Same-sex marriage pits blacks against gays in test of liberal 'tolerance' (part one)
May 10, 7:44 PM
Associated Press photo
Last week, Washington, D.C., City Councilman Marion Barry raised eyebrowns when he predicted that there would be a “civil war” if the District of Columbia endorsed gay marriage legislation.
"All hell is going to break loose," warned Barry, the former D.C. mayor and one-time convicted felon, after the council voted 12-to-1 Tuesday to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere in America. "We may have a civil war," declared Barry. "The black community is just adamant against this."
Given his troubled background, Marion Berry isn't everyone's ideal spokesman for traditional marriage. As one of my fellow Examiners wrote:
"I never thought I would find myself supporting Marion Berry but he was the lone dissenting vote. Give the man credit when he is right. And on this issue, he is definitely right."
Barry's statement highlighted a rift in the "rainbow coalition" that the Left isn't eager to discuss: the deep divisions between blacks and Latinos (who normally can be relied upon to vote Democrat) and their fellow liberals in the gay community.
During the Prop 8 campaign in California, the tensions spilled onto the streets and got ugly.
“It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU N****R, one man shouted (...) Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the [Mormon] temple... me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the n*****s better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.”
Along with hundreds of other homosexuals, “Geoffrey” (above) rallied outside the LDS Temple in Westwood, California last November to protest the Mormon’s (highly exaggerated) support of the state’s “anti-gay marriage” initiative known as Proposition 8.
He didn’t expect to hear racist insults and threats of violence hurled at him by fellow gays. Yet as his story wound its way around intenet blogs and chatrooms, other non-white homosexuals shared similar chilling tales. The narrow passage of “Prop 8” did more than make “gay marriage” illegal in California. It also revealed a rift in the “rainbow coalition”, with homosexuals taking out their anger on African-Americans, who voted against “gay marriage” at a rate of 70%.
For generations, African-Americans have been mostly impervious to public criticism in liberal circles, making it all the more shocking to hear highly visible Prop 8 opponent comedienne Rosanne Barr declare on her website that African-Americans who’d supported Prop 8 had “showed (sic) themselves every inch as bigoted and ignorant as their white Christian right wing counterparts.”
Gay rights activists took out their anger on more predictable targets too. California Mormons bore the brunt of the backlash: the LDS owner of a historically gay-positive Los Angeles restaurant was targeted nightly by belligerent protesters after they learned about her $100 donation to the pro-Proposition 8 cause.
The artistic director of the California Musical Theatre, also a Mormon, was forced to resign over his donation to the same campaign. Their names and addresses, along with thousands of others, had been published in an “Anti-Gay Blacklist” on the internet. Movie star Tom Hanks denounced Mormon voters as “un-American”, but later apologized.
Not surprisingly, Catholics came in for their share of abuse as well.
For instance, during last fall’s Prop 8 campaign, Jose Nunez was assaulted outside the St. Stanislaus Parish in Modesto, California. Nunez had volunteered to distribute pro-Proposition 8 signs; when his assailant saw the signs, he punched Nunez then stole the signs.
“I may be bloody and bruised,” said Nunez in a statement, “but I’m not giving up. I don’t want my kids taught in public school that same sex-marriage is the same as traditional marriage.”
Blatant anti-Catholic bigotry by homosexuals is nothing new, of course. Gay artists delight in mocking Catholicism’s distinctive symbols and rituals: the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (male actors in “nun” drag) have been the most recognizable Gay Pride parade participants since 1979; that same year, openly gay playwright Christopher Durang debuted “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You,” an absurdist burlesque of Catholic dogma.
Speaking of gay playwrights, one named Larry Kramer founded the notorious protest group ACT UP in 1987, as a reaction to the AIDS crisis. In December 1989, over 4,500 ACT UP protestors stormed New York’s St. Patrick's Cathedral during Mass, chanting “Stop the Church,” harassing those at prayer and desecrating the consecrated Host. More than 100 protesters were arrested.
“I thought we'd gotten over the adolescent tantrum phase of gay activism,” liberal lesbian culture critic Camile Paglia wrote in Slate.com last December in response to anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon assaults and intimidation. “Want to cause a nice long backlash to gay rights? That's the way to do it.”
“I may be an atheist,” Paglia continued, “but I respect religion and certainly find it far more philosophically expansive and culturally sustaining than the me-me-me sense of foot-stamping entitlement projected by too many gay activists in the unlamented past."
That spirit of the past has reemerged, however. This time around, activists are hoping to make the Church pay. Literally. Thanks to multi-million dollar clergy sex abuse settlements, the Catholic Church in America is no longer as wealthy as it once was, but that doesn’t matter to gay activists. Their goal isn’t so much to cash in as to shut down.
examiner.com |
