Look, black Washington is black Washington. It isn't Harlem. It isn't Selma. It isn't West Baltimore. It's a city existing on its own individual terms, with it's own specific individual history. The District's black community extends back to the city's founding. They boast a university which has been a beacon for black progressives for over a century, and a progressive tradition which extends back to home rule.
Indeed, for all the heat over black homophobia, Chocolate City passed a
domestic partnership back in 1992--when it wasn't cool. But
it had no teeth--not because of a band of black homophobes--but because of white homophobia. (that's intentionally absurd) The GOP-led Congress refused to allow it. Even Barry himself is not so
easily pigeonholed. In his movements you see, not the actions of bigot,
but something colder and more sinister a Wallace-esque demagogue appealing to hate to put some shine on his last days.
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But most importantly, Washington has black gay activists who've been fighting this war in black communities for years:
Gay rights advocates have been strategically tapping into every corner
of the city to get the support of Democratic committees in each ward.
And the faces of those advocates come in color: Michael Crawford, who
is black, is the founder of DC for Marriage, and Jeffrey Richardson,
who is black, is president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, a
political group for the LGBT community.
They will not be done in by the likes of Tony Perkins. Give them a
chance to do their work, and you never know what might change:
A May 2006 poll of 800 likely D.C. voters -- 100 in each of the city's
eight wards -- showed that if presented with an initiative to ban
same-sex marriage, 49 percent of African Americans would vote yes, and
42 percent would vote no. But the poll, commissioned by the Foundation
for All D.C. Families, found that African Americans were sympathetic to
the "rights, benefits and legal protections" of gay and lesbian
couples. For example, 26 percent said same-sex couples deserve full
marriage rights while another 41 percent supported legal recognition
such as domestic partnerships...
However, David A. Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint
Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, notes that
African American attitudes about same-sex marriage appear to have
shifted even more dramatically in recent years than they have in the
white community.
In 2004, the center conducted a poll a few months before the
presidential contest, finding that 46 percent of African Americans
supported no legal recognition for gay relationships, compared with 37
percent of the general population who felt the same way.
According to a New York Times-CBS News poll conducted last month, 38
percent of African Americans and 40 percent of whites support gay
marriage. Only 26 percent of African Americans and 30 percent of white
voters in the poll said they do not want legal recognition of gay
relationships. A Washington Post-ABC News poll, also conducted last
month, found that 48 percent of white voters and 42 percent of African
American voters strongly or somewhat favor same-sex marriage.
