"hip to the incendiary post-Prop 8 fallout" - boy, that sure reminds me of those million-comment threads Dan used to generate here back then.

"We'll have to see if gays take the bait."
WTF?
What about the Blacks? Do they not take bait???

And by definition, is it taking bait to call bigots bigoted for behaving in bigoted ways?... Or are Liberals just pretending it is until Obama can figure out how to shave this issue as far right as he can to keep his Black voters in line behind him? (Remember, his position on marriage equality is still "evolving" or some such bullshit...).

Just want to add, from Maine with love, "Good fucking luck with that." Marriage equality is coming to Maine: no stopping this train, this time.

Charles Manson had a similar game plan.

I just want to point out that marriage is gay. Incidentally, having children is even gayer. Add to that, the military of any nation has historically been really, really gay.

Spoken like a crazy bitch: "our most fundamental institution: marriage."

Lol wut?

@2,

What makes you think black voters are going to abandon him because of marriage equality? Obama doesn't support it because of suburban, white, middle-aged, male voters. They decide elections, and they are bigots.

No bait needed for some gays. See #2.

@2
"And by definition, is it taking bait to call bigots bigoted for behaving in bigoted ways?"

It can be. If the "bait" offered was about moving the discussion from "marriage equality" to "white guy calls black guy a bigot".

And the media will LOVE that because one on one conflict sells.
Therefore they will hunt for those stories and skip over the main issue.
Particularly if they can find a black person with a personal history of tragedy from the Civil Rights marches.
And compare him to a successful young gay guy (white) who was called "fag" in prep school.

It's not race, it's religion. And posts like Dan Savage's "Black Homophobia" from 2008 don't help the cause for gay marriage.

That's the classiest, most effective strategy I've seen since I was an abortion-clinic escort in Philadelphia and we had ancient men with Southern accents, old enough to have been grownups in the early 1960's, imploring women not to kill their black babies. Now we're supposed to believe NOM cares about the black family? Hilarious.

@6
Either way, how terribly brave of him.
(Got to love that “fierce advocacy!”)

The larger point: NOM is just a stalking horse for the Republican Party. They don't care as much about gay marriage as they care about using it as a wedge issue to get more Republicans elected. That's why anti-marriage-equality initiatives are filed for general elections--they think it brings the right's base out in force. Until recently, it's worked, too.

Their first campaign slogans:

Psst - hey, Negroes: gay people hate chitlins! Really, it's true!

Hey, there, homosexualist! Did you know that the Negroes want to ban show tunes?

Bullseye, @12. It's not about gays, or blacks, or marriage, or civil rights, or religion. It's about R's vs D's.

What they can't explain is how exactly marriage equality threatens their opposite marriage.

"Racism is really pointless. If you just get to know someone, you'll find all kinds of other reasons to hate them."

-George Carlin

@6: Because black voters are predominantly evangelical Christians and socially conservative, that's why. The Repuglican party is reaching out to them by exploiting their fear and prejudice, just like they do their white voters. Because that's all they have left.

@16: "exploiting their fear and prejudice"

It's not just exploiting the fear and prejudice of the "black community", you know. There's plenty of racism in the gay community that allowed NOM to set all bigoted tones on both sides.

What's important is to understand this and move past the media narrative that the US cable and print media greedily gobbled up. Gays are not inherently anti-minority, or even necessarily anti-religion, and not all blacks are anti-gay.

Fuck the media, fuck NOM, let's just realize that they're both very good at sticking wedges between us.

Regardless of how depressed you might be about your career, future, or any of life's other stresses... at least at the end of the day, you can remind yourself that you don't devote your limited time and energy to "pitting the blacks against the gays". What a sad existence.

@19: Yeah, anyone spending all of their time stalking the Slog is having a real fulfilling life.

Also http://www.equaljusticesociety.org/2009/…

It's not about "blacks" it's about people who practice religious-based bigotry.... and some of those people happen to be black. One false notion that NOM likes to push is that if a person is part of a group that is or has ever been on the receiving end of bigotry, then that person can't themselves be bigoted. "Yes, I know that Jewish man hates all African Americans but Jews were the targets of Nazi's so we can't call him a bigot." It's absurd and we shouldn't be afraid to say as much.

hello all,

my name is Chris, and I am from North Carolina. (Don't boo me, lol) anyhow, I've written a article comparing gay rights, such as marriage, to those rights of African Americans. You can read it at the link below. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Thank you (not spam)

http://willic22.hubpages.com/hub/Gay-Mar…

Again, thanks. Sincerely, Chris W.