Blacks don't believe gay rights are the same as civil rights: poll
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – By a two-to-one margin, blacks reject the notion that homosexual rights compare with the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and '60s, according to a new poll commissioned by Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television.
The poll found that more blacks oppose redefining marriage and believe clergy are right to denounce homosexuality.
In all, 55 percent of blacks deny the idea “that equal rights for gays are the same as equal rights for African Americans.” Only 28 percent believe they are the same.
Despite the endorsement of prominent black leaders including the president, 42 percent of blacks still believe marriage should be “restricted to a man and a woman,” more than those who believe gays should be able to marry (40 percent).
Also, more blacks believe “ministers who oppose homosexuality” are right (34 percent) than wrong (31 percent).
However, the survey found the black community has almost uniformly positive views of Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and the NAACP.
Most respondents said Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson speak for their concerns. All of these organizations and individuals support same-sex “marriage.”
Some of the attendees of the March for Marriage discussed the reasons blacks take umbrage at equating marriage “equality” and the broader question of gay rights with their own history in a video shot by TFP Student Action.
“It really saddens me and a lot of African-Americans, because definitely, there is no comparison to be made there,” a woman told John Ritchie of the Catholic group Tradition, Family, Property (TFP). “I just don't like the comparison, because to me there is absolutely none.”
A man drew one blatant difference. “Homosexuals weren't put in chains for 400 years. There's no equality there,” he said. “They're trying to equate unnatural behavior with natural behavior.”
Former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis discussed the issue with The Daily Caller last summer, saying homosexuals do not share blacks' history of enslavement, Jim Crow, and violent discrimination.
“When you say to African-Americans, ‘The gay struggle is the black struggle,’ they don’t buy it,” said Davis, a centrist Democrat who now identifies as a Republican. “What African-Americans often don't like is when they're told, 'If you don't agree with gay marriage, you're a bigot.' Or, 'How dare you take this position when at one point, blacks and whites weren't allowed to marry in some states?'”
