WHEREAS HIS OPPONENTS ADVOCATE THE PATH OF DESPAIR:

Nathaniel Thomas spent decades as an administrator in Howard University's student affairs office, counseling young people not only about their course work but also about their personal quests for justice. He came to the ministry at the dawn of middle age, eager to help people, and especially fellow black men, discover in the word of God a path out of despair.

Over the past couple of years, as Thomas and dozens of other black clergymen in Prince George's County have stood on the front line of the campaign against same-sex marriage, he has come to see the revolution at hand -- in his view, a rebellion against religion and tradition -- as an assault on the sustainability of the black family.

Which is why Thomas and his friend Reynold Carr, director of the Prince George's Baptist Association, are gearing up for the next battle, a statewide ballot referendum in November to challenge the legalization of same-sex marriage, which the state House of Delegates approved last Friday. The state Senate passed a measure Thursday evening; Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) said he will sign the bill. The pastors are not predicting victory in a referendum, but they think they stand a better chance among voters than politicians.

"This is a cultural war, a cultural shift, and those who are in rebellion have decided to portray us as bigots and prejudiced," says Thomas, pastor of Forestville New Redeemer Baptist Church, a trim, pale-brick building across from a storage facility on a dead-end road just inside the Beltway near Pennsylvania Avenue.

He knows that some gay activists are incredulous that black ministers could oppose a civil rights initiative. " 'How dare a black preacher take this position,' they say, 'because you've felt this pain,' and I have," he says. Over the decades, he has marched for voting and housing rights and fought for equal protection for blacks.

But Thomas and the 77 other Baptist ministers in the association do not see same-sex marriage as a civil rights matter. Rather, they say, it is a question of Scripture, of whether a country based on Judeo-Christian principles will honor what's written in Romans or decide to make secular decisions about what's right. In Maryland, as in California and New York, opinion polls have shown that although a majority of white voters support recognition of same-sex marriage, a majority of blacks oppose it, often on religious grounds.

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