BLACKS ALONE DID NOT PASS PROPOSITION 8

Let's get one thing straight from the start. Blacks, as a group, WERE NOT responsible for the passage of proposition 8! Religious zealotry, religious fanaticisms and religious avarice for money and power is what got propositions 2, 8, 102 and the very dangerous and hateful Arkansas anti-gay adoption measures passed. Period.

In our frustration over the success of those hate-filled measures, we seem to have lost focus of the root cause of our defeat. Religious and national leaders who lacked the strength of their own supposed convictions have always found it easier to rally the emotions of their followers by giving them scapegoats to fear and revile. From the current Pope to Thomas Monson and James Dobson to Hitler and Stalin, these pathetic but persuasive individuals all used the same simple tactic to acquire and maintain their power. Fear. We have become the scapegoats for that segment of the religious community. And they're using us to swell their rolls, fill their coffers and build their so-called prestige throughout the general populations of the world.

Before I go too far with this, I want to make it very clear that I AM NOT talking about religion in general. There are many churches, religious organizations and devout people who have supported us in our struggles for equality and who have stood by us in opposition to the many ludicrous propositions that the obsessed right-wing has put forward. Even within the groups that are trying to oppress us, there are many brave individuals who have challenged their leaders and told them, very publicly, that they were wrong. I am only talking about those churches and institutions that have chosen to use divisive fear and unsubstantiated hate mongering to further their goals.

At the top of that list are two of the most manipulative and underhanded church institutions and one of the most vile and disreputable right-wing religious groups. The Mormon and Catholic churches and the national group Focus On The Family have all invested millions of dollars and countless manpower hours in an unconscionable and un-American drive to prevent our community from achieving our constitutional right of equal treatment under the law. Not to mention our constitutionally guaranteed privilege of living-out our "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

There are, of course, other groups and religions (i.e., many evangelicals, orthodox jews, etc.) that have also worked against the GLBT community but none of them have the staggering monetary and robot-like human resources that the top three possess. The leaders of these groups are our primary enemies. They're the ones who brainwash and manipulate their followers into believing that a supposedly all-loving, benevolently omnipotent God would actually want to see a whole segment of his own creation persecuted.

So, before we, ourselves, blindly castigate a whole group of people by virtue of nothing more than skin color, let's remember that prejudice begins with what we are taught to believe by those we trusted and thought were above reproach. To win our battle, we can't resort to the same blind hatreds used by our enemies. We must, instead, reach out and work to expose the lies and the people who preach them.

Now is not the time to divide our community by our differences, now is the time to work together and focus our formidable talents and energies on our real enemies. The greedy and slimy hate mongers.