ETHNIC COMMUNITIES SPEAK OUT AGAINST SSM: From the Pacific News Service

[Interesting piece, despite use of "ethnic" as code for "non-white." --Eve]

...Ethnic Christian coalitions are at the forefront of the movement against same-sex marriage.

On May 18, 100 people gathered in Los Angeles to voice their opposition to same-sex marriage. Among the speakers were Latino activists Luis Galdamez, spokesperson for the Campaign for California Families, and Vicente Martin, president of the organization Familia Hispana, which represents 1,900 Christian churches in California, reports Marilu Meza in the May 19 issue of Spanish-language daily La Opinion. ...

On April 25, some 7,000 people in San Francisco's Sunset district -- primarily Chinese Americans and Christians from 180 Bay Area churches -- protested same-sex marriage, reports Julie D. Soo in the May 21 edition of San Francisco's English-language weekly AsianWeek. Gay marriage "could lead to the extinction of the entire human race," said event spokesman Rev. Thomas Wang, as reported in the Chinese newspaper Sing Tao. "There will be no future if the United States does not repent."

Marcos Gutierrez, host of a Bay Area Spanish-language talk show on La Grande 1010-AM, estimates that 65 percent of the people who call in to his show are against same-sex marriage. Most of these defend their beliefs by quoting the Bible.

Religion is the backbone of politics opposing gay marriage, according to a national survey of 1,515 adults of every ethnicity conducted Oct. 15-19, 2003, by the Pew Forum and the Pew Research Center. More than eight in 10 opponents of gay marriage said it ran counter to their religious beliefs.

Ethnic groups in San Francisco are far less supportive of the city's decision to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians than the city's white population, according to a citywide poll of 1,034 people conducted on March 2, 2004, by the Chinese American Voters Education Committee. While 76 percent of Caucasians said they supported the decision to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, only 62 percent of Latinos, 49 percent of African Americans and 38 percent of Asians agreed. ...

Chinese Americans value family and community over the individual, adds Rev. Cal Chin, a senior pastor at the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown. "I wouldn't use 'conservative' to describe Chinese American views," Chin says in the same article. "I would say that Chinese Americans are more corporate in their thinking; they think about how an individual and an individual's actions impact the community. You can't act in isolation." ...

Detria Thompson, in the March 19 edition of the black newspaper San Francisco Bay View, writes that many African Americans believe that race "easily trumps sexual orientation in the now crowded different-discrimination sweepstakes." But this "assumes that lesbians and gays have the option, if not a duty, to mute their behavior so as not to alarm straight people." Yet, "all gays and lesbians can't 'pass' for straight, and even if it was possible to do so, being able to 'pass' misses the point."

White gays and lesbians may experience less discrimination than African Americans, but they still experience discrimination, just as educated middle-class African Americans still experience racism, Thompson writes. "Quantifying discrimination by demographics is necessary, but is usually futile and counter-productive precisely because your pain never quite measures up to mine."

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posted by Eve at 8:07 PM VOTE

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