Acting White: Church vs. State Confusion

Proposition 8, the amendment to ban gay marriage in California, won in a closely contested battle…and then the fight started. So why did progressive Californians uphold such a plainly biased measure? Church-going whites and blacks, that’s why. Now, everyone knew that the Mormon Church was leading the fight for the ban, but what about Black Church organizations?

The cost of gay rights supporters being no-shows to this battle front is that we will have to live with gays as second-class families a bit longer. Perhaps the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Trans-gender leadership was sure that black voters for Obama would just fall in line and ignore the stated objection to gay marriage presented each Sunday by black clergy. And if you buy this, John McCain wants you to know that Sarah Palin is much more intelligent than she sounds.

Anyway, for this grand screw-up of politics, America gets treated to angry gays tossing around the N-word as if it were the Q-word, rather than placing blame where is rightfully belongs. True colors? Perhaps, or maybe just some serious frustration when you know that your own people eff’d-up big time. For sure, the gay community has its issue with racism, but the black community is hecka-homophobic, as well. Let’s call the blame game a draw.

In a country where church and state are suppose to be separate, the state has no business confusing a religious rite with a legal right. There should be marriage in the eyes of the state (what is called domestic partnership), separate and apart from marriage in the eyes of whatever religion one chooses. What a church believes and does should have no bearing on what the state does. If a couple meets the legal requirement of the state, you're hitched. End of story.

Name-calling between blacks and gays needs to stop, so that each side can be reminded what it means to have the religious doctrine of others, rather than our constitution, control our lives.

James C. Collier

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