BLACK VOTERS AND SSM: Peter Beinart

Consider this political puzzle. According to polls, African Americans are more hostile to gay marriage-- indeed, to gays in general--than whites. A December 2003 New York Times survey found that 75 percent of blacks oppose same-sex marriage, compared with 59 percent of whites. Fifty-eight percent of blacks think sexual orientation "can be changed," according to a November Pew Research Center study, versus 39 percent of whites. And, according to Pew, 60 percent of blacks hold an unfavorable view of gay men, compared with only 50 percent of whites.

Yet, when Mississippi tried to pass an anti-gay-marriage amendment last month, the 17 state representatives who voted no were all African Americans. When Georgia tried to do the same thing, all ten black state senators opposed it. In the Georgia House of Representatives, 30 black legislators voted no and one voted yes (the tally among whites was 116 yes, eleven no). That's despite a Zogby poll showing that black Georgians oppose gay marriage more strongly than do whites.

For many conservatives, the riddle's answer is obvious: Black politicians are out of touch. But, if black politicians were really so dismissive of the views of their constituents, they'd no longer be in office. For decades now, conservatives have touted polls showing that African Americans hold conservative views on gay rights, abortion, the death penalty, and school vouchers. And yet I can't think of a single election in which any of those issues has hurt a liberal black politician among black voters. To suggest that black politicians don't represent their constituents because blacks tell pollsters they dislike gay marriage is like saying Republicans don't represent their constituents because many GOP voters say they prefer education spending to cutting taxes. If politicians keep behaving a certain way, and getting elected, it's a good bet they are getting signals from their constituents that the polls aren't picking up.

One thing the polls don't pick up is black suspicion of the Republican Party. When pollsters ask blacks about gay marriage, they're asking in a relative vacuum. But, when the issue is raised in a state legislature or in a political campaign, its partisan implications are glaringly obvious. And the very fact that the GOP is leading the anti-gay-marriage movement delegitimizes the issue for black politicians and black voters. As State Representative Tyrone Brooks, head of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, explained to The New York Times, "This is not about your personal beliefs. It's about a political ballgame the Republicans kicked off." The Reverend Walter Fauntroy, a black former delegate to Congress from the District of Columbia, actually supports a federal anti-gay-marriage amendment. Yet, when he went on National Public Radio this February to debate the issue, he prefaced his comments by announcing, "I'm annoyed to have to discuss this issue in an election year, because it's yet another sideshow being used by radical right-wing fiscal and social conservatives to divert attention from the critical issues."

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