which just changed dramatically. I am not saying I am not going to stop teaching anything, but I AM saying what I teach will be VERY different.

Savage you are brave to make your point as Liberals can be merciless when a truth is spoken that suggests they got it wrong or are being hypocritical.

No one appears to want to earnestly grapple with the challenge of this post-theory moment, where everything we thought–even things like WHITE MEN ARE OPRRESSORS (which is a construct riddled with a problematic essentialism, if not racism) are not always white or male anymore.

I will add my voice in support of your statement with one adjustment: we may find it more helpful to think in terms of “minority” groups rather than races, for in the end, I suspect the culprit here is the lack of access to education, the taint of supernaturalisms, like Christianity, Judaism, etc., and a willing complicity with the mainstream in order to assimilate.

The new question is–will one minority step on the other through some dual act of abjection– or can we all progress together to obtain a more perfect union?

The other question is will we be honest about what we are seeing? Can you imagine if Prop 8 was about blacks not being able to marry whites? Could you even really imagine this, and could you imagine people accepting and excuse making for the exit polls?

YES, WE CAN. We’d all say the whites are racist and the minorities are peforming the oppression through their self-negating vote.

Either way, we need to reckon with the fact that the Prop 8 exit polls are NOT new, and there is a well-established record of contemporary minority voters supporting anti-gay politics.

Let us not forget, these minority communities are the very same ones that could not deal with HIV–even when it was greatly impacting their beloved churches.

Let us not forget, James Baldwin was made to repress one side of his identiy for the other, and the problem of the Down Low Closet, where so many are simply failing to be brave and to be open and honest individuals. Yeah, it was hard for me to come out too, but sometimes, you just have to blaze and be a little fierce.

Let us not forget Colin Powell and Condi Rice (not to mention Alberto Gonzales) are as culpable for the Iraq War as the white man George Bush. Either way, it all kinda feels oppressive to the dead Iraqi children.

Let us not forget, Obama/ Biden are on the side of the oppressors here, and Obama’s platform is separate but equal. In other words, the GLBT community can sit in the back of the bus.

There are just a couple of contextual points for the intolerance that is being (finally) fleshed out via the Prop 8 exit polling: homophobia is a problem, and minorities are NOT only and always victims–they are sometimes quite very oppressive.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 3:35 pm ¶
Meret wrote:

I have one question for Dan Savage who jumps so freely to conclusions based on flawed polls.

How many gay activists supported the civil rights movement in the 1960’s?

Then how do you automatically expect support in return?

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 3:43 pm ¶
allheavens wrote:

GLBT had a road map of how to run a successful campaign i.e., Obama’s Presidential general election and primary races but failed to absorb two of it’s basic strategies:

1. Tech outreach

2. Ground game

But the larger failure of the GLBT leadership is its inability to realize that gay does not equal white.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 4:33 pm ¶
ANonCooningBrutha wrote:

Blacks didn’t put the damn thing on the ballet. Whites did. They spents millions to do it too. Of course, blame the black man. Hell, more White folks voted for the damn thing than we did yet somehow we’re to blame and they’re innocent?? People always want to make something a refrerandum on the Black community like we have any power to oppress someone. Look in your own White community, Savage.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 5:44 pm ¶
Hokayshenao wrote:

I believe that there are a large number of people that feel the way Dan does. I think that African-American homophobes are the conflicting side of a gay manager or CEO. Those two groups have little exposure, but subcultures should still pull together.

Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 5:48 pm ¶
FranSky wrote:

“I haven’t yet heard a convincing enough argument for why gays want marriage”

*sigh*

This is why I don’t read this blog everyday like I used to. Question: What can we do to be more interested in equality for all on this blog instead of mindlessly not looking at why people feel outraged when they are not treated equally?

This blog has a racial focus I know, but despite Dan Savage being way way way off base with his reactions, don’t we as readers who wish to have racial equality, need to deeply take to heart what it would feel like to NOT be able to marry our beloved, no matter our personal feeling toward marriage.
: (
~F

Posted 10 Nov 2008 at 1:12 am ¶
Outraged wrote:

I am outraged about blame being placed African Americans regarding the passage of Prop 8.

I am African American. While I did vote “No” on Prop 8, I watched the campaign waged for the passage of this proposition. Many of these ads were not only inaccurate, they were outright lies.

What I did not see, however, were an equal number of counter ads that addressed these inaccuracies. How are African Americans responsible for that?

Posted 10 Nov 2008 at 2:28 am ¶
Eric Daniels wrote:

Marco Giovanni when you can be assaulted for driving a nice car or living in a good neighborhood because of the color of your skin then we can talk about discrimination or who has it worst. I am tired of Rich White Gay Males comparing lynchings,executions, castrations of Afro- Americans by federal, state local enforcement of racial terrorism and social codes and denial of human rights(i.e. Military, Police and the KKK especially in the South) and it’s legacy has not disapeared because some civil rights laws were passed it is entrenched into this country’s laws and social constructs.

I never saw that gays could not buy homes in the burbs or land deeds denying them access to those homes in better neighborhoods because they were Black depriving those families of upward moblity Marco. White Gay men had racially separate beaches, neighborhoods and clubs yes Marco those same pained pissed off gay White Men and Women practiced the same segeregation too in the good ole U.S.A. and it’s probaly that legacy that tells blacks to produce 3 types of I.D’s at gay clubs today.

So you can rant like a 10 y.o. starting a fight and blame blacks instead of lousy planning by your advocates for this amendment failing. It’s one thing if you did all you could politcally on the grassroots and Blacks still voted 70-30 then you may have an argument, the white GLBT community has utter contempt for Afro- Americans unless it is a fat black woman singing disco or techno songs. I voted No on prop 2 in florida but for know on since Afro- Americans are persona non grata in the white gay mind as an ally then reach out to Republicans if you can flip them that’s your concern not mine.

I don’t want to hear about your “issues anymore” some of those in the white racist gay community can stick it where the “Sun don’t shine” after reading some of the most racist words on Savage’s and Daily Kos from White Gays and Lesbians I could care less about their wanting to get married.

Posted 10 Nov 2008 at 10:54 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:

OFFS. (my new favorite abbreviation – wish I didn’t have to use it so much).

People should speak up against injustice JUST BECAUSE. Not a tit-for-tat, not a “what have you done for me lately,” not a “well, you called me X so I’m going to call you Y.” Anyone saying otherwise has no CLUE what anti-ism work is. IT”S NOT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR EGO. It’s about equality, justice, the value and dignity of the individual human being.

I see a lot of Oppression Olympics going on here. Can we retire the “mules of the world” jockeying thing here? Not only because it’s annoying and denying of personhood, but because damn, I didn’t know that black women had it so GOOD in anywhere in the world that we needed a new
“mule” for that phrase. Regardless, remember that in this world, no matter how oppressed one person feels, especially those of us in first-world nations, with net access, with the freedom to actually speak out and the time to do so, there are always more people who would beg, borrow, and steal to have those luxuries of time and place and circumstance.

Check PamsHouseBlend. Check Shakesville. The Conservative Right-Wing pseudo-Religious groups and those who pander to them for votes are LAUGHING while we tear each other apart. People with better math skills than myself have torn that flimsy faulty CNN poll APART and shown how stupid and poorly planned and statisticly INVALID it was, even as exit polls go.

Damn.

But no matter how much a few vocal black people dismiss or jockey against gay people, and a few vocal gay people dismiss or jockey against black people, I will still work and speak out for equality and validity of personhood, and all the rights our nation grants and SHOULD grant under international standards as well.

I don’t need a cookie or a hug or an IOU. I will do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Posted 11 Nov 2008 at 9:02 am ¶
Dave wrote:

The problem is not African-Americans. The problem is religion. Unfortunately, blacks are one of the most religious groups in America.

However, I think it is a sad day when members of any oppressed minority turn around and oppress another minority. Clearly, those who did so (women, asians, latinos, blacks, jews, etc.) did not learn the lesson of oppression – EMPATHY!

Posted 11 Nov 2008 at 11:24 am ¶
Dong wrote:

“The problem is not African-Americans. The problem is religion. Unfortunately, blacks are one of the most religious groups in America.”

But the last time I checked African Methodist Episcopal Church didn’t give millions of dollars to support the bill… the lilly-WHITE Mormon Church did.

So, why don’t you save your ire for them, instead of taking out your frustrations on a familiar scapegoat in this nation.

