Before everyone gets tired of “playing the race card” game with Jimmy Carter, it might be worth noting that even though over fifty-four percent of the population of Washington, D.C. is African American, the white minority is not all that anxious to let the black folks vote on a referendum on one particular issue. Guess which issue?
A coalition of gay marriage opponents asked the D.C. elections board Tuesday to authorize a ballot initiative that if approved by a majority of voters would define marriage in the District as the union of a man and a woman.
Stand4MarriageDC, led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Beltsville’s Hope Christian Church, filed papers with the Board of Elections and Ethics seeking authority to collect petition signatures for a November 2010 referendum on the definition of marriage. The filing, backed by the Archdiocese of Washington, comes ahead of an anticipated D.C. Council effort to legalize same-sex marriage in the District.
Over at the Stand4MarriageDC website, we hear further from Bishop Jackson:
“The D.C. City Council has stated that their intention is to redefine marriage by going beyond recognizing homosexual marriage performed outside the District to advocating for them to be performed in the District,” said Bp. Jackson. “This redefinition of marriage will permanently impact D.C. businesses, schools, social activities, and the family unit without the voice of the residents being heard. The initiative filed today would allow the people of the District to decide this important issue, not a 13-person panel.”
And from the Rev. Dale Wafer:
“The City Council has had no consultation with community leaders, no public debate and no consideration of the views of the majority of D.C. residents,” says Pastor Wafer. “Their actions have not only been disrespectful to citizens of the District, but outright undemocratic. This issue is too big to be decided in such an exclusive, haphazard and thoughtless way.”
Bishop Harry Jackson and Pastor Dale Wafer, it is worth noting, are African Americans.
Of course, such a ballot measure is radically opposed by the gay lobby. Why? “’Philosophically many people are opposed to having a ballot initiative that subjects a particular group’s rights to an up or down majority vote,’ said Rick Rosendall, vice president of political affairs for the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.”
It would be a waste of breath to point out to Rick Rosendall and his allies the fallacy of petitio principii. Behind all the bluster we all know the real reason the white folks tend to think the black folks in Washington, DC shouldn’t get a vote on this particular issue. The simple fact is that a far greater percentage of African Americans still hold to crazy ideas like, say, the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman (despite and perhaps because of the fallout from the tragic breakdown of the institution of marriage in the black community), oppose the legalization of gay marriage, and deeply resent the common assertion from the gay lobby that opposition to “gay marriage” is morally equivalent to racism.
Not that this has anything to do with racism, mind you. Although, I would love to hear President Obama’s answer to a well-timed question as to whether or not he agrees with Bishop Jackson that “The people of the District of Columbia should decide the issue of the definition of marriage, not 13 members of the D.C. Council,” or with Rev. Wafer’s claim that the actions of the city council “have not only been disrespectful to citizens of the District, but outright undemocratic.” Let’s hear the great “community organizer” parse that one! Jimmy Carter might take a stab at it as well.
September 17th, 2009 | 10:16 am
Mr Pavlischek writes:
“the white minority is not all that anxious to let the black folks vote on a referendum on one particular issue.”
ANXIOUS vs EAGER: The white minority is ANXIOUS about the likely result of the referendum, so they are not EAGER to have the referendum.
September 17th, 2009 | 12:35 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gay Marriage Rights, Connor Petloe and Mike Smith . Mike Smith said: Race and Same-Sex Marriage » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog http://bit.ly/rLl5Y [...]
September 17th, 2009 | 3:41 pm
GENE–”eager” would work, of course, but also see #2 below.
ANXIOUS
–adjective 1. full of mental distress or uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried; solicitous: Her parents were anxious about her poor health.
2. earnestly desirous; eager (usually fol. by an infinitive or for): anxious to please; anxious for our happiness.
3. attended with or showing solicitude or uneasiness: anxious forebodings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anxious
September 17th, 2009 | 7:31 pm
You can’t identify a petitio principii without clarifying what is in question. Some gay-marriage proponents – probably most, in fact – think that marriage for same-sex couples is guaranteed by the equal protection clause. And if they’re right, then it wouldn’t be right to subject it to the dictates of the majority. So the point is not that he’s begging the question, but that he’s simply wrong.
October 1st, 2009 | 7:28 pm
Mr. Pavlischek’s surmise about me is wrong. A number of polls suggest that African American voters in D.C., while more oppose marriage equality than support it, are not anywhere close to being monolithically opposed to us as Bishop Jackson pretends. The efforts of Jackson and others to stir up public outrage have been notably unsuccessful.
We do not oppose a ballot initiative because we think we would lose, but because the whole point of equal rights is undermined by putting them to a plebiscite, and because our city faces too many other challenges to be diverting significant money and resources to a rancorous fight in which Jackson’s deep-pocketed friends would fill the airwaves with anti-gay slanders.
As to the people’s right to be heard, we have regular elections and there will be a public hearing on the bill. And if our elected legislature is unfit to make decisions on important matters, why have a legislature? Besides, where was this great concern for the need to hold a plebiscite prior to this particular controversy? It is interesting to watch people making high principle out of situational opportunism.
Because I am honored to be mentioned by such an illustrious journal as First Things, let me concede that (John Boswell’s historical research notwithstanding) same-sex civil marriage represents a change. So did the reforms of the past half century that led to the equal treatment of women. Britain’s move 200 years ago to banish the slave trade was also a change. As a citizen of a nation born in revolution, I wonder at this notion that nothing should ever change. For 233 years we have struggled fitfully to live up to Mr. Jefferson’s immortal words. The gay rights struggle is part of that story.
BTW, the gay community and the black community overlap. Pretending otherwise won’t help you. Contrary to the impression Bishop Jackson tries to give, the gay population of D.C. did not just arrive from Mars; we have deep roots in our communities. And we have a great deal of African American support.
October 1st, 2009 | 7:40 pm
Joe, equal protection is indeed a key concern of mine. As Charles Barkley says, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I predict that the equal protection argument made by the California Supreme Court last year in the same-sex marriage case will eventually be the law of the land. It may take 15 or 20 years, but it will happen, and it will be for good. The facts are with us, justice is with us, and the younger generation is with us.
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