Election Day anti-equality victories spark heated debate among LGBT advocates

In the aftermath of the passage of California's Proposition 8 and other anti-gay ballot measures in Arizona, Florida and Arkansas on Election Day the national LGBT community has been engaged in a heated debate in the media, cyberspace and in the streets. At the heart of this debate have been two questions: first, what went wrong, and second, who is to blame? The two groups that have received the lion's share of the blame in many segments of the LGBT community have been African American voters in California, who CNN exit polls show supported Prop 8 by a 70-to-30-percent margin, and the Mormon Church, which according to press reports aggressively lobbied its members to donate to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign and helped channel millions of dollars into the state in support of Prop 8.

Activists and community members who spoke with Bay Windows for this story said the anger directed at African Americans has been counterproductive and that more energy should be spent reaching out to the black community rather than attacking it. As for protests against the Mormons and other churches working to pass the anti-gay ballot initiatives, activists said that given the role these churches played in Prop 8's passage the anger is more than justified.

Rod McCullom, author of the black gay news and entertainment blog Rod 2.0 and a political columnist for The Advocate, said that since the passage of Prop 8 several black LGBT readers have been writing to him to report that they had been harassed by white gay people during the protests against Prop 8 after Election Day. One UCLA student taking part in a Nov. 6 protest outside the Mormon temple in Westwood, California, wrote to McCullom and said white gay protestors called him the "n-word" at least twice. McCullom said another pair of black No on Prop 8 protestors at the same rally wrote and said white protestors shouted at them and told them they were "very disappointed with black people." Black lesbian blogger Jasmyne Cannick posted on her blog about similar e-mails she received from black attendees of the Westwood protest who said they were called the "n-word."

McCullom told Bay Windows that given the speculation about the black vote prior to Election Day he was unsurprised that some white gays lashed out at black people during the protest. In the weeks leading up to Election Day opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com and other venues debated whether increased black turnout for Barack Obama might also help Prop 8. For instance, blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote in late September that, "There is, alas, no ethnic community as homophobic in America as African-Americans. Which is why the ballot initiative in California could be close."

"I want to say that much of the racial fallout after Prop 8 has been perfectly expected ... because the drum beat has been beating for some time that there would be an outpouring of black voters in California and Florida [who would support those states' marriage amendments]," said McCullom.

Following the election speculation about the role of African American voters, much of it fueled by CNN's exit poll showing 70 percent support for Prop 8 - compared to 53 percent support among Latinos and 49 percent among white people - only intensified. Dan Savage, editor of the the Seattle weekly The Stranger, wrote a blog post on the paper's website the day after the election titled "Black homophobia." Citing the exit polls he wrote, "I'm done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there - and they're out there, and I think they're scum - are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color." Cannick penned an LA Times op-ed criticizing the No on 8 campaign for failing to do effective outreach to the black community, and she argued that marriage equality was not a priority for black gay and lesbian people. Blogs like Pam's House Blend, Daily Kos and Huffington Post, as well as stories in the mainstream media, debated whether or not black support for Prop 8 put the ballot question over the top.

McCullom said black voters, who make up only 6.7 percent of the state's population according to the last census, are being unfairly made into scapegoats by many in the LGBT community and the press. Bloggers at Daily Kos and Pam's House Blend have pointed out that the CNN poll surveyed only about 220 black voters in California in its exit poll and have argued that it is unfair to extrapolate their responses to the entire black electorate in the state. McCullom said LGBT people should place more of the blame at the predominantly white communities in the state that backed Prop 8, such as Orange County.

"To be honest with you I really have to say it's a classic case of blaming the other. It's not surprising to those of us who are black and gay and lesbian because we're used to being blamed," said McCullom. "I think many people are programmed to respond to events in certain ways, and since the stereotype is that blacks are homophobic, we respond to that."

Connecticut state Rep. Jason Bartlett, who is black and openly gay and who serves as deputy director of the National Black Justice Coalition, faulted the No on 8 campaign for failing to do aggressive outreach into the black community in California leading up to the election.

"I think the opportunity missed was 37 million dollars was spent on the 'no' campaign in California, but I don't think the percentage that should have been spent in the black community, in the Latino community, was budgeted," said Bartlett. He pointed to an ad used by the Yes on Prop 8 campaign featuring a photo of Obama and a quote in which he states his opposition to same-sex marriage - critics argued that it falsely suggested Obama supported Prop 8, which he publicly opposed - and said he expects opponents of marriage equality to continue using Obama's position on marriage to win over black voters.

