Ok, so I'm reading this article a couple of days ago, and a number jumps out at me. You gotta read a ways to get there, because this number directly contradicts the whole point of the article, so they buried the shit out of it.
Black opposition to same-sex marriage has dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2008, Pew found that 63% of African-Americans opposed gay marriage, 14 percentage points higher than the proportion who expressed opposition this year.
Those darn blacks! Why can't they see how their own history so closely mirrors that of their..wait...what was that again?
Black opposition to same-sex marriage has dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2008, Pew found that 63% of African-Americans opposed gay marriage, 14 percentage points higher than the proportion who expressed opposition this year.
In a 38 paragraph article, that is paragraph 27. 63% of African Americans opposed gay marriage in 2008. 49% oppose it now (a number you originally found much higher in the article). That's a 22% drop in opposition in 4 years. If that rate continues, in 2016, opposition will have dropped to 38%. In other words, it'll be antiquated - the foolishly held notions of old bigots you politely ignore, because they'll have become irrelevant.
And if you don't think that rate is going to continue, you haven't been paying attention to anything concerning public acceptance of gay rights in this country over the last 20 years. It's pessimistic to anticipate merely another such drop between now and the next presidential election.
And if you think that African-Americans are going to sit on their asses en masse this November and let the first black President of these United States lose this election to the whitest white man ever to walk God's Green Earth over whether or not two gay dudes get to call each other husband, well then you sir/ma'am are out of your goddam mind.
You know what this is? These are the Hillary voters - the PUMAs, right? - all over again. PUMA Part 2: The Angry Black Preachers (or, perhaps Reverend Wright's Revenge?), only this time, 5 times as ridiculous a premise!
But WHAT ABOUT NORTH CAROLINA? Oh please. Do you really think gay marriage won't be the law of the land there in 15, 20 years, tops?
This is a speedbump. Look at DOMA - passed by a (white) Democratic President, with overwhelming bipartisan support, not even 20 years ago, and now the (black) President has basically said he doesn't even recognize it as law.
If 49% of blacks oppose something that 43% of whites oppose, and that 49% represents a 14 point drop from where it stood ONE ELECTION AGO, then this is no longer a story about race. You're just using it to get readers.