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State Rep. Alisha Morgan (D-Austell) voted against Georgia's ban on same-sex marriage in 2004, along with dozens of black lawmakers who felt the measure was discriminatory. (File photo)
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: MATT SCHAFER
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 There’s a typical response H. Alexander Robinson hears when he talks to some black people about gay rights.
“There are those in the community that continue to say the whole gay agenda is about special rights,” he said. “In lots of segments of the community, I feel like we’ve addressed that and moved on from that question. But I still feel like it’s being framed in that way by certain African-American ministers.”
Robinson, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said he and other gay activists are pitted against religious and political influences as they work to win support from black Americans.
And those influences are strong.
The Pew Research Center found in 2006 that 52 percent of black Protestants consider homosexuality “just the way that some people prefer to live,” rather than an innate orientation. According to the survey, 22 percent of white mainline Protestants say the same.
The survey also found that only 20 percent of black Protestants say homosexuality is something people are born with, and 60 percent say that homosexuality can be changed.
By comparison, 52 percent of surveyed white mainline Protestants say people are born gay and 22 percent say homosexuality can be changed.
Positioned by some near the sensitive intersection of religion and politics, gay rights can prove a volatile topic for many audiences.
Many pastors adhere to what they consider a literalist view of the Bible, a view that Dr. Kenneth L. Samuel of Victory For the World Church in Stone Mountain said is wrong.
“If you are going to be a Biblical literalist, you have to be a sexist, a warmonger, you are probably a polygamist,” Samuel, who is straight, said. “We have changed our thinking on so many issues — divorce, women preachers — but we haven’t been willing to change our feelings on homosexuality? That’s unfair.”
Cuc Vu, chief diversity officer for the Human Rights Campaign, said education therefore becomes essential to securing new support.
“The reality is that many members of the African-American community believe you can choose to be gay, but you cannot choose to be black,” Vu said. “We need to create safer spaces for African-American GLBT people to come out and challenge the perception in the African-American community that there are no gay black people.”
Sen. Barack Obama, the first major party black presidential nominee, took a major step toward breaking down the barriers of gay rights in the black church when he mentioned gay people during a speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached for many years.
“If we’re honest with ourselves,” Obama said in January at a celebration for King’s birthday, “we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there have been times when we’ve scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them.”
The comment was met with applause.
GA. BLACK LEADERS DEFY POLL RESULTS
While several polls show blacks as less supportive of gay marriage than others, it was the black leaders in the Georgia General Assembly who led the way trying to defeat the 2004 state Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage — despite the stance of black church leaders.
Many local African-American pastors spoke in favor of banning same-sex marriage in 2004, including more than two-dozen ministers who signed a petition and delivered it to lawmakers.
“The church is a very important part of our culture, but unfortunately the mainstream black church disapproves of homosexuality and has forced that down our throats for years,” said Zandra Conway, a board member of the NBJC and former board member of In the Life Atlanta, an organizer of the city’s Black Gay Pride celebrations.
State Sen. Ed Harbison (D-Columbus) said the marriage vote wasn’t a battle of gay allies versus homophobic lawmakers.
“It wasn’t as simple as who’s homophobic and who’s not,” Harbison said. “We really struggled internally for a long time.”
In 2004, Harbison was president of the Black Legislative Caucus, the only group of lawmakers who actively opposed the same-sex marriage ban and worked to defeat it. It took constant effort working with African-American legislators to vote against the amendment in the House of Representatives and the Senate, he said.
After denying the bill the requisite two-thirds majority by a handful of votes, the amendment eventually passed with three votes to spare in a second, controversial vote. In total, 28 of the 52 “no” votes came from the Black Legislative Caucus.
Harbison said a number of African-American ...
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