"In future elections African Americans will continue to vote in very high percentages, so we need to spend the resources and have the conversation in the black community," said Bartlett.

He added that black LGBT people and their allies would need to work to counter the strong opposition to same-sex marriage that exists within black churches.

"And as African Americans our challenge is even greater because the black church is our beacon of hope, historically, and it is traditionally the leader in political matters," said Bartlett. "And it is still dominated by conservative preachers who are into an orthodoxy that says procreation is the driving definition [of marriage]. So we as African Americans need to be seen and need to be heard to re-educate our brothers and sisters."

While the black church has been faulted as one of the forces driving the support for Prop 8, even more attention has been paid to the role of the Mormon Church in supporting the initiative. In response to news stories highlighting the church leadership's advocacy on behalf of Prop 8 thousands of people have protested in front of Mormon temples in California and Utah. Jim Burroway, co-chair of Vote No on Prop 102, which unsuccessfully tried to stop that state's anti-gay marriage amendment, said the Mormons were also active in the campaign for Arizona's amendment. Prior to the 2008 election said Burroway, most LGBT people assumed the bulk of religious opposition to LGBT rights in the United States came from evangelical Christian and Catholic churches, but this election showed that the Mormon Church is part of that same coalition of churches working against LGBT rights. Burroway writes for the LGBT blog Box Turtle Bulletin.

"I think it's pretty fascinating because I think it changes how people do see the church. ... We always thought we knew who our enemies were, evangelicals and Catholics, and this seemed to be a new entry into the stage," said Burroway.

Jeff Lutes, executive director of Soulforce, which advocates against religious anti-LGBT bigotry, praised the protestors for drawing connections between the anti-gay ballot initiatives and the advocacy of the Mormon Church.

"I think the response, the grassroots response by people in California and elsewhere is wonderful and exactly the kind of thing we need more of in the gay rights movement," said Lutes. "Soulforce has been working on religion-based repression for ten years now using direct action to accomplish that goal, and whenever people can use their own feet and their own voices to organize something on a local level, I'd like to see more of these things spring up around the country."

Lutes cautioned that organizers should make sure their protests are non-violent.

"I think what's important is we do them but we do them nonviolently. It may provide emotional release to yell and scream at people, but in the long run it's not productive. ... What's important is we protest the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church and [the evangelical advocacy organization] Focus on the Family and all of the religious institutions that were part of Prop 8 and other props around the country, but it's important to remember that we're protesting unjust systems, not people," said Lutes. In the long run, he said, the movement should be working to find allies and win over supporters from within those churches.

Burroway agreed that the grassroots protests against the Mormon Church and other Prop 8 supporters have been generally positive, and he believes that the failures of the campaigns against the ballot measures in California, Arizona, and Florida, which all passed marriage amendments, and Arkansas, which passed a law banning gay adoption, show the need to increase grassroots activism. During the Arizona campaign Burroway said his group, Vote No on Prop 102, was the grassroots-oriented member of the anti-Prop 102 coalition, and it worked closely with a more top-down organization called Arizona Together. As in California, Burroway said many of the focus-group tested messages used in the Arizona "no" campaign avoided discussions of gay people and their families and instead focused on less controversial messages, such as that voters had defeated a similar measure two years ago and that the marriage amendment was a distraction from more important priorities. Burroway said those messages failed to rally their grassroots base, which put them at a disadvantage leading up to Election Day.

"We've got to learn how to make our own stories real winning stories that can resonate with people in the general population. Before the campaign I was a big believer in the messages we were given, and seeing them fail I see they have to do two things. They have to motivate voters, but they also have to motivate the base. ... I'm taking that as a bit of self criticism there," said Burroway. "In a lot of the general population when we tested those messages it worked really well. According to the polling we should have been able to defeat 102 on those messages alone. ... But [failing to reach our base] killed us on fundraising, and if you can't fundraise you can't get the message out, and if you can't get the message out they can't hear it."

Lutes said that while he supports the protests of the Mormon Churches and others involved in promoting Prop 8, he believes that the LGBT community needs to do a better job of reaching out to the black church. He said in the past year Soulforce has begun reaching out to black megachurches, such as the Rev. T.D. Jakes' Dallas-based Potter's House church.

"It was a beginning effort, and we like everyone else are learning as we go and evaluating each effort in terms of what our next effort will be, but this year we tried very hard to reach out to those communities because we recognize that those leaders have such an influence on the black community of faith," said Lutes. "As a movement it's been our failure to reach out to them, and we really need to take a step back and look at the appropriate ways we can try to talk to them about this issue."