Reverend Rolen L. Womack, Jr.
Progressive Baptist Church
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative, will not likely end this debate about same-sex marriages in California or any other state. From an African-American perspective, same-sex marriage has fostered a divisive, disabling, and disconnection montage of emotions especially when the proponents of same-sex marriage try to equate it to the Civil Rights Movement.

From my vantage point as the pastoral leader of an African-American congregation, the majority of the people who profess Christ as Savior in this church look at the faces of the same-sex marriage demonstrators and marchers and rally leaders and cannot connect this to the Civil Rights Movement. This is not a civil rights issue. I would suggest if it is any kind of issue, it is a human rights issue.

Contextually speaking since this is not a civil rights issue from the black church perspective, I would also caution the proponents of same-sex marriage not to compare this to the struggle over legalizing interracial marriage. This is an extremely loaded issue in my community where the availability of marriageable men has already been significantly impacted by archaic drug policies, brutal incarceration rates, conflicted employment policies, and unfair and unproductive punitive post prison procedures and principles.

There is a general inability to concentrate on same-sex marriage issues when nearly 70% of all black children are born to single mothers. The National Center for Children in Poverty’s (NCCP) recent study suggests that children living in poverty has significantly increased since 2000, with  34% of black children living in poor families. The study reports that the rate of black child poverty in California is 28%, yet there are no letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations or boycotts condemning those whose policies and practices have allowed this to continue.

I believe that every person should be treated fairly and with love and every person should have human rights that cannot be abridged by the vicissitudes of those in positions of power.

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