It’s not black and white
CommentsWhy did African-Americans vote so heavily (70 percent) for Proposition 8 in California? It’s been suggested that the reason is because blacks are more religious and church-oriented than whites. Yet the NAACP is pro-choice, as are many blacks (certainly more than 30 percent). African-Americans are overwhelmingly liberal on most issues (gay marriage and school choice are the two exceptions I can think of) so there has to be a reason beyond “religious” to explain the lopsided black vote for Prop. 8.
It’s also been suggested that African-Americans were rejecting the civil-rights rhetoric of the “No on 8″ campaign, and taking a stand that gay-marriage isn’t a civil rights issue in any way comparable to the African-American freedom struggle. I like that explanation, but doubt it was wholly responsible for such a large swing in the black vote against the standard liberal position.
So why didn’t blacks support gays, their erstwhile allies, in California in November? The floor is open for discussion.
I would offer that no race in our country has been more adversely affected by the breakdown of the traditional family. Since Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report in 1965, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” the percentage of black children born to unwed mothers has risen from 25 percent to above 70 percent. Along with this has come all the pathologies associated with homes where single mothers struggle to raise children and provide for them; these children, especially the boys, are more likely to grow up poor, drop out of school, and engage in criminal behavior. Murder is the #1 cause of death among young black males and their killers are more likely to be black than any other race. Most impartial observers would attribute this to the lack of fathers in the home as role models, providers and partners in raising the children. It is possible that the vote in CA reflects a belief that we need marriage to be respected again and it needs to include a mother and a father. This isn’t just a matter of religious belief or resentment toward gay appropriation of the civil rights movement. It’s a matter of survival. Thanks for allowing me to comment.
WRT the civil rights rhetoric, I think should be offensive to blacks if you think about it a little bit. If you’re a black walking down the street anywhere in the world everyone identifies you as a black person. Whereas if you’re gay, who can really say for sure? A homosexual at least has the choice to be entirely incognito and I would reckon most are. Then there’s the income gap between blacks and gays.
But I agree with David that this probably isn’t wholly responsible for the breakout. I would suggest than what Ron states above means there’s more than just a belief but an intense emotional longing for traditional models and it came out in the vote.
I must concur with Ron Miller post above. In that regard I can offer no more succinct and lucid an explanation than the quote that follows.
“Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don’t confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage.”
Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to Congress Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus Coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on DC
Actually it turns out that the 70% figure is a bit of an outlier and most polls have the African-American vote coming in pretty much in line with the overall result (narrow approval of the proposition). See p9 of http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/issues/egan_sherrill_prop8_1_6_09.pdf . Arguably there’s still a bit of a mystery - AAs are indeed rather liberal on some issues vs middle of the road here - but it’s not nearly as dramatic as all that.