The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force co-sponsored a new study showing that black lesbian couples are raising children at almost the same rate as black married couples, and that black same-sex couples raise children at twice the rate of white same-sex couples. The Task Force concludes that "Black same-sex couples have more to gain from the legal protections of marriage, and more to lose if states pass amendments banning marriage and other forms of partner recognition."
Fair enough, but being the Task Force, they add:
"These facts underscore the hypocrisy and wrong-headedness of the Bush Administration's aggressive attempts to deprive same sex couples equal marriage rights while touting its multi-million dollar 'African-American Healthy Marriage Initiative' as a way to strengthen the African American family," said Matt Foreman, the Task Force's Executive Director. "This report clearly shows that denying the protections that come with marriage disproportionately hurts...gay and lesbian African American couples....
Yep, blacks suffer "disproportionately," of course. And while it's fair enough to castigate Bush over the federal marriage amendment, what about Kerry's support for state marriage amendments -- the current threat. Also, the Task Force makes no mention of the devastating breakdown of straight black marriage that their study reveals (because if they did, they couldn't attack Bush for trying to address that problem and hit him on both fronts).
Something else the Task Force doesn't mention: the marriage amendment received a higher percentage of votes in the House from black Democrats than from Democrats as a whole.
Of the 36 Democrats who voted for the anti-gay amendment, 7 were
members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Harold
Ford, D-Tenn., a rising star in the party and one of John Kerry's
earliest backers in Congress. (Of the 158 Democrats voting against
the amendment, 25 were black caucus members, a somewhat smaller
percentage). Which, ahem, seems to suggest some "disproportionate"
homophobia among black Democrats.
Engaging the Enemy.
Jonathan Rauch has an interesting debate with David Blankenhorn,
a pro-fatherhood, pro-family advocate over at the website
Familyscholars.org (Jonathan's latest posting has
links back to earlier installments). The discussion focuses on
federalism and why honest conservatives should support letting
states decide their own marriage laws.