HATE THE ABOMINATION, NOT THE ABOMINATOR:

Gay Blacks Feeling Strained Church Ties: Same-Sex Marriage Debate Has Put 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Relationship Under Scrutiny (Darryl Fears, November 2, 2004, Washington Post)

On the Sunday that a minister preached that God did not love people like her, Jacquelyn Holland wanted to storm out of the church. But she sat and listened to the sermon, even as her homosexual orientation was called "an abomination" and equated with "murder, a heinous crime," Holland said.

"This person just eliminated me," Holland, 46, said of the preacher she heard two years ago. Holland is now a minister in Unity Fellowship Church of Christ in Newark, which accepts people of all sexual orientations. She was one of many people at a Unity-sponsored conference of black gay and transgender Christians here who said such sermons are common in mainstream black places of worship.

Now, as the debate has intensified over whether same-sex marriage should be legalized or constitutionally banned, what some black gay Christians characterize as a long-standing "don't ask, don't tell" relationship between them and their churches is coming under greater strain.

A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that since 2000, black Protestants have become far less likely than other Protestant groups to believe that gays should have equal rights. Black Protestant support for gay rights dipped to a low of 40 percent this year, down from 65 percent in 1996 and 59 percent in 1992.

Hard to see how numbers like those don't break the Democrats hammerlock on the black vote.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2004 4:02 PM