I'm going out on a limb here, but isn't it likely that black opposition to gay marriage being higher than that of whites (usually), at least in urban areas, is related to blacks coming from a more rural background 2-3 generations back in which the center of the community was the church? It's always been my understanding at any rate that blacks (and Latinos) tend to be more religious and culturally conservative than whites, and both come from rural backgrounds (usually, I mean, and in the recent past, I mean). They also tend to have lower educational levels.
--- On Thu, 11/13/08, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> From: shag <shag at cleandraws.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Gay marriage
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008, 7:47 AM
> no. some people think like that, not all. this weekend,
> surfing blogs and
> magazine articles on the controvery, i noticed that
> it's split: some
> people think it's socialized and therefore a choice,
> other people think
> it's genetic -- but still a choice -- not unlike the
> way middle class
> whites felt about poor whites in the 1800s through the
> 1930s or so: they
> were genetically deformed, but they could still change or
> be forced to
> change -- or simply sterilized or institutionalized and
> sterilized.
>
> the examples I read this weekend were that people don't
> follow their
> genetic heritage necessarily so it wasn't any different
> than other things
> we do that are supposedly part of our genetic heritage. One
> guy said,
> "well, genetically, I'm supposed to be
> promiscuous, but I don't act on
> it." Another said something about being omnivores and
> capable of eating
> meat, just not acting on it for moral reasons. blah blah.
>
> in the black community, research has shown that they are
> willing to
> support civil rights elsewise, just _not_ marriage. as is
> pointed out in
> the article below, the reasons are complicated, but I
> suspect the reason
> why black heterosexism is higher than typical levels of
> heterosexism among
> whites and latinos has to do with desire for cultural
> assimilation: being
> heteronormative with a vengeance, in other words, to
> *prove* to whites
> that you're just like them. As the VV author says,
> black folks have
> unfortunately become *more* bigoted than whites on some
> issues. (Which is
> why I have said that my observance of issues at work is a
> _class_ issue:
> both the hatred of poor people and the hatred of homos.)
>