Yet blacks have historically been more likely to support nondiscrimination initiatives for gay people. 2 He also found that the gap is true even when he controlled for other variables like educational attainment, church attendance and age. You've got to hold a bunch of disparate ideas in your head at once Lewis found that black folks are less likely than white people to believe that homosexuality is "not wrong at all" (25 percent to 40 percent). And as he crunched some numbers, he found that black opinion on gays - to the extent that there's a "black opinion" on anything - isn't really easy to define.
I chatted with Lewis today about what the polls might tell us about black views on homosexuality. "How do you measure 'virulent' homophobia versus 'regular' homophobia?" mused Greg Lewis, a political scientist at Georgia State University who has published several studies on the views of blacks and whites on homosexuality.
So are any of these statements, presented as obvious and plainly true, rooted in fact? Even before Obama's statement, surveys found that blacks had been steadily moving toward support for same-sex marriage had been shifting the way they had across all groups. Black turnout in last year's election was higher than in 2008. Would black voters, who were assumed to be opposed to same-sex marriage, stay home in November instead of voting? (Black voters are reliably Democratic Democrats have captured north of 80 percent of the black vote in presidential elections for decades.) 1Īnd last May, when President Obama announced his endorsment of same-sex marriage on "Good Morning America," the show's host, Robin Roberts, said that she thought his endorsement would be "a difficult conversation to have" in the black community.Ī lot of pundits wondered the same. "Homophobia in the black community - indeed, even among the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s - was some of the most virulent and stubborn of all, and there are still some who resent the equation of the gay rights movement with their struggle," wrote Charles P. "What makes the NBA unique is that almost 80 percent of the players are black, and black men are notorious homophobes when it comes to one of their own."
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"Occasional lip service notwithstanding, pro sports in general-and the NBA in particular-are a bastion of testosterone-driven heterosexism," Gail Shister wrote at Philadelphia magazine. "The hyper-masculine ideals forced upon young black boys combine with the homophobia of the black church to create a perfect storm of shame and secrecy," Rob Smith wrote at Salon, as he detailed his traumatic attempt to come out to his mother. When Jason Collins, a journeyman NBA center, announced that he was gay, many commentators who applauded his disclosure still nodded to the idea of heightened opposition to gay rights among black people. And with it, a hardy old narrative got another moment in the sun.
Jason Collins, a journeyman NBA center, came out as gay this week in the pages of Sports Illustrated.Ī relatively high-profile black man came out this week.