Yesterday, I sent an important edit memo to our partners and members of the media. Similar to the finger-pointing and back-biting going on in some Republican circles over their electoral defeats earlier this week, our side has been engaging in a bit of the "blame game" over the painful defeat of marriage equality in California. With passions inflamed and many people feeling understandable frustration, we must be careful to take stock of strategic missteps and areas where we need to improve the equality movement in a constructive manner, and not engage in destructive scapegoating.
The past 72 hours have brought an extraordinary range of emotions -- great joy at the election of Barack Obama and defeat of John McCain, and sadness and anger at the passage of anti-gay initiatives in Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and California. That sadness has turned to outrage at the speed with which some white gay activists began blaming African Americans -- sometimes in appallingly racist ways -- for the defeat of Proposition 8. This is inexcusable.
As a mother who has raised two children in a 30-year relationship with another woman, I fully understand the depth of hurt and anger at voters' rejection of our families' equality. But responding to that hurt by lashing out at African Americans is deeply wrong and offensive -- not to mention destructive to the goal of advancing equality.
Before we give Religious Right leaders more reasons to rejoice by deepening the divisions they have worked so hard to create between African Americans and the broader progressive community, let's be clear about who is responsible for gay couples in California losing the right to get married, and let's think strategically about a way forward that broadens and strengthens support for equality.
Others have taken on the challenge of looking at the basic numbers and concluded that it is simply false to suggest that Prop 8 would have been defeated if African Americans had been more supportive. The amendment seems to have passed by more than half a million votes, and the number of black voters, even with turnout boosted by the presidential race, couldn't have made up that difference. That's an important fact, but when African American supporters of equality are being called racist epithets at protests about Prop 8, the numbers almost seem beside the point.
Republicans and white churchgoers, among many other groups, voted for Prop. 8 at higher rates than African Americans. There are few African Americans in the inland counties that all voted overwhelmingly to strip marriage equality out of the California constitution. So why single out African Americans? Who's really to blame? The Religious Right.
I won't give up on equality and I know you won't either. People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation are already developing the strategies that will make our movement stronger. And we'll need your help. There will be several opportunities in the coming months and years for historic gains in LGBT equality and I know I can count on your support in the fights to come.
