Articles

MY OPINION

"The Old Testament did sanction slavery. God said, 'Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you. . . . And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children. . . .' "

— "Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution,"

Rev. Richard Fuller, 1847

Last Tuesday, there was at least one thing about which blue states and red states, black Americans and white Americans, Northerners and Southerners could agree: Gays and lesbians should be denied the right to full citizenship. Constitutional amendments to ban same-sex unions appeared on the ballot in 11 states and passed easily — from Michigan, Ohio and Oregon to Georgia, Mississippi and Arkansas.

It was a triumph for bigotry based on the Bible. From conservative pulpits around the country, pastors had implored their flocks to go to the polls and vote against the "abomination" of homosexuality. They claimed that preventing gays from getting married would shore up the institution among heterosexuals — though it is not clear how.

It was also a triumph for the Machiavellian madness of Karl Rove. He understood only too well that many Americans were willing to ignore a sputtering economy, a profoundly flawed war and soaring health care costs for the opportunity to enforce discrimination against a despised minority. Rove also knew that calling out the legions of ultraconservative Christians who abhor equal rights for gays would ensure that President Bush won not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote.

And they weren't just white voters. Homophobia oozes across lines of color, linking black America with white in a common contempt masquerading as morality. It is deeply disappointing to see black churchgoers enthusiastically wield the Bible as a bludgeon against another group, since Scripture was also used against us, as a justification for slavery, in the 19th century.

"In Genesis . . . soon after the flood Ham's descendants were doomed by the Almighty to a state of slavery . . . and . . . the descendants of Shem and Japheth . . . were ordained to be their masters."

— "Slavery: Its Origin, Nature and History,"

Rev. Thornton Stringfellow, 1861

Indeed, black Christians have become more hostile toward gays over the last decade or so. While 65 percent of black Protestants believed that gays should enjoy equal rights in 1996, that view was held by only 40 percent this year, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Among most other religious groups surveyed, including white evangelical Protestants, support for gay rights increased (if only marginally) over the same period.

Ultraconservative black Christians helped make the difference for President Bush in the key state of Ohio. Bush nearly doubled his support among black Ohioans, from 9 percent in 2000 to 16 percent on Tuesday, according to senior analyst David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank specializing in issues of interest to black Americans. That increase — about 50,000 voters — came from black Christian conservatives, he added.

"It is vain to look to Christ or any of his Apostles to justify [abolition]. On the contrary . . . they exhort 'all servants under the yoke' to 'count their masters as worthy of all honor.' . . . St. Paul actually apprehended a runaway slave and sent him to his master!"

— The Pro-Slavery Argument, Hammond's Letters on Slavery,

(Former S.C. Gov.) J.H. Hammond, 1853

When American Baptists split over the bondage of black men and women in the 1840s, the Southern brethren, who backed slavery, formed the Southern Baptist Convention. Many of its members continued to resist equal rights for black Americans through the 1960s.

At their Atlanta meeting in 1995 — belatedly recognizing the error of their ways — the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention issued a broad apology for the church's support of slavery. The founders of the Southern Baptist Convention were "good, godly, Bible-believing persons, but they were not infallible," the Rev. Charles T. Carter said at the time.

Some 50 to 100 years from now, no doubt, some Christian churches will find themselves apologizing for their contemptuous treatment of gays and lesbians, many of whom are fellow Christians. For now, however, the conservative Christian church — black and white — has forsaken two of Christ's most profound injunctions:

"Love thy neighbor as thyself."

— Matthew, 22:39

"Judge not, that ye be not judged."

— Matthew, 7:1

Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. Further reproduction, retransmission or distribution of these materials without the prior written consent of The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, and any copyright holder identified in the material's copyright notice, is prohibited.