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Black Atheists and Gay Marriage/Homosexuality?

Greetings, Black Freethinkers:

There has been a flap over on The Friendly Atheist blog about the Black Atheists of Atlanta's anti-homosexual rant and a rebuttal by the Black Nonbelievers of Atlanta. Also, there has been a frequent caller of late on the Atheist Experience speaking from his own black and atheistic perspective, decrying gay marriage. The white and non-black minority atheists I know and converse with online seem to have almost unanimous support for gay rights. So I wondered, why is it that there are more outspoken black atheists on the subject of banning gay marriage than there are for other groups? I realize that this may still be a minority opinion among black freethinkers, but it just seems that the black freethinkers who are anti-gay marriage are more visible. Any suggestions?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on July 1, 2011 at 8:34am

This is just more denial of science. More and more research suggests that homosexuality may be retained through natural selection as a benefit to social cohesion.

Permalink Reply by Michelle Nickerson on June 29, 2011 at 1:05pm

Clearly, this train of thought easily supercedes religious or nonreligious affiliation.

Permalink Reply by oracle on June 30, 2011 at 12:50pm

As an Atheist and proponent of freedom & equality for all, I have no qualms whatsoever with gays marrying. The frequent caller on The Atheist Experience podcast 'Clarence' main gripe is gays adopting the term "marriage" because he views it as solely belonging to heterosexual couples. He constantly complains about it being co-opted but fails to realize that there is no equality of you seek to create/mandate a term for specific group of people. With his logic they could have easily held a naming convention for interracial marriages in the states that had it's illegality repealed.

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on July 1, 2011 at 8:32am

I know how you feel. My parents are staunch Republicans, anti-gay, openly racist and my mother thinks her house and my grandmother's house are haunted.

You can't pick your relatives.

My inlaws are all ultra-religious Southern Baptists... the whole family! They drive me crazy. They're racist too, but in that insidious way that never shows on the surface; the kind of people who lock all their doors and speed up when they drive through a black or Hispanic neighborhood.

Permalink Reply by Dave Kostiuk on July 27, 2011 at 8:46pm

My sister is gay and I really want her to marry her partner, so this upsets me of course too.

Again, I think it's the repercussions of Slavery once again - shockingly potent still in the 21st century - interacting with a Fanonesque inferiority complex.

If you think about, if any black male who has been oppressed is forced to make a choice between two things, white people being afraid of him or white people laughing at him for being effeminate, he will choose the former. This is my best guess as to why an African American dude who does not believe that there is an invisible man living in the sky could possibly remain homophobic.

As for homophobic female atheists, I couldn't tell you, so please tell me.

Permalink Reply by John H. Martin, Jr. on August 8, 2011 at 1:47pm

It could also be that the homophobic person is secretly afraid of his/her own latent homosexual tendencies and adopts an anti-gay position as a means of diverting suspicion. Unfortunately, there's a line from Macbeth that sums it up rather well for me, "methinks the lady doth protest too much."