Posted 11 Nov 2008 at 11:08 pm ¶
Jayda wrote:

Leave it to someone like Dan Savage to cry “Race” when really he should blame all the Gays and Lesbians who didn’t vote!! Simple as that. Notice that almost half of every other Race in America also voted Yes to the Ban. Obviously this is not a “Race” issue rather that people have deep rooted values in marriage and birth between a Man and Woman. Not only that no matter how many Celebrities come “Out of the Closet” I think people in general, no matter what their “Race”, are still are deeply disturbed by the unnatural nature of sex between Male and Male. Women on the other hand can and always will be able to give birth with or without a Man. Dan Savage you are an IDIOT.

Posted 11 Nov 2008 at 11:20 pm ¶
basbleu wrote:

Dan’s hurt. I don’t blame him. It’s a f-ing shame.

I don’t think he’s blaming black people (I can’t speak for the other sources), but he’s disappointed. There’s that graf where he seems to be washing his hands of white supremacy – and that’s as wrong-headed as black folks trying to downplay this disgusting display of homophobia.

(BTW – I’m black, and I’m appalled by that 70/30 statistic, no matter what impact it had on the final count.)

What Dave said bears repeating:

The problem is not African-Americans. The problem is religion. Unfortunately, blacks are one of the most religious groups in America.

However, I think it is a sad day when members of any oppressed minority turn around and oppress another minority. Clearly, those who did so (women, asians, latinos, blacks, jews, etc.) did not learn the lesson of oppression – EMPATHY!

Posted 12 Nov 2008 at 1:16 am ¶
John wrote:

My partner does work with disadvantaged kids in bad neighborhoods. I’m *REALLY* working hard on him to quit soon and quit with no notice. The parents of these kids are the ones trying to take our rights away (some have Yes on 8 stickers on their cars). They’re civil to our face, but how can I, in good conscience, want to help their kids. In fact, I’m so angry now that the thought of these uneducated kids growing up and destroying their communities gives me a strange sense of scheudenfreude.

Posted 12 Nov 2008 at 2:08 am ¶
Synaka wrote:

Like others who have become familiar with Linda Villarosa… often wondered why she entitled her fictional book of a lesbian romance as “Passing for Black”.

But it becomes a little clearer in this debate.

Staceyann Chin — Though much to my surprise has been mentioned in a few posts scattering the net… seems to disappear from many people’s minds. Albeit she’s not that famous to be known by the mainstream, as many POC are not recognized as being queer until after they’ve died. Of course there’s good reason, particularly if you’re black and trying to make your way through western media or entertainment.

Pams House Blend… also seems to disappear.

But I suppose we could say the same of others, voiced and not:

http://blacksnob.blogspot.com/2008/08/ur-so-gay-invisible-lives-of-famous.html
”
Albeit the comments contained may only work to incite the crowd here, but one should keep in mind that was from August 18, 2008

“One More River to Cross: Black and Gay in America” – Keith Boykin … it’s a bit dated, but of course *you* could find other sources

But then I suppose it could be argued, they were black before they were queer.

Any and all queers of colour, other minorities you might not see, from the multiracial to mixed families of other types… from all sides.

For the queer clergy of all denominations and ethnic/cultural backgrounds.

Which falls on both sides I know for the lack of representation, but of the some of the replies still puts up the assumption of gay = white.

And I know in times like these, when two or more groups come into battle … you have to choose a side. Though maybe as it goes, you don’t have to choose a side as somebody else will choose it for you. Say one part of your existence doesn’t exist … because one is more recognizable by sight and one side of you deserves more than the rest.

But as it goes, any side that may not normally openly accept you, will eventually want you to openly speak up… well, openly on their behalf.

So, how does it work for the complaints on either side of this issue for all those people who fall inbetween?

When they *can* actually speak of the issue from both sides.

How many from either side represents their issues? How many are being accepted as the voices for this debate?

Maybe the reality is they’re the only ones who have room to discuss the issue, which I’m sure covers as many opinions and sides as this entire debate has.

LGBITQ communities world-wide are not represented by only whites, nor maintain a white only history or presentation.

It’s part of my community, so yeah, I am biased. But if you want to go after queers for this issue, then go after specifically if you have to generalize “white queers” and leave everybody else out of it.

