Not All Black People Hate Gays

One of the most common sounds heard after the passage of California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage (aside from the dying screams of rationality) was a hysterical whining about how black people tipped the scales in favor of the ban. Exit polling at the time showed something like 70% of black voters approved of the ban, which was well above the just over half of non-black voters who supported it. Black people, it was concluded, hate the gays. But a new study of actual voting records shows that gay marriage opposition had much less to do with race than it did with religious affiliation. It turns out only about 58% of black voters supported the ban. Still higher than the average among other races, but not at all surprising when you consider that 57% of black voters in California also attend church once a week. This is opposed to the 42% of non-black Californians who worship weekly. The obvious conclusion here is that bigotry and contempt for equal rights isn't born of genetics but is instead an export of the church. Not much of a surprise to anyone with a functioning brain, but now there are at least some hard numbers to back it up. Someone should get to work on a pie chart right away. More details here.