Posted on 06/08/2015 5:58:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
They’re not the only group still opposed, of course — senior citizens and white evangelicals also say no to SSM — but they’re the only group that’s under intense partisan pressure to conform that’s still resisting. When Obama announced his support for gay marriage in 2012, at least one poll showed a sea change in black opinion in the aftermath, from 41 percent in favor to 59 percent virtually overnight. One 2012 exit poll found 51 percent support for SSM among blacks versus 41 percent opposition. Pew’s polls over the years have found that black support did increase noticeably between 2010 and 2012, possibly driven by O’s friendlier rhetoric towards SSM or possibly by the broader national trend in favor, but over the past few years that support has leveled off. As things stand today, the closest thing to the GOP’s socially conservative base on gay marriage outside the base itself is blacks.
Makes me wonder how the numbers will look after the Supreme Court legalizes the practice. Will blacks come around, with Democratic Party leaders celebrating the decision euphorically, or is this opposition durable?
Black support has increased 14 points in the past 10 years, but to put that in perspective, support among Democrats aged 70 or older has increased 23 points over the same period. (A majority of Democrats in all four major age demographics now back SSM.) Black Democrats are even more resistant to the social trend than septuagenarians. What’s driving it, unsurprisingly, appears to be religion. Just 33 percent of black Protestants support gay marriage; among white evangelicals, the group that’s most strongly opposed, that number is 27 percent. And the similarities don’t end there:
The only religious groups polled where 40 percent or more see a conflict between SSM and their beliefs are white evangelicals and black Protestants. When you ask people whether gays are born that way or choose to live that way, only three demographics polled reach 60 percent among those who say “choose” — white evangelicals, blacks, and black Protestants. When you ask the same groups if homosexuality is something that can be changed, only three groups reach 50 percent in saying that it can. Guess which three. And when you ask if they’d be upset to learn that their son or daughter was gay, only two groups reach 60 percent who say they would be. Again: White evangelicals and black Protestants. Fifty-eight percent of blacks generally say they’d be upset, almost identical to the 59 percent of Republicans who say so.
Like I say, it’s an open question how much black numbers will change and how quickly, although there are lots of cultural forces pushing them towards the pro-SSM position. Part of it, as noted, is partisan pressure: Democrats will quietly tolerate widespread anti-SSM sentiment among black voters given how important they are to the coalition, but any black pol with national ambitions will have to side with the left on this. As more big-name black Democrats make the switch, presumably more black voters will too. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage could legitimize it in the eyes of some skeptics as well. And if it’s true that America’s younger generations are more secular than older ones, and it’s also true that secularists tend to be more comfortable with gay marriage than religious believers, then presumably blacks will trend pro-SSM as less religious younger black voters replace more religious older ones in the electorate. But who knows? Given the hurricane-force cultural winds that Americans have dealt with over the last 10 years, it could be that most of the movement on this issue that’s going to happen in the medium-term has already happened. Maybe blacks, along with their unlikely partners in the GOP base, will be the last bulwarks against SSM for the next decade or two.
I talk to blacks all the time and have even been invited to inner city Detroit churches. We’ve got common ground on abortion, guns, gay marriage and several other things. Black businessmen don’t want to be overregulated or overtaxed than anyone else.
The biggest hurdle to blacks voting republican in local races is the lack of republicans running in urban areas.
If they did, then they would vote against it, not for it.
When someone votes for the party doing this to us, you can’t take them seriously when they say that they don’t approve of it.
I’d like to see the lefties call THEM bigots.
Interesting anecdote, especially with your home page statement of your being a social liberal, what kind of " a very conservative rural church" is it?
I live and work in the DC area and for decades I have witnessed the appalling denial in blacks.
Going way back to 1992, almost all blacks I knew believed we were in the worst economy in the last 50 years as Clinton claimed thousands of times. Several believed the unemployment was 25% (they heard that on the radio and eagerly believed it). So when I presented them US govt stats that the unemployment was not 25%, they refused to believe it.
Many of them live in Prince Georges county, MD which is a cesspool of crime and incompetence and corruption and horrible schools. One of the folks I work with lives in that county and his two sons were 'educated' in that school system, which is a complete disaster area. However, he was happy with his situation as he told me his sons' teachers are really good and his school was good, too - unlike the others. His older son made good grades and my fellow worker was shocked, just shocked when his son had no ability to do college level work. He spent his entire freshman year in remedial courses and then dropped out of college. His younger son - same story. Do you think this real life example would have an impact? Perhaps the schools really aren't good. Perhaps we need change. Oh no, he still votes for the same people and the same party election after election. He sees nothing wrong...nothing needs to be fixed.
I have seen scores of blacks burned by their own system, burned by their own people, burned by their own 'ideals' and yet, it is more important to stick together with their own kind and blame whitey. You see, it's whitey's fault. I have all kinds of anecdotes. Blacks are very conspiratorial about most everything. Fairfax County has one of the best school systems in the country and when I ask my black coworkers and acquaintances, if they have considered moving from PG county to Fairfax, they answer is almost always, "We've discussed it, but we feel more comfortable where we are." But this is the future of your children. "Yes, we know, but they'll do fine in the schools here." These are blacks who can easily afford to move across the river to Virginia, but for the sake of being with their kind, they have sacrificed their children.
The DC school system is so bad, I could spend hours writing about it, but the bottom line is 50% do not graduate and 50% of those who do graduate are functionally illiterate. When one of the mayors hired an Asian as head of the DC school system, she was run out after several years. She was turning the tables upside down, but you can't have that. The fact that their school system is a shambles did not matter to them. All they wanted was a black superintendent.
Blacks give lip service opposing same sex marriage, but that is all it is. The next election, they are voting for the same ones who have ruined their families and ruined their community. They don't care. If they cared, their behavior would be different.
It is a waste of time to engage blacks. You don't even want me to write as to what they think of Ben Carson.
Whatever. Not all of us have allowed Obama to pull our puppet strings.
Given the illegitimacy rate of black children it looks like they don’t support any type of marriage
Correct - only 98% have allowed him to pull the strings.
What’s the Muslim opinion of Gay Marriage?
You’re one of those types.
Hopefully the newly elected conservative Republican chairman of the North Carolina GOP can help change that (and yes, he’s black).
Nixon got 33% of the black vote in 1960 and Goldwater got almost none in 1964 and it hasn't changed in half a century since. So, please, if you can, educate me on how engaging blacks is helpful and has changed their voting patterns and point of view. I know you can't do that and won't respond just like the other one.
Failure to try is just plain failure.
They’re just a bunch of racists /sarc
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