Afro-Netizen

Same Sex Marriage, Religiosity & Black Civil Rights Orthodoxies

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Guest Contributor

Last year’s debate over California’s Proposition 8 exposed deep racial fault lines around the issue of same sex marriage in African American communities across the state.  After polls showed an overwhelming number of blacks supported the initiative some liberal whites came out swinging, blaming blacks for the initiative’s defeat in racist diatribes against African American hypocrisy on civil rights.  Black religiosity and social conservatism were deemed to be the “culprits” for the failure of same sex marriage to galvanize mainstream Black support. 

As marriage equality advocates of color gear up for another organizing offensive in the wake of the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding Prop 8, it is abundantly clear that when it comes to gay rights, bucking the black religious establishment on civil rights “orthodoxy” continues to be a third rail issue.  Exhibit A in this quagmire is the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (or SCLC, the civil rights organization once headed by Martin Luther King Jr.), which recently threatened to fire Los Angeles chapter head the Reverend Eric Lee for his outspoken advocacy of same-sex marriage.

The SCLC’s rebuke of Lee reflects a recent L.A. Times poll that showed 54% of African Americans remain steadfastly opposed to same-sex marriage. In this regard straight privilege and religious privilege have converged in a decidedly unholy alliance.  The tiresome debate over whether gay and lesbian liberation struggle is a “civil rights” issue hinges on proprietary claims to the civil rights movement legacy that supposedly only straight black folk are entitled to. 

According to this logic, equality for gays and lesbians isn’t a civil right because there were no state sanctioned segregation laws barring gays and lesbians from employment, schools or housing—an argument which is just as absurd as asserting that gender equity is not a civil rights issue because there were no poll taxes, grandfather clauses, or literacy tests for white women at the voting booth before 1920. 

In this reductive universe all women are white and all gays are white, and the notion that systematized oppression, as well as systematized privilege and entitlement, intersect via multiple identities is unheard of.  Yet black gay and lesbian slaves worked in the plantation house and fields alongside straights while having their lives, identities and right to love tacitly if not violently suppressed by a regime that brutally exploited black reproduction. 

Black gay and lesbian youth sit in classrooms where they are ritually called out of their names, dehumanized by harassment that passes for harmless jocularity and rendered invisible by cultural norms that equate attractiveness, social acceptance and authentic masculinity and femininity with being heterosexual.  And black gay and lesbian partners live in segregated neighborhoods, struggle with unequal access to health care and housing while being denied the privilege of marital benefits to give them a leg up in society stratified by race, gender, sexual orientation and class.

Conflating biblical literalism with morality, Christian partisans condemn same-sex marriage as blasphemy while conveniently rejecting the archaic racial hierarchies that the Bible espouses.  Black preachers sanctimoniously opine about the “hijacking” of the civil rights movement legacy while effectively turning a blind eye to the disenfranchisement of their young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered congregants, who suffer disproportionate rates of suicide and depression simply because of the dominant culture’s denial of their fundamental personhood.

For far too long, the more conservative segments of the Black church have been allowed to function as the unquestioned moral arbiters of marriage, sexuality, child-rearing and cultural mores.  Rather than representing one and only one world view within African American communities, the conservative religious civil rights orthodoxy has been enshrined as the prism for black perspectives.  Admittedly, Eric Lee and his counterparts are in the minority of those within the black Christian community principled enough to go on record against the anti-gay rhetoric of the pro-Prop 8 coalition.  Yet this leadership is crucial to a civil rights movement based on intersectionality, a consciousness of the complexity of African American identity and community in repudiation of the bigoted flat-earth ethos that has made silence around Black homophobia morally and socially acceptable.

Sikivu Hutchinson is editor of BlackFemLens.org and an advisory board member of the Washington D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools curriculum guide on family diversity, gender stereotyping and anti-LGBT bullying.

“God sent the Shooter”: White Christian terrorism and the assassination of Dr. George Tiller

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Guest Contributor

“God sent the shooter,” the signs wielded by anti-abortion protestors at the funeral of slain doctor George Tiller proclaimed.  Last week’s assassination of abortion provider and feminist George Tiller in a Kansas church on the so-called holy seventh day was not only a barbaric act of religious cowardice but a terrorist assault on the rights of women.  Tragically similar to the 1998 murder of New York doctor Bernard Slepian, Tiller’s murder was the culmination of years of attempted murders, death threats, bombings and arson attacks waged against abortion providers by white Christian terrorists.

