A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on November 7th, 2008 in US News

Fernando Espuelas credits the Latino vote for killing Prop 8 in California. But there is more to it than that:
64% of Catholics voted for the measure
84% of those who attend religious service once per week (1/3 of the electorate)
70% of Black voters

So where do we, who believe that the right to marry the person you love regardless of that person’s gender, go from here?

I think the results of Prop 8 contain some indications. I do not believe it is a hopeless case, but it is a case that will need a good deal of finesse. The first thing to understand is that there is a lot of overlap between the groups “attends religious service once per week” and “Black” or “Latino” voters. I don’t have access to detailed cross-tabs on polling, so I can’t say how many Black and Latino voters who don’t attend church voted in favor of Prop 8.

But the fact is that when we discuss Black voters, Latino voters, Evangelical voters, and Catholic voters, we are talking about groups that have each, in their turn, been targeted for hatred. Not because of the way they voted – which is the purpose of any modern and ongoing voter suppression attempts – but because of who they were.

The extensive system of Catholic education in the Northeast was largely a response to the severe beatings that Catholic children would receive at public schools. That, and the forcible intonation of non-Catholic prayers led the Catholics of generations past to simply opt-out of society. The history of evangelicals in the South actually starts in Connecticutt with the Danbury Baptists writing Thomas Jefferson to ask for government protection to worship to the dictates of their conscience. Do I need to detail the abuses suffered by past generations of Blacks and Latinos? The bastardization and minimization of their culture and their humanity?

What I’m saying is that each of these groups, somewhere deep, remember what it means to truly be discriminated against. They know what it means to cling to who you are when everyone around you says you are wrong for doing so.

I think culturally, convincing people to support marriage equality is not a big deal. It is the religious objections that must be overcome. And I don’t think enough activists are familiar with major themes and quotations from the Bible to do that. It’s a shame, because I think there is the opportunity to create a neutral space. It is a space that will never be welcoming to gay individuals, but it can be convinced the proper place is not to enforce Biblical teachings on society.

In short, activists for marriage equality need to invest in outreach to churches. Just as Obama took the battle to reliably Republican states, so do activists need to fight on the homefront of their opposition. Battles are not won by defense.

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