Black gays launch ‘marriage equality’ campaign

washblade.com ^ | Friday, December 12, 2003 | LOU CHIBBARO

[TaxPayer2000]

$100,000 advertising campaign to promote support for gay rights

By LOU CHIBBARO Friday, December 12, 2003

A newly formed coalition of African-American gay leaders announced plans this week for a $100,000 media campaign to promote support in the black community for same-sex marriage and to fight a constitutional amendment banning such marriages.

At a Dec. 8 news conference in Washington, D.C., members of the National Black Justice Coalition said their goal, among other things, is to refute claims by anti-gay groups that the majority of African Americans oppose same-sex marriage.

“Do not be fooled by a few recent poll numbers into thinking that marriage will divide the black community in the upcoming election year,” said Keith Boykin, a White House aide during the Clinton administration and co-founder of the coalition. “We are here to correct the record in the media and to tell the public that marriage is not a wedge issue for African Americans.”

Boykin said the coalition’s media campaign calls for raising and spending $100,000 for advertisements targeting the African-American media and to develop a Web site to “counter right-wing misinformation about blacks and marriage equality.”

He said the coalition would hold future news conferences to announce new supporters of the campaign, including prominent African-American politicians, civil rights leaders and entertainers.

“By the beginning of the New Year, we will launch the first-ever Web site to counter right-wing misinformation about blacks and marriage equality,” Boykin said. “And soon after the New Year, we will be holding new events to announce new supporters of our campaign.”

Among those who have already endorsed the coalition’s efforts and who pledged support for same-sex marriage, according to literature released by the coalition, are Coretta Scott King, widow of the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.; comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg; Democratic presidential candidates Carol Moseley Braun and the Rev. Al Sharpton; U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.); and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Coalition to oppose FMA The coalition will urge all major national African-American political and civil rights leaders along with African-American religious leaders to support the campaign, Boykin and other coalition members said. They said the coalition would also urge these same leaders and groups to take a strong stand

Donna Payne, senior constituency field organizer for HRC, said conservatives are trying to use the gay marriage issue to divide the black vote in the 2004 elections. (Photo by Michael Wise) against the Federal Marriage Amendment, the proposed constitutional amendment seeking to ban same-sex marriage that lawmakers have introduced into the Senate and House of Representatives.

“The right-wing fired the first shots in this battle, but today we fire back,” said coalition member Donna Payne, senior constituency field organizer for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group.

“Make no mistake about it,” Payne said, “the proposed constitutional amendment is being used by the white religious right in an attempt to scare the African-American community into voting for their ultra-conservative agenda.

“We will not allow the out-of-touch radical right to divide the black community on this issue.”

In addition to Boykin and Payne, coalition members speaking at the news conference, which was held at the National Press Club in downtown D.C., included the Rev. Michaele Moore, pastor of God’s Living Spirit Church in D.C.; Mandy Carter, gay civil rights activist and national steering committee member of Freedom to Marry, a group coordinating efforts to legalize same-sex marriage; and Maurice Franklin, former executive staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Kenneth Reeves, the former mayor and current member of the Cambridge, Mass., City Council, was scheduled to attend the press conference but was held over in Boston due to a snowstorm. Reeves, an attorney, submitted a written statement pledging his support for the coalition’s efforts on behalf of same-sex marriage.

“Contrary to popular belief, black elected officials are not all homophobic,” Reeves said in his statement. “In fact, the Congressional Black Caucus has been one of the most supportive demographic groups on gay issues of any group in the United States Congress. Now I invite and encourage the caucus members and other black elected officials to speak out against the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.”

[Jorge]

Well, now isn't this special. Who knows...this marriage thing just might catch on in the African-American community where 70% of babies are illegitimate.

Perhaps the men might have a better chance of hanging onto....their men.

[Qwinn]

Erm, well, I for one do think that the medical dangers of sodomy are extremely serious and are far too unreported due to the whole political correctness of the situation.

