To Indie:

I did about a half hour's worth of "research" and stumbled onto the more obvious instances of discrimination against gays by black ministers.

Now keep in mind, I'm well aware of right-wing white preachers like Jerry Falwell who have run down gays for years.  I've never given them a pass and in fact I've written many articles here condemning those people and Bush himself for his discriminatory acts.  I've dedicated even more to attacking Bush's Iraq policy --- just so you don't think I'm all about tearing down Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama.

Anyway, to start, are there black ministers who are in denial about the discrimination against gays in this country?  Yes, many of them think homosexuality is a choice --- if you can find it, listen to Bill Maher's response to that nonsense.  They also say that there is no comparison between anti-gay discrimination and anti-black discrimination.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, an African-American Republican nut bag dismissed any comparison of anti-black discrimination and anti-gay discrimination, saying, "I've counseled men and women who have overcome their homosexuality. I've yet to see someone overcome being black."

A Washington Post article discussed "gay blacks" and said this:

A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that since 2000, black Protestants have become far less likely than other Protestant groups to believe that gays should have equal rights. Black Protestant support for gay rights dipped to a low of 40 percent this year, down from 65 percent in 1996 and 59 percent in 1992.

Among all the other groups surveyed -- including not only other Protestants, but also Catholics, Latino Catholics, Jews and members of unaffiliated churches -- support for gay rights increased over the same period.

Black Christians' attitudes toward homosexuality reflect the traditional church teachings -- and other factors specific to the black experience in America. Ram A. Cnaan, director of the study of organized religion and social work at the University of Pennsylvania, attributed the feeling among black Protestants to their historical experience of discrimination.

"It's part of being an oppressed minority in this country," Cnaan said. "They're thinking, 'We have to prove ourselves more than anyone else. Our leadership comes through the Christian church, and the thinking is that having people like that might detract from our strength.' It's more difficult to have people who are different."

In addition, black ministers reject the comparison of the gay rights struggle to the black civil rights struggle.

Gays "cannot compare what they are going through, sexual decision and preferences, to what happened to us," said the Rev. Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, Wash. He invoked the three-fifths compromise, under which three of every five black slaves were counted in the populations of slaveholding states, as an example of the dehumanization of black people. "As an African American, can I have don't ask, don't tell? As soon as I walk into a room, you know I'm black."

God, Hutcherson said, condemns homosexuality. "I think it's a choice," he said. When his church members identify a gay person who is unable to change, "you kick them out," he said.

[...]

"Our entire church took a stand against the same-sex marriage issue," said the Rev. Stephen F. Smith of Greater Destiny Church of God in Christ in Memphis, part of a national congregation whose members number more than half a million. "I've heard that many large black congregations are out there beating the bushes for Bush," Smith said.

Read the full article

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a political writer and contributor to the Huffington Post spoke out against Obama's "shameless and reprehensible" "gay bash tour:"

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped a page straight from the Bush campaign playbook with his announced upcoming three date barnstorm tour through South Carolina with notorious gay basher, gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. The Grammy winning Black gospel singer's last effort on the political scene was his song and shill for Bush's reelection at the Republican National Convention in 2004.

"The great untold story of the 2004 presidential elections," Hutchinson went on to say, "was the Black evangelical vote. Although Black evangelicals still voted overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, they gave Bush the cushion he needed to bag Ohio and win the White House."

James Hannaham of Salon.com wrote, "Obama: Don't pander to homophobes," and concluded with, "Did Obama overestimate the depth of the black community's homophobia and unintentionally solidify the stereotype about him -- that he's the white man's black candidate?"

Now does any of this imply that I think Obama and Jeremiah Wright are homophobes?  No.


Let's not pretend that everyone is innocent of discrimination or prejudice of one kind or another.  Even indie is guilty, and to deny that is to live a sheltered life.