Missouri and St. Louis have a long tradition of being on the wrong side of history, from slavery, Dred Scott and a star on the Confederate flag to restrictive housing covenants, the reward offered by a South Side white supremacist for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and Michael Brown Jr.
As lawyers argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last Tuesday for the right of same-sex couples to marry, Missouri found itself once again firmly entrenched against equal rights, thanks to a 2004 Missouri Constitutional Amendment that voters passed by a whopping 71 per-cent defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Among all demographic groups in America, blacks remain the most opposed to same-sex marriages. In fact, the nation’s most famous anti-gay marriage law, Proposition 8 in California, only passed because the overwhelming majority of California blacks who turned out to vote for Barack Obama in November 2008 also voted against same-sex marriage. The National Election Pool estimates from that election concludes that 70 percent of blacks in California voted against gay marriage, a far higher percentage than any other ethnic group.
While support for same-sex marriage has been growing among blacks, it still lags far behind the rest of the population. A March 2013 nationwide poll by the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of blacks favored gay marriage, as opposed to 49 percent of whites. Some analysts chalk that up to religion and the socially-conservative nature (outside of civil rights) of black churches. The Public Religion Research Institute, for example, recently found that 54 percent of black protestants oppose same-sex marriage.
But the Pew Research poll shows black distaste for gay marriage isn’t just religious. Among blacks who don’t attend church, Pew found only 42 percent support same-sex marriage, as opposed to 60 percent support among all Americans who are non-church goers. A 2003 study from Georgia State University hinted at why. It found that in black communities the visceral disdain for homosexuals is stronger than in almost any other segment of society, and the study posits that’s because of a “macho” culture of bravado and superficial toughness in much of black America.
But whether it’s because of social attitudes or reading too much Leviticus, the fact remains that a larger percentage of black Americans have placed themselves firmly on the wrong side of history than any other demographic group in America, despite the fact that court arguments in favor of same-sex marriage rest on the same bedrock that guaranteed blacks the right to vote – the 14th Amendment, the all-important equal protection section of the Constitution.
That’s the same Constitutional test that allowed interracial marriages to become legal throughout the United States, when in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Loving v Virginia. In 1958, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia, and then moved back to their native state of Virginia. At that time Virginia, along with Missouri and 14 other states, had miscegenation laws on the books that outlawed marriage between whites and anyone of another race.
The Lovings were found guilty in Virginia and sentenced to a year in jail, a sentence that was suspended when the judge ordered they could avoid jail by moving from Virginia and not returning for 25 years. They instead went to court, and nine years later the Supreme Court tossed out laws against interracial marriage.
In a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion, based heavily on the 14th Amendment, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “To deny this fundamental freedom (to marry) on so unsupportable a basis … is directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the 14th Amendment, and is surely to deprive all of the State’s citizens of liberty without the due process of law.”
Substitute “sexual orientation” for “race” or “gay” for “black” in any of the rulings and commentaries, and you have, right in front of you, the reason most experts expect that when the Supreme Court finally rules on same-sex marriage sometime this summer, they’ll legalize it throughout the country.
That will leave opponents of same-sex equality, including many in the black churches and black community, asking how they deal with a ruling they think violates God’s will. They can take some comfort from the fact that the same question was asked, almost 50 years ago, by people who were convinced it was God’s will that you can only marry someone of the same race.
Charles Jaco is a journalist, novelist and author who has worked for NBC News, CNN, Fox 2, KMOX and KTRS.
