Obama’s Unwitting Fight Against Black Homophobia

On this blog I have noted many times the problem of black homophobia and what is to me the willingness of black pastors to play the water carriers of racists white Christianists.  It is a problem that plays a large role in the burgeoning HIV epidemic in the black community nationwide and most certainly in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia.  When I was a member of the local Ryan White Committee, I saw the numbers first hand.  Sadly, too many people, both black and white are afraid to call out black pastors who act like trained circus dogs for white Christianist organizations such as the horrid Family Foundation here in Virgina.  It drives me to distraction given the infection numbers in the black community and the continued efforts by too many black leaders and pastors to keep homophobia alive and well.  Hopefully, President Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage will help usher in a change in this problem.  Here are highlights from an article in The New Republic that looks at the issue:

There are many reasons to be glad that President Obama has finally decided to stop dissimulating and openly advocate gay marriage. Not least among them is that he is no longer giving tacit approval to a prejudice in the African-American community that becomes more awkward and regrettable by the year.

Homophobia, to be sure, is a sadly universal phenomenon. But it is one with especially deep roots among blacks. Polling numbers bear this out. In a recent Pew poll, 65 percent of American blacks reported thinking of homosexuality as wrong, while only 48 percent of whites did; in other words, most blacks harbored this prejudice, while fewer than half of whites did.

 

The Bible is a highly fragile basis of reasoning here. As Pastor Susan Schneider in Wisconsin has recently noted, the Bible “has passages that prohibit men from cutting their hair, and that forbid anyone from wearing mixed fiber clothing, or planting two different kinds of seed in their fields, or eating shellfish. The Bible also commands slaves to obey their masters, parents to stone unruly children, and upholds as heroes of the faith men with multiple wives and concubines.” This is a slam-dunk textual argument: It’s clear that black religious communities—like so many others—harbor a simple revulsion at the notion of homosexuality.

But by referencing the Bible’s views on slavery, Schneider’s exegesis also highlights the particularly tragic irony that saturates black homophobia. Throughout its history, black America has pleaded and fought with the rest of the country to convince them to overcome the primal tendencies of bigotry. This makes black homophobia especially problematic. That’s not pretty to state, but it’s true and it needs to be fixed.

 Unfortunately, President Obama’s reticence on marriage equality gave tacit backing to this backwardness. .   .   .   .   But the quiet succor Obama gave to black homophobes with his “evolving” line on gay marriage was always just as ugly as it was unnecessary—plus, for someone of his demographic and biography, it was more than a little fake. 

[W]ith black America straggling behind in the history of gay liberation, Obama is now serving as a useful cultural model. If he can convince the African-American community that it can maintain our community’s religion while abandoning bigotries that religion can thrive without, we will truly be moving forward.

There are any number of black churches in the region that need to hear this message.  I can think of three in Norfolk at the intersection of Church Street and Princess Anne Road that time and time again act as if they were Victoria Cobb's house slaves when it comes to doing  her anti-gay bidding.  Meanwhile, The Family Foundation and its national affiliates are little better that thinly veiled white supremacist Christianist organizations.  Yes, I may catch flack for some of my statements, but just because they may not be popular in some circles doesn't mean that they're not true and on point.