Black Voters and Gay Marriage

Contrary to conventional wisdom, black people have a wide diversity of opinion on the subject of LGBT rights. We are incorrectly and unfairly labeled as being hyper homophobic despite the fact that millions of people in the black LGBT community have relatives and friends and co-workers who accept them as they are. I have written on the subject in the past on this blog and in Black Agenda Report.

Today the New York Times presented in its Op-Docs column a video from the film The Black Vote for Gay Marriage. Film maker Yoruba Richen does an excellent job of displaying the nuances and complexities of black opinions on the issue of gay marriage. It is worth a look.

While I am on the subject, I will point out yet again that the often repeated statistic that 70% of black Californians voted against gay marriage in 2008 is incorrect. Black voter approval of Proposition 8 was more like 58%, a slightly higher figure than for other groups, but nothing which indicates that we are such outliers.