Sexual Semantics

Why did so many Black people vote Republican in the 2004 election? As

it turned out, when it comes to sexual politics and the issue of "gay
marriage," Black evangelicals were more conservative than Democrats
bargained for. African-American protest votes across the U.S. helped
build Repubican hegemony in the U.S. house, senate and executive office.

According to The Black
Vote in 2004, a study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies, "In
2000, Bush received only 9 percent of [Ohio's] black
votes; in 2004, Bush received 16 percent of them." In essence, the
study says, the black vote may have cost Kerry the election.

Why did so many black people vote Republican in the 2004
election?

As it turned out, when it came to sexual politics and the
issue of "gay marriage," black evangelicals were more conservative than
Democrats bargained for.
African-American protest votes across the U.S. helped build Republican hegemony in
the U.S.
house, senate and executive office.

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend who
self-identifies as "queer." She also identifies as an
evangelical Christian. She is also black.

We searched for the bottom lines in the issue of gay marriage. Here are the points we agreed on:

1. Marriage is a religious
   sacrament. As such, for the state to legislate its bounds would be a
   breach of the separation of church and state.
2. Since the U.S. is not a theocracy, people in the
   Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities must be
   viewed first and foremost as individual human beings and U.S. citizens with the same rights, duties
   and protections afforded to all U.S. citizens. As such,
   they should be afforded the human right of self-determination and the
   right to marry.

Here's where it got sticky — semantics.

"Marriage" vs. "Civil Union":
Some evangelical Christians support "civil union" for the LGBTQ communities,
but draw the line at "marriage."

Yet, my friend protested this thinking on two
counts:

1. Civil Union doesn't
   afford the rights, protections and benefits afforded to those covered
   under the term "married." In effect, this inequity leaves
   a subset of U.S citizens permanently disenfranchised without access to a
   basic human right.
2. Marriage is what many
   gay people want — not a union. As Tony Campolo says, the Religious
   Right claims that gay marriage is the biggest threat to the institution of
   marriage. Yet, ironically, it is currently projected that 40-50% of U.S.
   heterosexual marriages will end in divorce. And born-again Christians
   have a higher divorce rate than other Christians, atheists, and agnostics.
   So, evangelical Christians must look inward to strengthen the institution
   of marriage in the U.S.

Thus, for the U.S. to live up to its own ideals including
the separation of church and state and civil rights protections for
every citizen, the U.S. needs to face every facet of its plurality with
fairness and equity:

• Either comparable
  legal protections and benefits should be afforded to gay civil unions
• Or, to honor the
  separation of church and state, there should be a clear distinction drawn
  between civil (secular) marriage and religious (sacred) marriage. Of
  course religious institutions would be free to perform gay religious
  marriages as their governing bodies allowed.

If the 2004 election is any indication, the Democratic party must have
a plan for how to deal with this issue if it is serious about gaining a
foothold in this year's mid-term election and the 2008 presidential
election. The plan must include protection for the separation of church
and state and enforcement of the LGBTQ communities' civil rights.

It was a good conversation between my friend and me. We approached the
issue from different perspectives with the goal to listen, hear and understand
the interests of "the other."

In the end, we were surprised to find, that at least between the two of us,
the issue came down to semantics.