We now have official legal documentation of what has been an increasingly obvious reality. The National Organization For Marriage has an explicit strategy of inciting a race war between the black and gay communities.
HRC’s Solmonese: Secret Documents Are Game Changer
As we noted earlier tonight, HRC's NOM Exposed Project obtained a series of documents marked “confidential” that outlined the National Organization for Marriage’s multi-year plan to stop marriage equality in the United States. In one of the documents titled “NOM Deposition Exhibit 25: National Organization for Marriage Board Update 2008-2009” these passages appear (emphasis ours)
The strategic goal…is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…
The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity - a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.
So there you have it. Now what are we going to do about it?
The only part of this press release that is really news is the revelation of the court documents. There has been ample evidence of the attempt to drive a wedge between blacks and white gays in general and on marriage equality in particular. The situation developing in Maryland is a particularly dramatic example.
Maryland 2012 - Prop 8 Redux
Major media outlets are latching onto this as a piece of election year drama. One angle that gets a lot of traction is the conflict for President Obama being pulled between two important Democratic constituencies. Many of the stories that are appearing present the black community as a monolithic anti-gay bloc. They don't make any effort to present dissenting voices.
There is a campaign to stir up anti-black sentiment in the white gay world. White gay men do not enjoy immunity from personal racism. However, I have been seeing patterns of comments on gay blogs that attempt to present the black community as a primary force in the opposition to marriage equality. When you follow those blogs regularly the same people are running those scripts over and over and are making other attempts to disrupt the campaign. Yesterday they were making a concerted effort to discourage campaign donations in North Carolina for the defeat of the anti-gay ballot proposition. I am strongly persuaded to believe that these people are plants from NOM or similar organizations pretending to be gay men.
I believe that the LGBT community is challenged to undertake a serious and fundamental conversation about this issue. The gay rights movement has never been remarkable for its diversity. The Human Rights Campaign is often referred to as Gay, Inc. It's emphasis has been on posh fund raising banquets and courting crumbs from the table of corporate America. They have made some attempts at trying to create a more diverse image in recent years, particularly in terms of relations with the trans community.
The reality is that the biological influences that impact sexual orientation and gender identity are spread across all populations. We appear with the same frequency in all racial and socio-economic groups. What is not evenly distributed is the social and political visibility of LGBT persons of color and those who are poor. Our community mirrors the mainstream culture in that it is the white middle class that has the public platform. Anti-gay groups have often attempted to use this against us. They present the gay rights movement as predominantly composed of affluent people indulging in a jetset lifestyle. Since that is the image of us that is most prevalent in the media, it's not a difficult agenda to promote.
Organizations like GLADD have worked to promote a more positive media image of gays and lesbians. The Ozzie and Ozzie and Harriet and Harriet images of middle class family life represent progress from the narratives of a generation ago that depicted drug addicts and child molesters. However, we are seeing the very success of this being turned against us in the effort to promote conflict with other minority communities.
This is not a battle that will go away if we just don't talk about it. I doubt that the NOM strategy documents will generate great public outrage beyond our own community and our immediate straight progressive allies. We are making progress on marriage equality but the opinion polls still reflect a battle ground. If we focus our anger on the black preachers and ignore the white preachers who are doing the same thing, we will be playing directly into the narrative.
I wish to submit that our most effective and constructive strategy in dealing with the subversive efforts of NOM is to look to our own house. Our organizations and their depiction in the media need to reflect the actual diversity of our communities. We have allies within the black community. There is good indication that something in excess of 40% of blacks are supportive of LGBT rights. The people who will be most effective in challenging the anti-gay black voices being promoted by NOM are dissenting black voices. One of the serious mistakes of the campaign to defeat Prop 8 was the failure to recruit such voices to do outreach in the black community. So far it doesn't appear that we have learned much from our mistakes.
10:32 AM PT:
This video offers a concrete picture of the controversy and debate that is actually going on within black churches. There are black clergy who support marriage equality.