While
President Obama�s attitude concerning same-sex marriage
is evolving, and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney�s attitude
is an unequivocal denouncement, the American people seem
to moving solidly toward an acceptance of marriage equality.
Both Obama and Romney need to get with the program.
Simply
put: In the last presidential election it would have been
political suicide to support marriage equality. This November,
it may be a risk not to.
If
Romney too vociferously denounces same-sex marriage, or
attempts to employ it as a wedge issue (as candidate George
W. Bush successfully did in 2004), he�ll risk not only
Republican donations, but also Republican voters - and
not just moderate ones.
�As
they look past a dwindling anti-gay slice of their base,
smart Republicans know they need to get in step with their
own professed values - freedom, responsibility, small
government - not to mention America�s majority for marriage,�
Evan Wolfson wrote in a recent New
York Times op-ed, �The Anti-Gay Base Is Shrinking.� Wolfson is the founder and president of Marry, and is the author
of Why
Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's
Right to Marry.
Obama
may attempt to shrewdly fence sit on the issue while winking
a stealth nod our way. Or he may play a game of �go away
closer� and hold support until after his re-election.
Either option is a game of Russian roulette and some LGBTQ
Americans may hold onto their pink dollars this time around.
�Meanwhile,
Freedom to Marry�s call on the president and the Democratic
Party to embrace a �freedom to marry� platform plank has
won support from numerous party leaders, elected officials
and tens of thousands of Democrats online,� Wolfson writes.
For
both these politicians, Obama and Romney, whose words
are always measured and whose political game strategy
is always cautiously safe, a full support of same-sex
marriage would help not only their political aspirations
to the 2012 White House, but it would help in positively
supporting the millions of children in same-sex families
to know that they, too, are part of the American dream.
With
exposure to LGBTQ people, and with more and more Americans
wanting LGBTQ members in their families to receive the
same state and federal protections as every heterosexual
American, a seismic shift has occurred. The increased
acceptance of gay marriage has a lot to do with public
acceptance of LGBTQ people. A 2011 survey by the Pew
Research Center
discloses that 58 percent of the American populace accepts
LGBTQ people. And the latest Pew survey reveals that �47
to 43 percent plurality favoring gay marriage, with as
many Americans saying they strongly favor (22 percent)
as saying they strongly oppose (22 percent).� Much of
this change in attitude toward LGBTQ Americans is both
generational as well as cultural.
The
culture of many faith communities and denominations (that
were once upon a time helplessly homophobic) has also
changed. While many have changed their views of LGBTQ
people based on both spiritual repentance and theological
awakening, those who haven�t are at least not spewing
religious vitriol from the pulpit.
But
then, of course, there�s my faith tradition - The Black
Church.
A
homophobic faith tradition that Obama - in his first presidential
run to the White House - unabashedly wooed and from which
he won votes. With right wing organizations like National
Organization for Marriage (NOM) courting black churches
for their strategic 2012 election game plan to drive a
wedge between LGBTQ voters and African American voters,
Obama will need to stay clear of these churches and clerics.
And
while a preponderance of these black churches has not
change, (and sadly to say they won�t in my lifetime) there
is a growing number in this faith tradition who don�t
want a constitutional amendment on gay marriage and want
LGBTQ civil rights to be addressed as a theological issue.
Josef
Sorett, who is an assistant professor of religion and
African-American studies at Columbia University, wrote
in his respond to the recent New York Times question
�Is Support for Gay Rights Still Controversial?� that
�...many black Christians are now having more nuanced
conversations about the significance of sexual identity
and expression in determining the measure of full citizenship.
Some black churches are seeing shared commitments with
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists, even
as these churches affirm that the African American struggles
of the 1960s were unique.�
While
the own-ness of homophobic cleric is skewed toward African
American ministers, let�s not forget the white homophobic
evangelical clerics Obama also wooed and won over. On
the day Obama was sworn in, Pastor Rich Warren, founder
of the evangelical megachurch, Saddleback Church, in Lake
Forest, California and supporter of California Proposition
8, which amended the California Supreme Court�s ruling
that gay marriage is constitutionally permissible, gave
the invocation at his inauguration, with many LGBTQ Americans
who voted for Obama feeling like we were thrown under
the bus.
But
this election year, the tables are turned. Both Obama
and Romney have much to lose should they ignore the important
civil rights topic of marriage equality on their run to
the White House.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion
columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of
the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and
Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific
School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a
graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological
Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor
at an African-American church before coming to Harvard
Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She
was recently named to MSNBC�s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author
of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible
Prayers for Not�So�Everyday Moments. As an African-American
feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society
that is frequently invisible. Her website
is
irenemonroe.com.
Click here
to contact the Rev. Monroe.