Many times black people have been told if they want their concerns to be heard they need to take a stand against all civil rights injustices. That was the root of a lot of African American organizations’ involvement in the illegal immigrant laws coming out of Arizona a while back and it’s at the forefront of the gay marriage agenda today. Black people have been encouraged to see any infringement on one group of peoples’ civil liberties as an attack against us all, but for the most part heterosexual African Americans haven’t bought into that shared plight.

The anti-same-sex marriage group, National Organization for Marriage, is the latest group to attempt to race bait African Americans and Latinos to fulfill their mission—except rather than attempting to provoke solidarity to earn the right for homosexuals to marry, they explicitly state they want to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies,” in order to stop more states from legalizing this practice. MSN reported on this uncovered internal memo about the organization’s latest strategy, which reads:

“Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of his party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates … find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally.”

What’s interesting is NOM essentially wants to blow what’s already been going on for years out of proportion. Aside from Christian communities who have denounced gay marriage—of which African Americans are largely still thought to make up a significant portion of—from my view most heterosexual black people have been apathetic in regard to gay marriage. The sentiment I typically observe is, I don’t have a problem with it or I don’t care if they do get married, but there’s no sense of urgency to get involved because it’s an issue they’re not affected by. That attitude is what prompted the whole “gay is the new black” idea to try to get African Americans down for the cause, and now NOM wants to capitalize on that apathy with this new campaign.

What’s unfortunate is that in doing so, if successful, the consequences of that wedge will likely be irreversible. Already, it’s said the black community as a whole has an issue with homosexuality and this effort will only cast an even brighter light on that idea, which I personally don’t think is true. For some black people, just like whites, their opposition is faith-based rather than rooted in some unforeseen need to oppress another segment of society. Not agreeing with a group of people’s lifestyle is not the same as wanting to oppress them, and it’s not fair to try to exploit some people’s spiritual beliefs and twist them into something they’re not. It’s also not fair to paint all African Americans with the same brush and assume we’re all anti-gay-marriage, homosexual hating Christians who want them to have as little civil liberties as possible. NOM claims to want to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it, but how can you do that by trying to create a religious divide in the African American community?

Regardless of where you stand on gay marriage, we cannot let members of the black community be used as puppets to further this group’s agenda. Let them do their own dirty work, we don’t need to play into their hands and become the face of gay marriage opposition. At the end of the day, this strategy wants to make us into even bigger enemies of the country which is becoming increasingly tolerant of the homosexual lifestyle and careless with the lives and concerns of black people. How much more of societal outcasts will we be if NOM paints us out to be homosexual rebels against legislation that is clearly gaining ground in the country. I’m not saying we need to agree with gay marriage if it goes against personal beliefs but we certainly need to make sure we are fairly represented on this issue and not played by an organization with a suspect strategy. If anything, I see this effort lighting fire against some African Americans’ apathetic feet, although in some ways we’d still be race-baited into the issue, just from the other side.

What do you think about this effort? Does it prove the point that black people should be involved with the pro-gay marriage agenda? Do you think race baiting will help or hinder either side’s goals?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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