African-Americans apparently have a natural aversion to homosexuality, according to a conclusion that can too easily be drawn from this overdone, overbaked, overblown op-ed piece by Caitlin Flanagan and Benjamin Schwartz in The New York Times over the weekend. "Showdown in the Big Tent," claims that there's a great and threatening divide among blacks and gays in the Democratic Party, and so much tension and hand-wringing over it in white liberal Hollywood. Really, it's one of those classic pieces that covertly swipes at and ridicules white liberals in Hollywood by pointing to imagined or exaggerated conflicts and contradiction over their allegiances to various social causes.
Here's the line that really should have raised eyebrows among editors:
Furthermore — and perhaps even more painfully for those of us who support gay marriage and all that it represents — Christian teaching on marriage is not the only reason so many blacks supported Proposition 8. Although it has come as a shocking realization to many in this community, a host of sociological studies confirm that many blacks feel a significant aversion to homosexuality itself, finding it morally and sexually repugnant.
What the hell does that mean? Christian teaching is indeed the only reason why anyone in the United States would be antigay and voting against gay rights -- unless you believe in some sort of "natural" aversion to homosexuality (the belief of which is itself driven by religion). The only reason why homophobia exists, after all, is because of religious teaching about homosexuality. And this "aversion" they talk about is hardly confined to the black community and is in fact shared by many if not most whites. Otherwise we would have our rights in this country, the vast majority of whose citizens who are keeping us from getting our rights are white. So what is it these two are trying to say here in all their dramatic prose?
Pam has a lot to say on this as well. Check it out.
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