Which is why it rather annoys me to read that whole thing you posted, because it makes SUCH a big deal about the dangers of oral sex. No, I'm not claiming oral sex is entirely and utterly safe, it's not, but the level of danger between oral sex and sodomy (where ACTUAL blood -and- feces intermingle) are light years apart. We're probably talking about a danger difference comparable to crossing a street -with- the light versus driving with a 0.25 blood alcohol level.

By going on in a tirade against oral sex (which if it were true would probably have 90% of the women in the U.S. in hospital beds), it completely delegitimizes all the other arguments. It's frankly not all that different from people who delegitimize all sane discussion about the dangers of drugs by claiming that marijuana is just as dangerous as crack cocaine.

I'm afraid compendiums like that which mix serious issues with such alarmism and exaggeration do serious damage to getting any rational discussion on the subject.

Qwinn

[Happy2BMe]

"I'm afraid compendiums like that which mix serious issues with such alarmism and exaggeration do serious damage to getting any rational discussion on the subject."

What I posted was more series than a hurricane of heart attacks on a dying AIDS patient.

Translation for: "I'm afraid compendiums like that which mix serious issues with such alarmism and exaggeration do serious damage to getting any rational discussion on the subject." = I'm PROGAY and there is no amount of evidence against it that will convince me otherwise.

[Qwinn]

"I'm PROGAY and there is no amount of evidence against it that will convince me otherwise."

Oh Dear Lord. If you had read even 1/100th of my posts on Free Republic, you would realize that calling me "PROGAY" is absolutely absurd. No, I think the homosexual agenda is really doing serious damage to society in countless ways. I'm not a -bigot- against gays, but I think the act of sodomy itself is pretty repulsive, and I think legalizing gay marriage IS very harmful to the institution. So no, you're smoking crack if you think I'm "PRO GAY", and it seems you're just indistinguishable from another knee jerk "You disagree with me so you must be a DU troll" troll.

Look. No one is going to take ANYTHING you say seriously if you start the bloody thing talking about the huge dangers of oral sex. If you read what I said, you'll realize that the only thing I'm defending is what is a very common HETEROSEXUAL act. Far as I know, no, there is no massive epidemic of Hepatitis being transmitted by men to women through oral sex, and to be alarmist about that is to lose all credibility when it comes to the -serious- health risks involved in sodomy (which are actually true be it hetero or homosexual sodomy).

Qwinn

[Happy2BMe]

"No one is going to take ANYTHING you say seriously if you start the bloody thing talking about the huge dangers of oral sex."

O.K., eliminate the oral sex part for your purposes.

What about the rest of it?

[Qwinn]

Otherwise the research seems to be adequate and believable, but I'll let you know what I think in a sec. I want to ask a question of someone else who questioned it in this thread.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Belial,

As you can see, I'm engaged in a conversation about that research. I would like to ask you something. The only substantial objection you stated was this:

"Their sampling techniques are a joke. Polling 16 obituaries to find the average age of death of homosexuals???"

From the research it says this: "Obituaries numbering 6,516 from 16 U.S. homosexual journals over the past 12 years were compared to a large sample of obituaries from regular newspapers.23"

It appears to me that you misinterpreted 16 -journals- to mean 16 homosexuals, but apparently the real number is 6,516, which is indeed a pretty large sample. Was this just a misinterpretation on your part, or are you aware of something I'm not from reading this information?

Are there any other specific facts you're questioning in it? Other than the alarmism about oral sex (which I -do- still find discouraging), it does seem reasonably well sourced. SOME of it's conclusions I've seen before from pretty solid sources, so I don't think it's all phony. Basically, I'm interested to see if it really is debunkable or not, and since you seem interested in debunking it, have a go, I'll give it a fair reading. Your one attempt so far though doesn't seem accurate.

Happy2BMe,

If you have any contacts with the source you are quoting, I would seriously consider suggesting moving the one substantial note in the oral sex paragraph into the part about fecal sex, as a parenthesis citation which points out that oral sex that -follows- sodomy and thus involves ingesting feces, is indeed just as dangerous as what they describe as fecal sex.

Qwinn

[tuckrdout]

mr. devil...you just keep on deceiving and being deceived! The facts are the facts. Didn't you read my post from Dr. Bob? Homosexuality is a very unhealthy lifestyle.