African Americans received much of the blame shortly after California voters banned same-sex marriage last month. But a new poll released by the Public Policy Institute found that other social factors, not race, played a larger role in the initiative’s passage.
The controversial amendment to the state’s constitution, known as Proposition 8, was passed by just 52 percent on Nov. 4; pundits almost immediately pounced on data that showed nearly 70 percent of the state’s African American voters cast ballots in support of the ban, helping lead the defeat of gay marriage.
Television star and comedienne Roseanne Barr even called Blacks – traditionally committed to civil rights – “bigoted and ignorant” for helping to defeat gay rights.
But the poll, released earlier this month, runs counter to this frame of thought. It revealed that California voters who supported the ban were sharply divided by income, religion and age more so than race.
Results of the poll show:
“African Americans were set up to take the blame,” said John Newsome, president of San Francisco’s Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition, an organization founded to empower lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender persons of color.
To the contrary, “African American organizations and leaders have been stalwarts in the LGBT Civil Rights movement,” added Newsome after reports indicating Blacks overwhelmingly supported the measure reached a fevered pitch.
