It's an explosive question: How could African Americans – and to a lesser extent, Latinos and Asians – discriminate against gays when they have endured such discrimination?
The answers are complex, but don't underestimate the role of faith for why Proposition 8 was passed this week. The statewide initiative that eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry passed with the support of 70 percent of African Americans, according to exit polls. A slight majority of Latinos and almost half of Asian voters also voted yes. And a strong majority of these voters described themselves as religious.
This trend was exemplified in the hugely diverse swath of south Sacramento, in neighborhoods such as Valley Hi, Fruitridge and Lemon Hill.
We're talking 80 percent minority, where voters went big for Barack Obama and even bigger for Proposition 8. Only rural, outlying areas supported the measure more.
Faith is a common denominator for longtime African American residents and more recently arrived Latino and Asian immigrants in south Sacramento.
"African Americans are driven by civil rights, Christianity and morals that have been entrenched in us," said Anthony Wallace, senior pastor of the New Direction Christian Center.
"We've always had it in our minds that it is morally wrong to be homosexual. That's where the vote came from."
Consider the impact.
California now has a class of gay couples married over the summer who have become like an endangered species. There won't be new gay couples getting married legally, so the ones already wed via a California Supreme Court ruling are like castaways on an island. And the people largely responsible have lived on islands of racial and economic inequality themselves.
Some would argue this proves that all people look for others to dump on. Maybe. But that analogy misses a critical point. Gay marriage advocates need to understand that religious opposition to their cause is often bathed in love, not hate. Wallace, like Bishop Jaime Soto of the Diocese of Sacramento, speaks of loving gay people but condemning the act of homosexual love.
The strongest rebuttal to this – one we never heard from the No on 8 campaign – is that many gay couples have been joined in marriages defined not by sex but by love, devotion, fidelity and sacrifice.
Instead of hearing that in the campaign, we were treated to Sen. Dianne Feinstein preaching about equality. And some gay marriage advocates were openly intolerant of religious people.
We are a nation where church and state are separate, but faith and state clearly are not. What we needed to see – what I saw last summer – were the moving images of gay couples crying tears of joy as their lives were joined in marriage.
The more you expose people to that love – and faith – the more we remember that all of us are children of God.
Call The Bee's Marcos Bretón, (916) 321-1096.
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