People who know gay people are likelier to support gay rights and marriage equality. People who don't know gay people need to be introduced to gay people and gay families—which is just what these new ads from Equality California do.

It's too bad EQC didn't run these ad before the vote on Prop 8. Live and learn. Thanks for the heads up, Rex.

You know we've reached the end times of the anti-gay marriage movement when they start making arguments like this: we can't let gay people marry because then African Americans will think there's something gay about getting married—and you know how those people are about gay stuff. So says Heather Mac Donald at Secular Right:

It is no secret that resistance to homosexuality is highest among the black population (though probably other ethnic minorities are close contenders). I fear that it will be harder than usual to persuade black men of the obligation to marry the mother of their children if the inevitable media saturation coverage associates marriage with homosexuals. Is the availability of homosexual marriage a valid reason to shun the institution? No, but that doesn’t make the reaction any less likely.

What are the chances that gay marriage would further doom marriage among blacks? I don’t know. Again, if someone can persuade me that the chances are zero, then I would be much more sanguine. But anything more than zero, I am reluctant to risk.

So... unless someone can convince Heather—an opponent of gay marriage—that there's a zero chance that marriage equality will "further doom" the institution of marriage in African American communities then, gee, we just can't risk it. And if you can't prove that negative, well, sorry. Think of all the (fatherless black) children.

Hm. It seems to me, Heather, that the maybe the real problem with the black family—what's depressing black marriage rates—isn't poverty, institutional racism, crime-plagued inner cities, sub-standard housing, the eeeeeeeevils of rap music (sarcasm, people), the glorification of thug culture, and the lack of access to primary medical care, birth control, abortion services, etc., etc., but the fact that straight white people can get legally married right now. I mean, the saturation coverage given to a white celebrity's wedding has to be reaching African Americans—they watch TV, they see the covers of the tabloids at the supermarket. And maybe all the straight white people getting married has created a fatal associated in the minds of African Americans between marriage and whiteness, or "acting white"—and you how poor blacks feel about "acting white." Seems to me that if you want to do everything you can to promote marriage among blacks, you would start by banning straight white marriage. And unless someone can prove to me that banning straight white marriage wouldn't improve marriage rates among blacks then I don't think we can risk even one more straight white marriage. Think of the children.