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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Work to do

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Nov 5 2008, 6:32 AM ET Comment

I've been working my way through this thing on blacks, homophobia and marriage equality. I don't regret any of my arguments. But, this is hard to take:

Every ethnic group supported marriage equality, except African-Americans, who voted overwhelmingly against extending to gay people the civil rights once denied them: a staggering 69 - 31 percent African-American margin against marriage equality.

I've given my take many times, and I stand by it, though it should be said I was wrong about Latinos. Still on a gut, emotional level, this makes me sick. If someone wants to give me a reason why gay people shouldn't be able to marry that doesn't, at its root, boil down to "yuck," I guess I'd love to hear it. But really that isn't the point. I've always maintained that you don't have to like black people to do the right thing. Same thing here. I'm not very interested in folks's homophobia. I'm interested in why they think they should be in the business of dictating terms of love to two consenting adults. It's disgusting. And we need to let this shit go. There may be great, sound reasons beyond--the blacks are pathological!!--to explain this. But there are no great, sound reasons that excuse it. Cut this shit out. We know better. Even if other people didn't.

UPDATE: Shutting down this thread. We need to breath. We'll return to this in the morning.


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