Activists Reject GOP Anti-gay Advances to African Americans

4-05-06, 9:17 am



A highly organized, well-funded campaign led by right-wing evangelical Christian groups, including the Traditional Values Coalition and the Family Research Council, in conjunction with the Republican Party machine is targeting African Americans. The goal is to divide Black voters by emphasizing and manipulating views on gays and lesbians, according to a spokesperson for the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force (NGLTF).

Republican loyalists and officials have sought to spread an anti-gay message in African American churches in order to convince Black voters to 'come back home' to the Republican Party.

The NGLTF Policy Institute this week released a report, 'How the Right Deploys Homophobia to Win Support from African Americans,' that exposes the dishonesty behind and spotlights the false promises inherent in these attempts to lure Black voters based on 'moral values.'

As Nicholas Ray, the report’s author stated in a press conference announcing the publication of the report that 'moral values,' such as same-sex marriage, simply don’t register among the highest priorities of African Americans. In fact, Ray noted that polls show that fewer than 1 percent of African Americans regard a 'moral crisis' as defined by GOP pundits as a major issue.

Issues like the economy, racism, health care, the war, and education are the issues most African Americans rate as the most important. Ray pointed out that Republican Senators and members of the House have poor voting records when it comes to issues like civil rights and social issues that African Americans have said are important to them.

For example, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), a, outspoken anti-gay Republican in the Senate, has voted 17 times against raising the minimum wage, but has approved raising his own pay every year he has been in office, complaining that his $162,100 salary forces him and his family to live 'paycheck to paycheck.'

Outgoing Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), a vocal opponent of equality for LGBT people, opposes reauthorization of portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights of 1965, and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, a leading figure in the organized effort to bring an anti-gay message into Black churches, while serving as a campaign official for a Republican senator, personally authorized the purchase of avowed racist David Duke's mailing list to promote and fund raise for that campaign.

Traditional Values Coalition head Louis Sheldon, the NGLTF report points out, is so out of touch with African American issues that he told right-wing TV personality Tucker Carlson this past January that the biggest problem in the Black community is homosexuality. He also described African American advocates of reparations as 'black shakedown artists.'

Altogether the report documents the views of the 159 most conservative members of Congress as reflected in their voting records. None have a positive record when it comes to voting for issues related to civil rights, job and economic issues, education and war.

In fact, the higher they were rated by right-wing organizations such as the American Conservative Union, the report shows, the more likely they are to vote against the issues that African Americans say are their top priorities.

They simply do not share the values of African Americans, Ray argued.

Ray described the Republican effort to divide African American voters on the issue of same-sex marriage as a 'fraud perpetrated on the African American people.'

Rev. Bishop Yvette Flunder of Refuge Ministries, a multi-denominational ministry of mainly African American church leaders, rejected the Republican bid to divide African Americans. She appealed to Black church leaders who may have been involved with Republican or right-wing religious organizations intent on spreading an anti-gay message in the African American community to not sell out for 'thirty pieces of silver.'

Flunder remarked, 'I will not allow this racist power grab to separate me from my community.'

On the hypocrisy of right-wing fundamentalist religious leaders like Perkins, James Dobson, and Louis Sheldon, Flunder wondered said, they 'have no record of a concern for our struggle until it could be used for their purposes.'

Pointing out that Black unemployment, lack of access to health care, enduring racist discrimination and inequality, and a racist criminal justice system are serious concerns for all of us, Flunder asked, 'Why aren't Lou Sheldon and James Dobson having conferences about this?'

She suggested that when Republicans invoke the names of Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr. to attack gay people or to speak about a civil rights agenda they have never supported, their hypocrisy is evident.

Flunder called for a dialogue within the African American community to talk about LGBT issues and to build unity for the issues that truly concern most African Americans.

Alexander Robinson, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people and allies, echoed Flunder’s comments. 'We’ve been tricked,' Robinson said. 'We've been bamboozled, by people who have never had the interests or well-being of the African American community at heart.'

'This report should be a wake-up call to all Black advocates for racial justice and social equality, Robinson commented, adding, 'We can ill-afford having our voices dissipated by those who would exploit our differences over issues of sexual orientation for their own sinister political gain. Now that their thinly disguised attempts to render our votes meaningless has been revealed, it is up to us rebuild our coalition for change.

'Poll taxes, literacy tests and lynching didn’t stop us, and I am confident we will prevail against this new tactic,' said Robinson.

Robinson called for African Americans to work together and with their allies to fight the bigotry that is at the heart of the Republican machinations.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, described the organized Republican effort as part of 'a long-standing record of using fear and bigotry to set Americans against each other for its own gain.'

Comparing the new Republican push to past Republican campaigns, such as Nixon’s 'Southern strategy' of appealing to white supremacists in the South, Reagan’s racist attack on Black women whom he called them 'welfare queens,' and George H. W. Bush’s use of racist 'Willie Horton' ads, an NGLTF press statement described the Republican tactics as using 'LGBT equality as a wedge issue.'

'There are a variety of views,' Robinson noted, 'in the African American community.' By advancing the idea that gay equality is a civil rights issue, he believes there can be greater unity to fight for protections from all forms of discrimination.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at