Anti-Gay Black Pastors "Warn" Obama: Repeal DOMA and "Risk" Losing Black Support

President Barack Obama should "tread gently regarding the issue of gay marriage" if he wants to keep black support, warns a new "coalition" of black pastors and "community leaders" which calls itself the Black Coalition Against Gay Marriage, reports BET.com and EURWeb.

Groups calling themselves the Black Coalition against Gay Marriage have sent a letter to President Obama, in effect, warning him not to endorse marriage between same-sex couples or risk losing much of his African American support base.  The coalition, which includes the veteran civil rights the group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Concerned African-American Pastors and other religious organizations, is particularly worried about Obama’s intentions regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Gay activist groups have been pressuring the Obama administration to work to change or weaken the Act. However, in its letter, the Black coalition asserts, "Changing the definition of marriage will have many unintended consequences which will hurt generations to come."

Meanwhile, a question remains as to how effectively the Coalition can deliver on its warning to undermine the president’s support base. Most major civil rights groups either support much of the gay rights agenda or remain officially neutral on the issue of homosexual marriage. And CORE, while a veteran group in the Civil Rights Movement, has become increasingly conservative in recent years and has largely been pushed to the fringes of the modern civil rights effort.

CORE has not only become "increasingly conservative" but it's become increasingly irrelevant. Although CORE was a key player in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the organization led by black conservative Roy Innis and his son Niger Innis is largely a shell of its once-gloried existence. Niger Innis regularly spouts anti-gay and pro-DOMA rhetoric for FOX and the Washington Times. CORE supported California's Proposition 8 because "too many black children are [already] being raised outside of marriage", Niger Innis told USA Today.

At the organization's website, this priceless footnote: "Membership in CORE is open to anyone who believes that 'all people are created equal' and is willing to work towards the ultimate goal of true equality throughout the world"

The Obama Administration "pushing" to end DOMA? That surely would be newsworthy. Even if that were to happen, the president would only lose a few black religious voters. White evangelicals and conservatives? Now that's a different story.

Obama Pressured by Gay Marriage Opponents[EUR]
BCAGM Sends Pres. Obama a Letter [BET.com]

Comments

[Stokely]

Those people are dreaming.
Barack Obama is a saint ion the black community, his photo is so many black homes, just like MLK's and JFK's when I was kid. There is no way he is losing any black support ...

Even as he cuts funding to HBCUs, ignores black farmers and doesn't push to insure to 50% or more of the black community that is uninsured. It doesn't matter.
Sorry but sadly even many black LGBTs could care less about DOMA.

[Dantrell]

haha, I'm glad you put 'warn" and "risk" in quotes because that is a joke. the first black president will always have the support of the black community, that's real talk.

a few holy rollers and black conservatives (like that Urkel with the assault rifle in Arizona) will always be against him. but black voters arent going nowhere. even if the pres were to try to repeal doma...which i doubt lol

these people are trying to pit blacks against gays and tear apart our community

[Will]

Who are these so called black leaders? I voted for President Obama, I didn't vote for them.

Whoever they are!!!!

[A. Ronald]

And tacky azz BET.com and EURWEB just cosigned the story like it was real and these so called coalitions represented real people

[Tandio]

This story is bs and part of the white evangelicals 'divide and conquer' strategy.

Go over to Queerty, there are having their daily race riot over there about this story, many commenters believe this is why Obama won't push DOMA repeal. he is afraid of black voters turning against him, lol.

As. If.!

[wondermann]

it is foolish to believe he would lose a lot of support from us

[Luther]

Tandio, you are so right, this is the white evangelicals plan and I really do think they are behind it, and it will sadly probably work since thess money grubbing preachers will do the shilling of hate for a price .

As for the race wars over on Queerty, that is a daily feature on that site it seems, black face, racial slurs, this does not help anyone who is in the fight for JUSTICE and EQUALITY.

[Steve]

and don't forget the splinter groups..."Conservative Religious African American Pastors" (CRAAP), and "Blacks Insinuating Gays Ought To be Silenced" (BIGOTS).

How insulting for these groups to insinuate that the black community is of one mind on this issue...and that they control that mind.

[Jamel Smith]

Bayard Rustin had an influential role with CORE.

We have so many problems in black communities throughout the U.S., and these ministers focus on same sex marriage?

[DW Jazzlover]

When asked why he did not hate the Chinese the Dali Lama replied" They have taken everything from us, Do you think I am going to give them my mind too"
Think about it Brothers

[Shane]

If the best press this group was able to generate was BET.com and EURweb, then I ain't worried.

I affectionately refer to the black church as the "Nigga Church" simply because it has outlived its usefulness and relevance as an institution.

The Nigga Church has become nothing more than a gathering place for fundraising on a Sunday. So to the black pastors (whose members probably don't vote anyway), I say BRING IT. I am not a Obama worshipper, but the repeal of DOMA needs to happen. Resisting this fact will only make the Nigga Church look more like a cult than it already does.

[Anthony in Nashville]

@ DW Jazzlover:

That is a superb quote, I'm going to have to start using it!

I am approaching the point where I don't think it's in my best interest to give attention to people who are working against my interests.

I may acknowledge them, but I'm trying to develop a more pro-active mentality instead of always complaining about things and folks I can't control in any event.

[ReggieH]

I agree with Stokely's first comment -- Obama would have to do something so completely over the top negative for the core of the black community to leave him. Even those who may not be pro-gay might say 'well, he's doing this to keep those white liberals happy so they'll vote for him in 2012,' and give him a pass.

DW Jazzlover's and Anthony's comments remind me of the mantra "Energy Follows Focus". If you focus on negative things and negative people, that's where all your energy goes, draining you. Focusing on positive things and positive people helps build success and actually helps to recharge you. At some point, we will have to just kiss the naysayers and homophobes goodbye, and focus on building ourselves up, and working with those who either already support us or who can be moved toward 'our side.'

[Chaz]

@ Shane

LOL@ the "Nigga Church." Oh wow. LOOOL!

[Nathan James]

These anti-gay pastors would do well to read a February 1964 NYT interview with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In it, King is asked about an FBI report which targeted Bayard Rustin and James Baldwin (Both close confidantes of King in the civil Rights era) as black gay men. King's reply was "These men and their work are of such overwhelming importance to our movement, that their private lives are of no concern to me".

Rustin taught King the principles of nonviolent protest, and Baldwin put into words the anger and pain felt by people of color living under Jim Crow. Without them, and other gay men, the Civil Rights movement might have played out very differently, or not at all. These pastors who, today, decry LGBT people of color, and implore President Obama--himself a direct beneficiary of the work of gay black men in the 1960s--to deny civil rights to "unacceptable" people of color among them, are guilty of the most base hypocrisy. The repeal of DOMA is the logical extension of the work begun by King, Rustin, Baldwin, et. al., and I think President Obama knows and understands this. That's more than can be said for those on the bigot pulpit.

[kayman]

WOW, I'm not surprised by this. A number of these black pastors and churches are beacons of foolishness. They should know that these white religious organizations feeding them this demagoguery will turn on them for their causes that would help them.