Few situations are truly (pardon the pun) B&W, but I’d still say this one is.

Posted 12 Nov 2008 at 9:40 am ¶
Yvette wrote:

John, your comment saddens me. Because “some of them” have Prop 8 bumper stickers you will assume they all must support it, and you would have your partner punish them all? And by extension, feel happy if these young people go on to prey on whole communities?

Posted 12 Nov 2008 at 10:48 am ¶
gatamala wrote:

Marco I realize that you are angry. You have co-opted a statement from a Black female writer and have tried to throw it back in our face. However, I strongly suggest that you take a few days to go back and read this blog’s commentaries on (1)intersectionality and (2) kyriarchy.

I also suggest you discuss the “mule” thing with black lesbians who can’t get a job, let alone tenure.

*****

Lyonside, can I use OFFS?

Posted 12 Nov 2008 at 3:57 pm ¶
Jayda wrote:

First I have to say that the “Media” and most new age Journalists are totally unreliable and will go to no end to tarnish the image of most Black Americans. With the exception of Will Smith. It is totally ridiculous and ludicrous to blame the passing of Prop 8 on one type of group of people. Especially with the percentage makeup of African Americans in the USA population. If Dan Savage wants to blame anyone he should blame all the GLBQT people who didn’t vote against it! Also the activist group I volunteered with to get more minorities and young people to vote made it a point to go to many Polling locations to see if the work we did paid off and I must say although there was a jump in those who voted young people and African Americans still didn’t come out in extremely large numbers.

Posted 12 Nov 2008 at 9:40 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:

Gatamala: I thiefed “OFFS” from Shakesville (I don’t think they’ll mind)- so thief away…
———
John: Wow.

In one comment, you manage to say that

1. all disadvantaged kids (and is there a skin color in mind when you say that, given the topic of this thread? Are you implying a version of “urban youth” here?)

2. all of the kids’ parents were for and voted for Prop 8 because of *some*bumper stickers

3. all disadvantaged kids who don’t get the ENORMOUS FANTASTICALLY MAGICAL benefit of your and your partner’s help will ABSOLUTELY commit crimes and not be part of society

4. All of those crimes are going to be only in their own neighborhoods and not yours

5. All of those crimes WILL BE committed by kids that your partner chooses not to help

Did you or your partner confront one person, parent or otherwise, who had a Yes-Prop8 bumper sticker and try to correct any misconceptions they had been told? If you contronted one, did you keep going?

Did everyone you know who would be against Prop8 vote on Tuesday Nov. 4th?

Are you really under the conceit that people should only help others in need in order to GET something back? And that anyone has the right to take their ball and go home if things don’t work out exactly the way you’d intended?

And that anyone who doesn’t get your help is DOOMED DOOMED DOOMED and good riddence?

Clue: Kids can smell condescension a mile away. And they hate it and resent it. No one needs help like that.

Posted 13 Nov 2008 at 8:51 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:

Sorry -1. should say “all disadvantaged kids are the same (and is there a skin color in mind when you say that, given the topic of this thread? Are you implying a version of “urban youth” here?)

Posted 13 Nov 2008 at 8:52 am ¶
Synaka wrote:

Eric Daniels and John, thank you for illustrating my point. (which I know gets awfully, awfully tangled up in conflicting positions and poor syntax.)

“I never saw”

… I never saw or I’ve only seen…

and where all of it becomes some equates to all.

I want to act like a 10 year old child and say, “it’s not new” to repeat it again and again at a fevered pitch…

And the reality the opinions aren’t new either…

we ‘often’ hold to our own roots regardless of the issues that come our way.

it’s all kind of counterpart racism, discrimination, to hold to these absolutes, to say all of anything, to allude that everyone group is representative of some.. and that an entire group is made up of one opinion.

That race or even sexuality is more than just being.

I know the history of both sides and I understand the opinions, I can rationalize both sides intellectually.

But I also know everybody is going to make a justification for their opinion and often times, it’s going to scapegoat someone else — someone else to a some, to an all, to an entire group of people.

Opinions have place, even if they’re seemingly biased. We’re all biased to something, have preferences, beliefs, opinions… whatever.

It does shape our values and principles to have this inherent biases, in both the small and bigger ways it displays itself in our various issues.

