Minorities driving marriage support

Timothy Kincaid

June 6th, 2012

The polling numbers in support of equality keep rising. And the most recent increases seem to be predominantly among non-white participants. CNN’s latest poll shows:

Do you think marriages between gay and lesbian couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?

54% – recognized as valid
42% – not recognized as valid
3% – “the orderlies are trying to steal my soup!”

Which is very good news and part of the gradual and steady increase in support and decrease in opposition. Even better is that 39% strongly believe in the recognition of marriage while only 34% strongly oppose recognition.

But the part of the poll results that got me all giggly was this:

Non-White
59% – recognized as valid
39% – not recognized as valid
3% – “can’t talk now, Tyler Perry has a new movie out”

With Whites at 52%, for the first time racial minorities are polling as more supportive. And after four years of hurt feelings and back and forth resentment, this is very good news indeed. Especially for Maryland residents, where a third of the voters who will decide marriage this November are non-white.

Much of this shift is in the black community. And I’ve already given credit to the President and the NAACP. But I want to acknowledge one other factor that I think drove opinion and set the black community in the position to respond so positively to the President’s evolution on marriage.

Like most minorities, black people are intensely protective of their own. And this protection doesn’t stop just because one of their own is same-gender loving.

It wasn’t like the black community tossed their gay kids out and disowned them. But I think that the greater black community didn’t see marriage as being an issue of importance to black gays and lesbians.

Images of gay marriage in the media were old white lesbians or young white gay men. The discussions about black gays were about “the downlow” or HIV or cultural homophobia or the church organist. And black gays, themselves, had too much on their plate to fight the marriage battle. There just wasn’t talk, much less emphasis, on the issue that non-black gays had made front and center.

But then DC happened. And picture after picture, story after story, the people going to get married in DC reflected the population and a great many of them were black.

Suddenly it wasn’t “them” that were impacted, it was people who looked and sounded like someone they knew and loved. Someone who shared their culture and their values. Someone black.

So when the President and the NAACP spoke in support, it wasn’t support of some other people who were competing for civil rights, it was about family.

It is true that coming out is the single largest contributor to people changing their minds about equality. I think that in this situation, by black couples coming out as having marriage important to them, it changed minds that the brides and grooms never anticipated.

David Waite

June 7th, 2012

Timothy, I believe you are correct. I have been quite surprised by the change in attitude within the past 2 years. I know of no other way to account for it except what you have laid out here. All my life I’ve believed it was harder to hate or despise a neighbor than a faceless stranger, but even so the speed of change has amazed me.

This column, and Ben in Oakland’s long comments about marriage equality campaigning have given me the beginning of some new ideas to spread, after November. Not that I’ll wait till then to begin writing about them, but no one will really pay attention before then.

MCB

June 7th, 2012

I strongly suspect that Obama and the NAACP just made a lot of African-Americans feel much more comfortable admitting what they’d felt for a long time, i.e. that same-sex marriage was okay. And yes, the legalization in DC probably had a lot to do with that growing but unexpressed support.

Priya Lynn

June 7th, 2012

MCB said “I strongly suspect that Obama and the NAACP just made a lot of African-Americans feel much more comfortable admitting what they’d felt for a long time, i.e. that same-sex marriage was okay.”.

Very interesting. I hadn’t thought of that before but it makes good sense. I hope sometime those black people that changed their poll answers will explain why.

StraightGrandmother

June 7th, 2012

I think you are onto something Timothy.

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