The following analysis will be sent to US Senators on the week of July 12.
Overview
Today we stand at a crossroads in American culture and morality, the likes of which has never been witnessed during the entire history of our Republic. The issue of homosexual marriage and its possible legalization has come to a fevered pitch and is now about to cross the desks of our U.S. Senators with the proposal of a Federal Marriage Amendment. It is interesting to note that homosexual activists seem less worried about the democratic process when it comes to the possibility of a Constitutional Amendment being passed which would effectively outlaw homosexual marriage. Perhaps that is because they have been able to rely on state judiciaries to promote their cause, and are waging that a supermajority in the Senate is next to impossible.
Be that as it may, the consequences of legalizing homosexual marriage (via the court system) will be disastrous to the American public in general, and to the African-American community in particular. Black Americans have been especially vulnerable to the rapid changes of a morally-fluid society over the past three decades as their community has been ravaged by the effects of high rates of out-of-wedlock births, single-parent families, and sexually-transmitted diseases. As a result, a greater percentage of African Americans find themselves in poverty, criminal activity, and poor health. Conversely, those who maintain households that holds to traditional marriage (one man and one woman only) fare much better and live longer, healthier, more prosperous lives.
Civil Rights Language
Some claim that the fight for the legalization of homosexual marriage is the moral equivalent of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the outset of that argument, one would have to concede that homosexuality is as inherent as race. This notion is completely unfounded as the scientific community still has yet to provide any credible evidence that homosexuality is the result of genetic or biological causes. Case study after case study has only proved that homosexuality is more probably the result of environmental factors, and, therefore, may be abnormal and could be corrected.
Many black Americans consider the use of the civil rights movement an insult to their culture. They see no correlation between race and behavior. In fact, a Gallup News Service released an article in February, 2004, which showed that 52 percent of black Americans favored the Federal Marriage Amendment while only 42 percent opposed it.
Homosexual Relationships
Studies on homosexual relationships have demonstrated that these relationships are often volatile, short-lived, and non-monogamous. In fact, almost all long-term homosexual relationships have some provision for sex outside of those unions. In one study of a hundred and fifty-six males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years, only seven of these couples had a totally exclusive sexual relationship. The men involved in these couples had only been together less than five years. Many proponents of gay marriage will argue that heterosexuals often have extra-marital affairs, effectively making their relationships non-monogamous. However, studies demonstrate that this is simply not the case as a majority of heterosexual marriages maintain fidelity.
Similar studies find that homosexuals, whether in a relationship/union or not, are much more promiscuous than heterosexuals, often indulging in more than 100 sex partners during their lifetime. One study found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, and 28 percent had 1,000 or more partners.
Studies of gay marriage and its effect on traditional marriage and family breakdown have been conducted in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, countries where homosexual marriage has been legalized for over a decade. Findings demonstrate that homosexual marriage does not bolster traditional marriage. Nor does gay marriage have a neutral effect on traditional marriage. Rather, studies show that since homosexual marriage has been legalized in these countries, traditional marriage has been on the wane. Furthermore, the number of couples who had continued to cohabitate for the sake of their children began to dissipate as more parents began to view the traditional family structure of one father and one mother as unnecessary.
Affect on Youth
The legalization of gay marriage, and the subsequent breaking down of traditional marriage and family structure, has since had dire consequences on the youth of these countries. A study conducted in Sweden in 2003 found that children of single parents have more than doubled the rates of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury than children in two-parent households. Marriage was originally ordered for the procreation and perpetuation of children, family, and humankind.
It carries with it a natural and biological responsibility to care for, provide for, and protect those children. Homosexual marriage, fundamentally different since children cannot be produced within the bonds of matrimony, simply validates narcissism as individuals demand that their lifestyle be normalized by the legalizing of homosexual marriage. Children become an afterthought.
Health Risks
Homosexuals, whether in a relationship/union or not, are much more susceptible to disease and a shortened lifespan than the average American adult or adolescent. Medical studies show that the transmission of HIV/AIDS primarily takes places through male-to-male sexual contact, and that homosexual men experience the highest rate of diagnoses. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the estimated number of AIDS diagnoses from male-to-male sexual contact among whites, blacks, and Hispanics was 16,537 in 2002. Contrast that to only 4,843 diagnoses from male heterosexual contact for the same year. Other studies show that homosexuals contract numerous other sexually-transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and Hepatitis B at a much higher rate than the general public. For example, the Archives of Internal Medicine found that homosexuals acquired syphilis at a rate ten times that of heterosexuals. As a result, the lifespan of homosexual males is greatly reduced, in some cases up to twenty years.
Impact on Black Family
The African-American community is already faced with numerous obstacles from out-of-wedlock births to a breakdown in family structure. As a result, millions of black Americans find themselves in a perpetual state of poverty, disease, and crime.
For example, in 1950, 78 percent of black families were married-couple households. By 2002, that figure had dropped to a mere 48 percent: a 30 percent decrease in only half a century according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The number of families maintained by a woman with no spouse present was 43 percent for the same year. Furthermore, the number of black families with five or more members and maintained by a woman with no spouse present was 11 percent compared to 5 percent of white families of the same category.
Income and poverty statistics for blacks appear to reflect this breakdown of traditional marriage and family structure. One the one hand, the annual median income for black married-couple families has increased from $22,910 in 1967 to $33,780 by 1997a 47 percent increase in 35 years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over one-half of all black couple families had incomes of $50,000 or more.
On the other hand, black families maintained by a woman with no spouse present only made $12,130 in 1990, and 58 percent of these same families had a median annual income of less than $25,000 in 2002.
Furthermore, only 11 percent of black married couples were living in poverty in 1991; by 2001, that figure had dropped to only 8 percent. Unfortunately, 48 percent of black families maintained by a single mother were in a state of poverty in 1990; by 2001, the number had improved to 35 percent, still much higher than the national median.
Black Americans also face a much greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases than other racial and ethnic groups. The estimated number of AIDS diagnoses for African Americans in 2002 was 21,169 compared to almost half that number among whites 11,922. This is especially devastating when one realizes that blacks account for only 13 percent of the overall population. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of new HIV infections among men in 2002, 50 percent were African American. The rate of gonorrhea and syphilis in the African-American community is thirty times that of whites according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Conclusion
Further weakening of traditional marriage in American society, particularly the African-American community, will only cause the rates for out-of-wedlock births, poverty, and disease to skyrocket.
Approving gay marriage and opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment would not only be a disservice to African Americans, and to all Americans, but would also be immoral and unethical as it would ensure that future generations of black children would remain slaves to a culture of death. Please vote “yes” on the Federal Marriage Amendment.
The complete Policy Report entitled “The Impact of Homosexual Marriage on the Black Community” is scheduled for release at the CURENET Press Conference to support amending the Constitution on Saturday, August 28, 2004 at the Lincoln Memorial at 9:00am. CURENET is a conservative network of evangelical black pastors representing 50,000 constituents nationwide. For a press packet or pre-interviews, please call Shelly Henderson at 202-479-CURE
Phillip Johnson is the Senior Policy Researcher for the organization.