Despite the scope of this orchestrated campaign mainstream media rarely identify these acts or those who commit them as “terrorist.”  Those who invoke Christian fundamentalism as justification for their barbaric incursions against women and their allies are dismissed as aberrations, even though the profiles of the killers are always the same, the suspects—generally disaffected white middle aged males, aligned with a crackpot anti-government militia and/or fundamentalist ethos steeped in the bloody retribution of the Old Testament—virtually plucked from central casting.

These spasms of Christian fundamentalist violence are largely peculiar to the United States.  Anti-abortion activism in Western European countries such as Great Britain, France and Italy doesn’t inspire anywhere near the level of militant resistance seen here.  This virulent strain of fundamentalism was nourished by three theocratic Republican administrations that dismembered the Constitution and effectively sanctioned criminal campaigns against abortion providers.  So while the U.S. condemns Muslim religious fundamentalism and trumpets itself as a beacon for individual and civil liberties unbridled by theocratic intolerance it has become a breeding ground for the most dangerous Christian fundamentalist terrorist movement in the world.

Christian fundamentalism has always objectified women’s bodies as patriarchal property and territory for reproductive control.  It’s no surprise then that white men deem themselves to be Christian soldiers in the war over the wombs of Middle American and Southern white women.  It’s also no surprise that the Bible Belt, fount of hyper-religious public policy that demonizes sex education and contraception, has the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. 

Christian fundamentalist dogma is about keeping ‘em barefoot, knocked up and in obeisance to a God that would rather see an impoverished 12 year-old incest victim carry her rapist father’s baby to term and suffer lifelong psychological trauma than undergo a safe legal abortion and have a reasonable expectation for a future.  And it is immoral, radically anti-woman positions like these which make the “pro-life” misnomer appropriated by the anti-abortion movement so infuriating. 

In the militant anti-choice universe the lives of real babies living in poverty and their real mothers and real families are of no consequence next to protection of the religiously decreed “rights” of the unborn.  White male anti-abortion terrorists can’t get similarly exorcised about cuts to women’s health care benefits and pre- and post-natal care to mothers in real time because it would mean ceding control to flesh and blood women.

Tiller’s assassination also dovetails with a dangerous shift in public opinion regarding the future of choice for American women imperiled by unwanted pregnancies.  Influenced by a decade of unrelenting right wing propaganda that equates abortion with murder and abortion providers with Nazi eugenicists, polls indicate that a growing majority of the American public has adopted a “pro-life” stance and is willfully ignorant about the life-giving and life-saving potential of legal abortion.  Dispatching shooters from “God,” the anti-abortion movement must accept responsibility for the murderous religious rhetoric that led to the assassination of George Tiller and the terrorist assault on the rights and lives of American women. 

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of BlackFemLens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7FM.

President Barack Obama addresses the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt with historic speech

Text of President Barack Obama's 2009 Notre Dame commencement speech

Text of President Barack Obama's commencement address Sunday as the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., as delivered, as transcribed by the White House. The Rev. John Jenkins is the school's president. The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh is Jenkins' predecessor. Brennan Bollman is the class valedictorian.

___

Well, first of all, congratulations, Class of 2009. Congratulations to all the parents, the cousins — the aunts, the uncles — all the people who helped to bring you to the point that you are here today. Thank you so much to Father Jenkins for that extraordinary introduction, even though you said what I want to say much more elegantly. You are doing an extraordinary job as president of this extraordinary institution. Your continued and courageous — and contagious — commitment to honest, thoughtful dialogue is an inspiration to us all.

Good afternoon. To Father Hesburgh, to Notre Dame trustees, to faculty, to family: I am honored to be here today. And I am grateful to all of you for allowing me to be a part of your graduation.

And I also want to thank you for the honorary degree that I received. I know it has not been without controversy. I dont know if youre aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I'm only 1 for 2 as President. Father Hesburgh is 150 for 150. I guess that's better. So, Father Ted, after the ceremony, maybe you can give me some pointers to boost my average.

I also want to congratulate the Class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. And since this is Notre Dame ...

(Speech is interrupted by anti-abortion protesters.)

We're fine, everybody. We're following Brennans adage that we dont do things easily. We're not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable sometimes.

Now, since this is Notre Dame I think we should talk not only about your accomplishments in the classroom, but also in the competitive arena. No, dont worry, I'm not going to talk about that. We all know about this university's proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world — Bookstore Basketball.

Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year's tournament, a team by the name of "Hallelujah Holla Back." Congratulations. Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the "Barack OBallers" did not pull it out this year. So next year, if you need a 6-2 forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.

Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty-three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you sit today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare — periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.

You, however, are not getting off that easy. You have a different deal. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and for the world — a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It's a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations — and a task that youre now called to fulfill.

This generation, your generation is the one that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before the most recent crisis hit — an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day's work.

Your generation must decide how to save God's creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. Your generation must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity — diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family. And it's this last challenge that Id like to talk about today, despite the fact that Father John stole all my best lines. For the major threats we face in the 21st century — whether it's global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease — these things do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups.

Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and greater understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

Unfortunately, finding that common ground — recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a "single garment of destiny" — is not easy. And part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man — our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see here in this country and around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education that you've received here at Notre Dame is that you've had time to consider these wrongs in the world; perhaps recognized impulses in yourself that you want to leave behind. You've grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexing things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, bringing together men and women of principle and purpose — even accomplishing that can be difficult.

The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved.

The question, then — the question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

And of course, nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.

As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called "The Audacity of Hope." A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an e-mail from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the Illinois primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life — but that was not what was preventing him potentially from voting for me.

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my Web site — an entry that said I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor said he had assumed I was a reasonable person, he supported my policy initiatives to help the poor and to lift up our educational system, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, "I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words." Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor's letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him. And I didn't change my underlying position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my Web site. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that — when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe — that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions."

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let's reduce unintended pregnancies. Let's make adoption more available. Let's provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women." Those are things we can do.

Now, understand — understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It's a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. A lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where "differences of culture and religion and conviction can coexist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love." And I want to join him and Father John in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today's ceremony. You are an example of what Notre Dame is about.

This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago — also with the help of the Catholic Church.

You see, I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. And a group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

And it was quite an eclectic crew — Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish and African American organizers, working-class black, white, and Hispanic residents — all of us with different experiences, all of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help — to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in these neighborhoods — perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I was really broke and they fed me. Perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn not just to the work with the church; I was drawn to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.

And at the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him or known of him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads — unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty and AIDS and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together, always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said, "You can't really get on with preaching the Gospel until you've touched hearts and minds."

My heart and mind were touched by him. They were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside in parishes across Chicago. And Id like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling.

Now, you, Class of 2009, are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You'll be called to help restore a free market that's also fair to all who are willing to work. You'll be called to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or simply someone who insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communication than ever existed before. You'll hear talking heads scream on cable, and you'll read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and you will watch politicians pretend they know what they're talking about. Occasionally, you may have the great fortune of actually seeing important issues debated by people who do know what they're talking about — by well-intentioned people with brilliant minds and mastery of the facts. In fact, I suspect that some of you will be among those brightest stars.

And in this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you've been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. In other words, stand as a lighthouse.

But remember, too, that you can be a crossroads. Remember, too, that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It's the belief in things not seen. It's beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us. And those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

And this doubt should not push us away our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open and curious and eager to continue the spiritual and moral debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us even as we cling to our faith to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works and charity and kindness and service that moves hearts and minds.

For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It's no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule — the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. The call to serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

So many of you at Notre Dame — by the last count, upwards of 80 percent — have lived this law of love through the service you've performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. Brennan is just one example of what your class has accomplished. That's incredibly impressive, a powerful testament to this institution.

Now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn't just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens — when people set aside their differences, even for a moment, to work in common effort toward a common goal; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another — then all things are possible.

After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Now, Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the "separate but equal" doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God's children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the 12 resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of this commission. It included five whites and one African American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. So they worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. And finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame's retreat in Land O Lakes, Wisconsin — where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal.

And years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away — because life is not that simple. It never has been. But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family, the same fulfillment of a life well lived. Remember that in the end, in some way we are all fishermen.

If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations, Class of 2009. May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

“Out of the closet”: Black atheists

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Guest Contributor

In some Black communities it’s akin to donning a white sheet and a Confederate Flag.  In others it’s ostensibly tolerated yet whispered about, branded culturally incorrect and bad form if not outright sacrilege. 

For Black atheists like myself, proclaiming one’s non-belief amidst genial wishes to “have a blessed day” is never easy in the seemingly innocuous context of casual chit chat between Black folk.  Yet, according to the New York Times, a small but growing segment of the American population, galvanized by the hyper-evangelical climate of the Republican Pleistocene, have begun organizing nationwide and becoming more vocal about their atheism. 

