May 21, 2012

The NAACP’s Evolution on Same-Sex Marriage

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvalasimages/5440322566/sizes/m/in/photostream/" target="_blank">Flickr/J valas images</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The national board of the NAACP, America’s oldest civil rights organization, officially endorsed same-sex marriage rights Saturday after a vote in which only two members dissented. Although it may seem like the NAACP was conveniently following President Barack Obama’s lead, the group’s decision was a long time coming, and reflects an internal evolution that began years ago.

During the fight over Proposition 8 in California, the state chapter of the NAACP actively fought on the side of gay-rights organizations, seeking to increase opposition to the anti-marriage equality measure in the black community. That move wasn’t without controversy. NAACP President Ben Jealous, whose brother is gay, traveled to California to help fill a fundraising gap after several donors protested the San Francisco chapter’s support of LGBT rights, and shortly afterwards Jealous was among those who pushed the national office to oppose California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Local NAACP chapters fought against the recently passed same-sex marriage and civil union ban in North Carolina, and supported legalizing same-sex marriage in Maryland. The head of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., has probably been the most vocal opponent of the NAACP’s evolution on gay rights, but he seems to be in the minority—there were just two no-votes out of 64 board members. Former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond has been a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage rights for years, even before stepping down in 2010.

The NAACP isn’t as influential as it once was, but part of its lingering power comes from the fact that religious leaders comprise a non-trivial percentage of its national and local leadership. Some of those leaders may continue to speak out against the organization’s decision on marriage equality. But the NAACP’s endorsement could also help smooth over confusion or frustration among black voters over Obama’s decision to support the idea of same-sex couples getting married. As the Washington Post‘s Jonathan Capeheart suggests, because Obama is the most admired black political leader in the country, his endorsement of same-sex marriage is already paying dividends by providing other black leaders and institutions cover to do so as well.

Media coverage of the black community and LGBT rights issues has also frequently put black folks on one side of the equation and LGBT rights activists on the other. Support for LGBT rights from established black institutions like the NAACP should help break down that false binary, and help reduce the invisibility of black LGBT rights activists who have often been frustrated by a frame that implicitly cuts black gays and lesbians out of the story.

Adam Serwer is filling in while Kevin is on vacation.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate