African-Americans Aren't Single-Issue Voters

Letter to the editor appearing in today's State newspaper, Columbia, SC. 

http://www.thestate.com/2012/09/28/2459184/african-americans-arent-single.html

 

The State recently carried a story on black clergy and Christians “wavering” over whether to stay home on Election Day because of President Barack Obama’s stance on same-sex marriage and candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion (“African-American Christians waver over presidential vote,” Sept. 17).
 

As a pastor and a participant in intra-denominational, ecumenical and interfaith circles, I haven’t detected a lot of African-American enthusiasm for candidate Romney, but that seems to be a result of his politics. I’ve worked with Mormons in interfaith circles, appreciate diversity in faith and don’t see Romney’s faith as an issue. The Mormons have a dubious history on matters of race, but the same is true of many Protestant denominations.
 

I haven’t detected any great African-American Christian reluctance to vote for President Obama, because most black voters heard him speaking not as Rev. Obama, but as President Obama. He’s the chief executive not of a theocracy but of a representative democracy, who must safeguard the rights of those of varying faiths and those who embrace no faith. Most African-American Christians I’ve spoken with understand that he was not dictating to the church but advocating what he sees as a civil right.

 African-Americans are not single-issue voters and usually vote for candidates whose overall positions best reflect their own. Most black voters are conservative on morality but progressive on equity and fairness. We generally take a dim view of those who express outrage about who loves whom and the rights of the unborn while promoting political division based on race and class and taking a mean and punitive attitude toward those struggling in humble and impoverished circumstances.
 

Most African-Americans are also leery of unfamiliar black spokespersons who materialize out of nowhere to proclaim what black people are thinking and of “leaders” whose words don’t reflect their positions. I found it curious that the “black clergy leaders” outraged by the president’s same-sex marriage stance haven’t expressed equal outrage about prejudicial voter photo ID laws, law enforcement racial profiling and inequity in public education.
 

No black clergy I know plan to “go fishing” on Election Day, as does the clergy person quoted in the article. Too many people sacrificed, suffered and died for the right to vote for any citizen to sit on the sidelines and cheapen a sacred right.
 

Rev. Joseph A. Darby
Senior Pastor, Morris Brown African
Methodist Episcopal Church
Charleston