Although African Americans are not visible in the “movement” some are easing away from religion.  For Black atheists, actively breaking with religious tradition is an even graver rejection than that of white intellectuals electrified by the “pew-storming” rhetoric of atheist gurus like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins.  This is partly due to the fact that the history of African American civil and human rights resistance is heavily steeped in Judeo-Christian religious dogma.  Despite the White Anglo Saxon Protestant religious justification for slavery and domestic terrorism,

African Americans converted to Christianity and utilized it as a source of succor, community and spiritual redemption. No matter one’s actual deeds, life path or personal mores, to be unquestioningly religious in some quarters is to be inoculated from criticism.  Noting this historical irony in his blog, The Black Atheist, Wrath James White states, “In these (black) communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God.”  For Wright, this “is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embrace of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slave masters and oppressors.” 

While there have been critical appraisals of African American adoption of Christianity within the context of European conquest and racial slavery, few propose atheism as a corrective.  Indeed, atheism would seem to fly in the face of a cultural ethos that frames earthly pain and suffering as a crucible for achieving rewards in the afterlife.  In the midst of extreme brutality religious faith can either be seen as a means to mental health, or, as Karl Marx put it more bluntly, an opiate.       

In this sense contemporary Black religiosity is the legacy of a culturally specific survival strategy.  Many black secular community-based organizations still look to the Black church as a coalition partner and resource.  Disturbingly, the church is often uncritically perceived as the “backbone” of the Black community.  However, as the debate over California’s Proposition 8 demonstrated, the notion that there is a monolithic “marching in lockstep” Black community is terminally outdated. 

On issues of gender and sexual orientation, the overwhelming opposition of many prominent Black churches to granting civil rights to partnered African American gays and lesbians is morally indefensible.  When it comes to attitudes about traditional gender roles, gender-based assumptions about Black female religiosity are double-edged.  While Black male non-believers are given more leeway to be heretics, Black women who openly profess atheist views are deemed especially traitorous, having abandoned their family role as purveyors of cultural and religious tradition.  Images of Black women faithfully shuttling their children to church and socializing them into Christianity are a prominent part of mainstream black culture. 

If being black and being Christian are synonymous, then being Black, female and religious (whatever the denomination) is practically compulsory.  Black women with children who don’t fall in line, who raise their children as atheists, may find their race credentials revoked.

On the national level the contradictions between American secularism and religion have produced a schizoid tension in the U.S., whereby religious fundamentalism and intolerance for secular thought have become the norm.  When it’s practiced in the non-Western world Americans routinely brand this kind of propaganda as backward and extremist.  Yet, in this, the most swaggeringly “liberal humanist” of all nations, “coming out” as an atheist in a culture that parades religious dogma as a substitute for true morality may be one of the final ideological frontiers for African Americans.   

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of BlackFemLens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM.

Faith-Based Swindle: How the Obama administration continues to undermine the separation of church & state

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Guest Contributor

Over the past few decades the universe has been very good for American religious zealotry.  While right wing conservatives were busy propagandizing on the global sway of so-called Muslim jihadists, they ripped secular liberal humanism and the Constitution to shreds.  Under poster child George W. Bush the separation between church and state has all but evaporated, eroded by faith-based initiative subsidies that sucked up millions of federal dollars with virtually zero accountability.  The scientific community became the stepchild of health public policy and global warming was ridiculed as leftist fiction. 

Abstinence-only sex education became the standard in many middle and high school health curricula, defying research-based evidence that it was a dangerous sham.  Christian evangelical “mega-churches” flaunted their tax-exempt status, raking in thousands in contributions on money pits like the Orange County-based Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), dubbed the largest Christian network in the country.  And a New York Times poll indicated that it would be easier to elect an African American male than an atheist of any extraction.

The election of Barack Obama seemed to signal a potential shift in this Christian fundamentalist flat earth regime.  Yet although Obama has lifted the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, his “new” spin on the faith-based initiative swindle is yet another egregious concession to faith-based bigotry.  Obama of course, rode into office courting evangelicals, infamously appointing noted homophobe Rick Warren to give his inaugural convocation. 

Ever the political triangulator, Obama shrewdly reached out to fundamentalist America in an attempt to improve the abysmal showing of Democrats among Christian fundamentalists in 2000 and 2004.  Obama has apparently recanted one of his campaign pledges to rescind the most objectionable feature of Bush’s faith-based policy—the provision that religious organizations can actively discriminate in hiring those who don’t subscribe or conform to their faith.  His capitulation to the most noxious elements of the religious right has elicited widespread criticism from secular-progressive factions of the coalition that elected him.

Secular activists have long tried to reclaim public discourse from the Christian lobby and challenge federal entitlements to so-called mega-churches that have become cottage industries for products, marketing, cushy jobs and other perks to well-connected donors and congregants.  In contemporary politics, the influence of religious special interests on public policy and national discourse has its roots in the Reagan-Bush administration’s calculated overtures to far right propagandists such as the Moral Majority, the anti-abortion terrorist organization Operation Rescue and Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition. 

Consequently, the notion that faith-based organizations—primarily those that are Christian and Jewish, as it is doubtful that Buddhist and Hindu denominations, or even Wiccan and Santeria faith-based organizations for that matter, are dining so gluttonously at the public trough—should drive public policy on social welfare and be entitled to tons of federal funding was one of the Bush administration’s signature policy issues and calling cards to the religious right.  Now Obama has signaled that he is willing to further undermine the separation of church and state and give religious organizations a free pass to outlaw gays, non-believers and other heretics from their employment.

In the same vein, the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ recent rejection of Planned Parenthood’s contract to provide services for health education is indicative of yet another dangerous incursion of religious dogma into public policy.  After giving Planned Parenthood the boot, the O.C. Supervisors voted instead to award the contract to a faith-based family services outfit that counsels pregnant women not to have abortions.  Rising teen pregnancy rates, HIV/AIDS and STD contraction rates and sexual assault rates illustrate the critical need for secular health services for an Orange County population that is now predominantly Latino and Asian. 

The denial of the Planned Parenthood contract comes on the heels of a national poll from the Program of Public Values which concluded that more Americans are moving away from organized religion in general and Christianity in particular.  If this welcome trend continues it may precipitate an urgently needed backlash against the flat earth regime; which has put a Medieval stranglehold on democracy, twenty first century innovation and public health and wellness long enough.       

Sikivu Hutchinson is a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, and is the editor of BlackFemLens.org, an online a journal of progressive commentary and literature.

MSNBC's David Schuster interviews progressive human rights advocate Rev. Joseph Lowery about anti-gay Rev. Rick Warren

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Analyzing Obama's 2004 interview on religion through a 2008 pre-inauguration lens

I received an e-mail message that was forwarded to me, having been forwarded several times previously from sources unknown containing the transcript of an interview of Barack Obama from 2004 on his religious views.

Instead of forwarding the e-mail yet again, I googled it to confirm its authenticity (as all dutiful netizens should do!). Lo' and behold, it was legit, making this uniquely rich interview of then-State Senator Barack Obama that much more fascinating -- particularly in light of today's news that he has asked controversial mega-church founder and best-selling author, Rev. Rick Warren, to perform the invocation at President-Elect Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009.

I found the interview in whole at Beliefnet (a great site on all things spiritual and religious, whose editor-in-chief, Steven Waldman, was my very affable skybox-mate at the Democratic convention in Denver the night of Michelle Obama's powerful and historic speech praising the blessings of her working-class values).

Many of us self-identified progressives were incredulous and crest-fallen. I, however, was neither surprised, nor demoralized.

I am not a fan of Mr. Warren's politics, to put it lightly. However, if you know Barack Obama -- the public figure -- we should expect his not-so-rare curve balls.

He leads from the center -- at least rhetorically. He's not an ideologue. He does not appear to be petty or spiteful. He's thoughtful, analytical and a highly strategic thinker. He knows the political game and how to play it.

He is neither macho, nor effete.

He is a scalpel-wielding incrementalist -- not a hatchet-gripping revolutionary. Obama's a compromiser -- not an agitator.

If we take the time to look closely at his measured words and revealing deeds over time, there should be very few surprises for us over the next four to eight years. Really.

He is a complex man who is both methodical and caring.

As the wonderfully nuanced SNL digital short on him states, Obama "plays it cool", calm and collected.

All of this is to say that when I read the Chicago Sun-Times interview with Obama on his religious beliefs, I was genuinely moved. I was also reminded of the Obama I have come to understand from afar: this is a man whose political instinct is to unite disparate groups of people despite the odds or the consequences. Case in point: Rev. Rick Warren is about as popular among liberals, progressives and Leftists as George W. Bush is at an Iraqi shoe store.

