[...] The gay marriage controversy moved quickly from Massachusetts to the District of Columbia in 2004. A debate earlier in the year over whether D.C. should recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts was overshadowed in the summer, when Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.) introduced a bill to ban same-sex marriage in the District.
Gay activists became further concerned in November when D.C. resident [...] Lisa L. Greene filed papers with the city election board to place a gay marriage ban before the voters through a ballot initiative.
Davis later agreed to a request by D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) to hold off on pushing her bill. And Greene withdrew her initiative proposal after the election board informed her she failed to properly prepare the paperwork.
Greene promised to resubmit it after obtaining legal help on how to draft the language for the anti-gay ballot measure. [...]
| Continue Lou Chibbaro Jr. and Joe Crea's Washington Blade article "Marriage dominates regional news in 2004"
[...] The larger question, now that Greene has tipped her hand, is whether D.C. voters want to get in bed with forces at loose in America that want to exploit religious and cultural differences for their own narrow, selfish, political interests. Greene, to no one's surprise, is reportedly being assisted with her initiative by the American Center for Law and Justice, which is the legal arm of that lover of souls, Pat Robertson. Greene argues, according to the Blade, that being gay is fine in her book as long as that person's sexual orientation is kept private. (Does that mean heterosexuals can get it on in public? Just asking.)
But Greene, an African American, said she's motivated to prohibit same-sex marriage in the District because gay marriage threatens African Americans. Greene told the Blade: "As an African American, I feel it's important to preserve the family. Statistics show African Americans have the nation's highest rate of out-of-marriage births."
Now, I don't hold myself out as an expert on all that ails the community of which Lisa Greene and I are biologically a part. I truly confess ignorance of many things of which I should have knowledge. So somebody help me. Following Greene's reasoning, will somebody please tell me how lesbians and gay men of whatever age, color, creed, country of origin or race have had anything to do with black folks having America's highest rate of out-of-wedlock births?
Don't get me wrong. I do share her apparent affection for marriage, having been joined in that institution with the saintly -- well, at least alluring and always lovely -- Gwen for 44 years come July 3. But it has always been my impression that babies are the result of a union between a man and woman, usually -- but certainly not always -- of the heterosexual orientation. But I could be wrong.
I also thought, again perhaps foolishly, that the absence of a man in the home during the growth and development of our young tykes had less to do with homosexuality and more to do with the fact that between 1980 through yesterday, we've had at least 7,391 murders in our nation's capital, with most of the victims being African American males. It's true that a few of those homicide victims, as this newspaper has reported, were not exactly of the type to be lusting after women, being themselves male homosexuals. But most of them were murdered by homophobes who live among us. Shut my mouth: Now I've gone from preachin' to meddlin'.
And we haven't even begun to count the thousands of young African American males who have been taken off the streets and placed behind bars for crimes they committed. [...]
| That's just part of Colbert I. King's Washington Post column "A Test for Tolerance"
posted in articles on January 1, 2005 1:17 AM | t (0)
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