I know the futility in pointing out the obvious.. the obvious such as there’s various LGBITQ groups specifically aimmed towards minorities… albeit they don’t have the cornerstone profits that the mainstream L&G centers have. And yes, there’s blanant discrimination in the queer communities. Albeit it’s not a symptom of all, but of those with power … as it falls to everything else in society.

There are reasons why some queers of colour that are in positions of power don’t and won’t do much isn’t so much a reflection of being taken in by ‘white’ mainstream culture or selling out, but being marginalized in ‘mainstream’ ‘black’ culture.

If we aren’t going to dance around the issues. If one is able to gather acceptance in one group above another or at least less BS by the majority count. Sometimes a person is going to stick with the group that accepted them the most, even if it’s not a perfect match.

My ex might be one such person and where the politics collide he steps out. And I know he’s not going to speak on the issue, and I know if he did, he wouldn’t be kind to the community most people thinks he represents by looking at him.

But I’ve never had the willpower to keep quiet and maybe because I’ve never really felt accepted by any one group… that my loyalties to people run higher. And yet I still feel a responsibility to my roots, my heritage, to my social and cultural upbringing, and to my being, regardless of whether I’m accepted or not.

I know most people suck. But that’s only my interpretation of them.

I’ve found it’s so much easier to just reveal my personal life and watch the firefight start … it also effectively discredits the value of anything I have to say.

Nevermind my horrible syntax in the english language.

I’ve been tempted, I get tempted to reveal those pieces in detail… like the reality that I’m ethnically perceived as white – I know the limitations of that and so everything in my personal history is going to be put up for display as if a white person has lived it. I look white, therefore I am. It applies the same way to those who are ethnically perceived as black… and those ethnically perceived as any other race.

The details are irrelevant to most people, because it’s all easily regulated down to the sum of all. The easy to make judgement calls.

Personally I don’t like being regulated to the angry white guy, which really wouldn’t have his ethnicity approved, accepted and believed unless he was famous, though then I’d probably be more comfortable being in the closet about my ethnicity. Even when it seems everyone who didn’t accept you before, suddenly wants a piece.

Nevermind culture, upbringing and all those diverse little issues that come along… and it’s not just the social, the legal matters can suck, that often times I have to carry around legal documents around confirming my rights to be involved in emergency family situations… sometimes having to go as far as bringing recent paperwork of a court-approved dna test just to further prove my validity, but mostly that has to apply to getting an emergency visa approved.

It’s difficult for me to identify as ‘white’ with my background, my history as much as the factual parts of my ethnicity.

Though I am part white (a little less, if exclude ethnic jews). so I’m sure that automatically discounts my opinion in some circles. I’m used to that. The full extent of my ethnic background does as well. so does my religion, my sexuality, my income, my politics, my choice of food (vegans can be a nightmare sometimes, not all vegans mind you, just some.), my education, my taste in music, my history, my past and my present… the fact that I’ve actually posted on racialicious, which surprisingly to me has become another excuse in some crowds.

There is a reality here…

Personally I believe a lot of groups have every right to hate whitey, even whitey as a whole.

You know ‘blacks’ and the african american community has a fair claim to winning the title for deserving to hate whitey, and for a good historical principles…. though it’s still a piss-poor excuse to hate queers, but that’s just my opinion. And I’m pretty friggin’ biased being one.

And even as contradictory as it may be for me to have issues with whitey. I do, more so than any other group. Though EAs as a generalization can come up as a close second, which I represent too. Go figure. Though mostly it’s of an american reflection than anyone else. And yet that’s another group I represent as well.

But the more I think on it… the more drawn out it becomes…

the more it seems too transparent that all of it is somehow justified to make personal attacks against other people… and sure some of them deserve it, most people can use a swift kick to the rear… but blanketing the responses of the some to the all does become problematic…

We likely have damage with every group in some way and there’s not much incentive to discover more than take casual glance and pass judgement,

besides with a lack of a time in most of our lives… it’s often an uphill battle.

And everybody is holding on to some kind of damage that won’t be resolved by reading any one of these replies…. we have too many other experiences which shape our views, our realities…

Just thinking on it,

I’m quite a bit of the multi-segregationist…

I really don’t want to deal with most people that don’t have a mixed background of some kind, even if it’s just culturally …

So I suppose that puts me rather at odds with most mono-racial or mono-cultural people, regardless of what they look like …. because hells, if they’re even going to be able to get close to anywhere I’m coming from.

