Report refutes attempt to pit black and gays against one another in marriage fight

The Center for American Progress has just come out with a new report detailing and refuting the lies told about marriage equality in D.C. by minister Harry Jackson.

Jackson, a black minister, is probably considered the most visible person of color in religious right circles. His highly unsuccessful efforts to push a referendum on gay marriage in D.C. has given him even more press.

And as the report shows, he doesn't seem to know or care that he is stretching the truth:

Recent and credible research has convincingly shown that Jackson’s views of the “privileged”—and largely white—gay and lesbian community are completely untrue and inaccurate. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law has extensively analyzed credible government data comparing families in D.C. headed by same-sex couples to those headed by heterosexual couples.

The Williams Institute researchers found that same-sex couples living in the district are diverse in terms of race and income, among other factors. There are about 3,500 same-sex couples living in the district, including 225 who are legally married and 3,300 who are not married. The district has by far the highest concentration of unmarried same-sex partners of any state—13.2 per 1,000 households in DC; the next highest is Maine at 6.8.

Annual earnings of same-sex couples v. straight married couples in DCA 2007 analysis found that same-sex couple households can be found in every part of the district, and comprise 1.5 percent of all households and 5.1 percent of all coupled households. More than a quarter of these couples are African American, as the table-figure below shows. All told, one-third of same-sex couples living in the district are not white.

And contrary to Jackson’s claims of the gay community’s privilege and ability to earn more money than straight people, yearly earnings of men in same-sex couples are actually lower than those of married men, as shown below. Men in same-sex couples in D.C. earn about $67,000 on average each year, while men who are married to women earn $70,000. And women in same-sex couples in the district earn $43,000 on average, while women married to men earn $45,000.

While I seriously doubt that Jackson will respond to this report, it is important that people are educated, particularly African-Americans about what he is doing.

Jackson's comments are meant to exploit false resentment against the lgbt community by the African-American community.

When he goes on about "privileged rich white people," he conveniently forgets the lgbts of color who are also in this fight.

I can't but wondering if his convenient forgetfulness is meant to be intentional.

The report in it's entirety is here.

Related posts:

Sorry Harry Jackson, but lgbts of color do exist