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Despite his support for many gay rights issues, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has resisted endorsing same-sex marriage, calling instead for civil unions. A majority of black voters remain opposed to gay marriage. (Photo by Rick Bowmer/AP)
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: JOSHUA LYNSEN COMMENTS
 
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Sharpton; and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a prominent civil rights leader.
Julian Bond, chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also is an ardent supporter of equal rights for gays.
“Many gays, many lesbians, worked side by side with me in the civil rights movement,” he said in 2005. “Am I supposed to tell them now thanks for risking their lives and their limbs to help me win my rights but that they are excluded because of the circumstances of their birth? Not a chance.”
But too many black Americans, Robinson said, are failing to hear the arguments.
“There’s a perception that our relationships are different,” he said, “and those perceptions are based on religious views about marriage and religiously derived notions about the purpose of marriage.”
Marriage aside, however, the National Black Justice Coalition report and other surveys have found that civil unions also are unpopular among blacks.
In 2004, 36 percent of the HRC survey’s respondents said they strongly opposed civil unions, while another 11 percent were generally opposed. The total opposed jumped this year to 53 percent, according to the Pew Center’s survey in May.
Robinson said opposition to civil unions runs high in part because the purely legal institution is seen as too close to its religious counterpart.
“Civil unions are seen as marriage light,” he said. “It’s not seen as substantially different.”
Also problematic, Robinson said, is that many fear that civil unions could put gay couples further along the path toward securing marriage rights.
He said many blacks thus advocate against civil unions because they believe “we have to hold this ground, because if we lose here, then everything else falls.”
Brumfield agreed. He said many blacks “think that gay, lesbian, transgender people have an agenda of some kind, an agenda that’s dangerous for our society,” and that agenda must be stopped.
“It’s seen as a first step. ‘If we allow them civil unions, the next thing they’ll want is their curriculum in schools, training our children to be gay,’” Brumfield said.
Robinson said gay rights activists working to win new allies often are challenged to overcome the suspicions and fears that are held by many black<
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