It’s not so much a superiority claim… for world-wide mixed identity domination, multiple identities get rather chaotic at times.

But it’s like eh, I understand both your sides… but this whole acceptance thing is a two-way street, and frankly both of your views are pretty singular… and I suppose overall I’m never gonna get it… Ah, now I have en vogue stuck in my head.

Never gonna get it, never gonna get it, never gonna get it, MmmMmm…

I remember how it used to be
You never was this nice, you can’t fool me
Now you talkin’ like you made a change
The more you talk, the more things sound the same

… and maybe I’m just getting old, but it all sounds the same. Even when I or someone might take offense, maybe it’s just better to be brutually honest… who rightly cares anymore, everything is an awful damn contradiction, hiding behind something else…

Maybe it’s healthier if everyone was ten again… I’m feeling politically constipated.

So let me repeat this under another thread, what are the issues again?

Posted 13 Nov 2008 at 7:44 pm ¶
M wrote:

Savage, lets be clear. The Black community owes the Gay community nothing. The Gay vote for Obama-lets face-it was based on the fact that he was the best candidate-plain and simple, not due to any affinity for Black causes. Furthermore, Obama is much more sensible when it comes to human rights for all, including the Gay community. You didnt do us any favors by voting for Obama-you SHOULD have voted for Obama based on merit. This however isnt enough for you apparently. The Black community, patronizingly, must agree with all of the positions of Gay advocacy groups-or else, seems to be your postition. When the white Gay male AIDS incidence decreased, you (generically speaking) stopped Acting Up, despite the continued skyrocketing Black cases of HIV. Where was this “outrage” during the Sean Bell and Genarlo Wilson cases? Funny how we are all alone during the fight for our causes, but everyone becomes our “friends” when its time to leech off of the progress from our blood, sweat, and tears. Stop trying to pimp Black causes or progress for your own gain. A majority of White evangelicals, White males, White protestants, as well as a huge spending campaign by Mormons helped to dictate the outcome of the prop 8 vote. Its very telling that you choose to scapegoat Blacks , of all groups, given the data-very telling indeed. If the Gay community became this upset more often about important issues for all people, it would be much more credible. We have the chance do something positive as citizens, now is the time for action, not recrimination.

Posted 30 Nov 2008 at 5:58 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:

Gatamala, I am all late, but I heart you.

Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 1:28 am ¶
Mikhail wrote:

I have to say that irrespective of the fact I agree that voting for Prop 8 was wrong. It is fantastic to see rather clearly that Mr Savage could not help himself. He is after all and no matter how he tries to paint himself, a white man with a sense of entitlement and what truly gets to me is how angry white men can be!

Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:00 pm ¶
Maldy wrote:

Dan Savage is entitled to his opinion, although I think it is misguided. Homophobia propagated by any person of any color is equally debasing to gay people. Although there is a special sadness to a group that has met with so much blatant oppression not recognizing another form of oppression, there is nothing new in this.
Dan also should check this out:
http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/issues/egan_sherrill_prop8_1_6_09.pdf and see how the numbers REALLY broke down once some serious research was done. Most of the reporting on Prop 8 was in the heat of the aftermath and used unreliable data.
As a white Christian, I’ve been witness to the way the Jewish community and the black community have been pitted against each other by polemicists.
From the front lines of Prop 8 I can tell you this was not a battle fought and lost in Watts and Ladeira Heights – the battle of Prop 8 was fought, and lost, in Palmdale and Burbank and Torrance and Culver City. We could just as easily blame the Armenian or Mexican or Hasidic community as blame the black community – but to what end?

Let’s not let this loss for the gay community be spun into a squabble between minorities: keep the focus where it belongs: on the churches that have lead the charge against us and the politicians that have played into their hand.

Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 5:31 pm ¶
Frances Carodine wrote:

this bs there are more latino in California than Blacks. There alot white rascist gay men in la . to blame Blacks for that he full sh-t

Posted 23 Mar 2009 at 1:39 pm ¶

Quoted: Dan Savage on black homophobia

Trackbacks & Pings

Comments

« Home

About This Post

Categories

Subscribe to This Blog

Search

About This Blog