I'm not suggesting that I think his decision to invite Warren was the right thing to do -- because I don't. But the choice was his to make, and ultimately, what I care most about is what our 44th president does for our nation's under-served communities, our economy, environment, international standing, and our education and health care systems.

Would I support protests against the hate-mongering and intolerance that Rev. Warren has supported related to women's reproductive rights and the human rights of the LGBT community? Absolutely. However, I'm already envisioning Obama seated at his desk in the Oval Office (and I can finally take down my Obama lawn sign) and channeling the inner-Gandhi that he will so desperately need to summon in order to help lead our country down the righteous path.

Can I get an 'Amen'?

Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

The Ground Didn't Shift

By M. Shahid Alam
CounterPunch

It is perhaps a bit late in the day, nearly two weeks after November 4, to be writing about Barack Obama’s electoral victory. This want of alacrity, however, is intentional.

I thought it would be cruel to write any sooner, when whites and blacks alike were so effusively celebrating Obama’s victory. It would be unseemly to strike a discordant note when a clear majority of Americans was savoring this putative post-racial moment in their history.

Did this victory signal a shift in America's racial tectonic plates?

Memories are so short. In the weeks following his choice of Sarah Palin on August 29, John McCain began closing the gap behind Obama.  The election got closer after Palin electrified the Republican Convention with her line about how “We grow good people in our small towns…”  The message to blacks, Hispanics and Asians in America’s cities was clear: they are not “good people.”

In the absence of the financial meltdown that began in early September, the election could have easily gone the other way. Sarah Palin too may have helped Obama a bit when she began displaying the breathless scope of her ignorance.

Who should we thank for Obama’s victory?

The answer is sobering. We can thank the financial meltdown and, in some measure, the threat of an Armageddon – likely to follow Palin’s succession to a geriatric McCain – for Obama’s victory. There was no shifting of tectonic plates on this continent.

If anything, America’s unquestioning identification of Obama as a ‘black’ candidate is deeply problematic. It demonstrates that the United States remains firmly rooted in ideas of race that go back to the era of slavery and Jim Crow Laws.  

Obama’s mother was white and, apparently, so were all her forebears; while his father was a black African and, apparently, so were all his forebears. Obama is biracial – half-black and half-white. Why did that, automatically, make him black? If being half-black makes Obama black, by the same logic we could identify him as white.

Why didn’t we?

Read more to find out here.

Minister, a Bush Ally, Gives Church as Site for Alito Rally

By Laurie Goodstein
New York Times

The Rev. Herbert H. Lusk II is a maverick black minister who took to his pulpit in Philadelphia in 2000 and pledged his support for a Bush presidency, a speech broadcast live at the Republican National Convention. Two years later, Mr. Lusk was criticized when he received a $1 million grant through the president's new religion-based initiative to run a housing program for the poor.

This Sunday, Mr. Lusk has offered his church in Philadelphia as the site for a major political rally intended to whip up support for the president's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., whose confirmation hearings begin on Monday.

The event, dubbed "Justice Sunday III," will be broadcast by satellite nationwide to churches and Christian radio and television stations, and organizers say it will reach 80 million households.

The speaking lineup includes the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University; James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a multimedia ministry in Colorado Springs; and Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Lusk said he agreed to be the host of the event at his Greater Exodus Baptist Church more out of loyalty to Mr. Bush - "a friend of mine" - than out of support for Judge Alito.

"I don't know enough about him to say I actually think he's the right man to do the job," Mr. Lusk said in a telephone interview on Wednesday about Judge Alito. "I'm saying I trust a friend of mine who promised me that he would appoint people to the justice system that would be attentive to the needs I care about" - stopping same-sex marriage, assisted suicide and abortions for minors, and supporting prayer and Christmas celebrations in schools.

Other black pastors criticized Mr. Lusk for providing a black church as a stage for a pro-Alito event when they say Judge Alito has a poor record on civil rights. The Rev. Robert P. Shine Sr., president of the Pennsylvania State Wide Coalition of Black Clergy, said, "The rights gained by blacks and other minorities are subject to reversal in the event that Alito, along with Roberts, sits on the court."

Mr. Lusk says he is accustomed to controversy. After his speech to the Republican National Convention, he was reported to the Internal Revenue Service by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a watchdog group based in Washington, which accused him of violating tax rules that prohibit churches from endorsing political candidates.

Read more