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I think it's bizarre that people are asking for you, as though you are The Expert On How Black People Think. What I've learned is that homophobia isn't limited to one race, ethnic group or religion.
I think the supporters underestimated the power of small minds. It is not a Black thing, or a Christian thing, or a gay thing, it is all about the ease of spreading bigotry on every level.
Civil rights for gays, people of color, those with disabilities or mental illness, and those who don't believe in mainstream Christianity, come at the cost of constant battling just to keep the ground that is won, and to stop apathy and idiocy from spreading.
I admit I was one of the morons that asked you. However, this is not the first time I have asked this. I've been having this conversation for the past few years with several people. I have had many conversations about differing views on the term civil rights and if the gay movement should use that term. This is the first anyone has mentioned the single man factor. It's finding out things like that that help me learn about others and expand my understanding and diversity. Like I said I have been having this conversation and others with Mormons, conservative Christians, Hispanics, even pastors themselves. I value your views and your opinions and wanted to add you to the list of the many people I learn from. I am angry with the religious right. However ultimately who I blame is the lgbt community. I feel we are not organized and do not understand all the facets of our own community well enough to know how to work together and motivate each other. The only ones to blame our ourselves. My goal is to continue learning and to do my best to expand the communication.
I appologize yet again for taking a twitter friendship too far. This conversation is clearly something that should have never been started in 140 characters. I wanted to publicly appologize for any pain and anger my question caused, it was never my intention. Also to thank you for your post.
Lezzymom: the questions I received were a bit bothersome, but they were necessary. It opens up the discussion about how the LGBT community needs to expand its outreach. We have to stop preaching to the choir and start having conversations with people outside the LGBT community.
Black people, white people, religious people or morons, it does not matter. The blame for Proposition 8 passing lies with the state that allowed a vote for peoples equal rights in the first place.
Instead of waiting for the next election cycle or pointing fingers of blame for Prop 8 passing, we should take this as motivation to further the cause and spend our time working with organizations that work to uphold the rights of the LGBT community everyday. At volunteermatch.org you can find links to over 60,000 nonprofit groups nationwide. Every year millions of people visit the site to find a way to become involved in their community and help further those causes about which they are most passionate. Why wait to vote again- GET INVOLVED!!!
I actually have some insight on this... When the horrid ban came to WI in 2006, I was very much involved in the organizing of the campaign. The first question I asked was who's dealing with the black and latino community outreach. The answer I got and I won't say from whom, but it was not in my org at all, was "We are hoping they just don't come out in the off year election." "WHAT?" I was NOT a happy camper! This was coming from progressives with a governor's race and the death penalty on the ballot! "I'm bringing them out regardless of what you say. YOU better teach them how to vote or you WILL lose." I was personally affronted by one of my own as what was said, came out to me as "Black people can't learn so we won't teach them." Within a week the humbled progressive I was speaking with hired a young beautiful straight biracial woman and on her first day, they said to her, "Go see Renee." I almost died when I first met her. Clearly smart as hell, but clearly also not ready (or so I thought) for the hornets nest she was about to go into... She and I went full force with all the resources my org could muster and the few hers would spare into the black communities in Milwaukee. The young woman turned out to be brilliant. Armed with no talking points (none had been developed in any previous campaigns specifically for the black community), she went literally into the streets and started talking to people, noting what worked and what didn't. She put together the cheapest and most effective messaging ever put together in a political campaign in history and then she and I put our heads together and pulled every grassroots strategy we could think of out of our back pockets and hit the ground running. We talked about fairness, about injustice anywhere being a threat to justice everywhere, we called in prominent national black ministers, about the direct effect the laws would have on the elderly and the young often not married straight or gay, we got the radio stations on board, we made the campaign a vote no on everything campaign, we convinced over 20 African American baptist ministers to stop preaching hate to their congregations and even to begin to ask their parishioners to vote no, we cleared up the confusion about the laws, we held meetings in librarys and got elected officials on board. Ya know what the prominent people in the AA community said to me when I would invite them to talk about the issue? "What took you so long? This campaigns been in effect for almost 2 years and in the last 3 months someone finally thought to ask us how we feel about it?" Almost overwhelmingly, they opposed the bill, but no one had bothered to ask. In the end, we lost Wisconsin. It was devastating to all of us straight or gay who fight for justice everywhere, but here's what us two girls with little resources did... Nationally African American's vote somewhere around 70-95% against gay rights and that happened in most of Wisconsin, but, in the city of Milwaukee where we all out blitzed the city with information, they learned... (imagine that!) The African American community did vote against rights overall, but the margin was 60/40. The statewide margin was exactly the same... That's a 10-35 point swing in 3 months with two women bothering to muster all the resources they could find to talk to the people and those resources did not include money.... with a few more months and a lot more dollars (for example tv money) The problem in the black communities in this country is that NO one has bothered to seriously try to educate them about the travesty of these laws. Find out who's interested in that project, take it on and then put all this ccrap back on the ballot and see them fall all over the country...
I think part of the problem is that someone has been doing a bit too much assuming.
As a whole, the LGBT community has been assuming that because blacks have been the victims of discrimination and civil rights violations for so long, that they would recognize Prop 8 for what it really is and automatically side with them, when this just isn't true.
Often times when there is an issue like this, people must be shown something they can relate to in order to understand it. This was not done, which is why Prop 8 passed.
Additionally, all the focus on the efforts were regionalized to areas in which the LGBT community is more prominent and the rest of the state almost completely ignored.
The bigoted enemy didn't do that and were focusing their efforts EVERYWHERE, which is why they had a lot more turnout in favor of their position.
If you want to get anywhere you need to focus on small town America where the small minds are heavily concentrated, as well as the big cities. And you need to show how issues like this affect straight people and compare it to something that the average straight person can identify with, because average straight people just don't identify with being gay.
It is more common for someone to have a friend or family member of another race or gender, and therefore easier for them to understand issues that affect those groups, than it is to have a gay friend or family member and understanding the issues that group faces.
In Florida, you had some help from a very large group...the elderly. They understand how some of these laws affect all people because there are plenty of them living together as couples without the "benefit" of marriage, for one or more reasons. (some financial, some because of children from previous marriages, and a host of other reasons)
They understand how horrible it is when their loved one goes through cancer surgery alone with nobody to visit them at the hospital because of rules that state "family only" and their life partner isn't considered family, legally. There was plenty of people out there talking to the elderly about how Amendment 2 could affect them.
Why was the same not done elsewhere?
