‘The New Black’: Same-Sex Marriage and the African-American Community

The Takeaway

The Supreme Court will soon issue its decisions in two  same-sex marriage cases the Justices heard this term: U.S. v. Windsor, the case that will determine the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s Proposition 8 ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage has long divided the African-American community, a fact filmmaker  Yoruba Richen  explores in her new documentary, “The New Black.” Proposition 8 particularly polarized the community, and Rev. Eric P. Lee of Los Angeles’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference  blames Prop 8’s opponents for discounting black voters.
“One of the missteps,” Rev. Lee explains, “was the assumption made by the gay community that by framing marriage equality as a civil right, then automatically the African American community would overwhelmingly support it.”
Same-sex marriage proponents learned from these missteps in the 2012 elections, when  Maryland and Maine became the first states to approve marriage equality at the ballot box.
Richen  joins us today to discuss her film that examines the history and future of same-sex marriage in the black community and the black church.

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