Black Pastors for Bush Need Prayer
/While
standing on the corner of 34th Street and San Pablo Avenue, a
haven for drugs and prostitution and one of the most violent areas in
the city, according to Oakland police, a group of black pastors, citing
biblical opposition to same-sex marriage, openly declared their support
for President Bush in the November election. I have no problem with the
pastors in question supporting the
president; there is nothing to suggest African-American politics should
be monolithic in its support, but how can same-sex marriage be THE
issue? The pastors, in taking a position to the right of Vice President
Dick
Cheney, were concerned that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John
Kerry favors letting states decide whether to allow same-sex marriages.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to
amend the Constitution -- the latter has only happened 27 times in our
history. Perhaps the pastors were unaware that, before, the Senate used
three
days of the people's business to debate a constitutional ban on
same-sex marriage that most knew it had no chance of passing. Kerry's
position is identical to that of many conservatives: A ban on
same-sex marriage does not rise to the level of a constitutional
amendment, thereby making it a nonissue that should be left up to the
states to decide. Assuming that I understand the argument of the
pastors correctly, they
have opted to use some of their leadership capital to support the
president's re-election based solely on his rhetoric on a nonissue. How
can the pastors give this single nonissue greater importance than
the candidates' positions on aid to poor children, military spending,
stem cell research, education, labor and environmental protections on
trade agreements, health care, a livable wage or corporate welfare? [more]
