As it happens, I presaged this prejudice nearly 15 years ago in “Non-White Bishops Rebuke Their North American Brethren…” May 8, 2005. I was commenting on black bishops leading opposition to the ordination of gay bishops and priests in the Anglican Church.
Here is an excerpt:
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Gay Anglican Bishop Gene Robinson can be forgiven his forlorn hope that – in singing ‘we shall overcome … someday’ – he will inspire black bishops to repent their homophobia and embrace him as one of God’s good shepherds too. …
[The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams] is now locked in a Jacobin fight with conservative bishops (primarily from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, India and Latin America) for the hearts and souls of the Anglican faithful. This is a fight, however, that must make the Prophet Lot cringe with déjà vu. Because, the very ‘debauchery’ that provoked God to destroy his Sodom and Gomorrah is allegedly provoking him to destroy the Anglican Church. …
Conservative bishops feel aggrieved by the challenge homosexuality presents to the longstanding tenets of their faith and the ‘supremacy and clarity … of God’s words.’ Those who feel most aggrieved are black Anglicans; whereas those most responsible for mounting this challenge are white Anglicans. Therefore, though few dare say it, this schism is – at its core – one where race and culture are almost as determinative as subjective interpretations of the Bible. …
The archbishop has lamented that ‘not having a common language, a common frame of reference’ is at the heart of the differences between Anglicans who support the gay agenda and those who oppose it. But he is being either naïve or disingenuous.
Because it is no secret that deeply rooted cultural and sexual sensibilities are at the heart of this difference. This, because non-white Anglicans regard homosexuality as anathema to their defiantly patriarchal and heterosexual orientation. But their fervent opposition to the gay agenda is inspired even more by their reading of the holy scriptures, which, they claim, condemn homosexuality as unnatural and a mortal sin (remember Lot’s Sodomites?). And they hold these views notwithstanding the fact that their own archbishop’s reading of those same scriptures defies theirs. …
What is ironic and, frankly, disappointing is that black Christians are using perverse religious and cultural rationalizations to discriminate against gays. After all, white Christians used similar rationalizations to discriminate against blacks not so long ago.
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Given that, this comes as no surprise:
Pete Buttigieg … the South Bend, Indiana, mayor and 2020 candidate got good news over the weekend when a new CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll put him at the top of the Democratic field in Iowa. But his high hopes promptly sunk with a new Quinnipiac University poll out Monday that shows him floundering in South Carolina.
Buttigieg racked up a respectable 6 percent support among likely voters in South Carolina, which will be the first southern state to hold a presidential primary next year. But when only black voters are taken into account, he earned the support of precisely 0 percent of them.
(The Week, November 18, 2019)
Of course, these same black voters were once reluctant to embrace Barack Obama (for not being black enough). Which is why Buttigieg should take heart (or have faith) that, if he too looks like a winner, blacks in South Carolina (and in primaries beyond) will get over their reluctance and embrace him too.
But, to emulate Obama in this context, Buttigieg will have to win Iowa and finish no worse than second in New Hampshire before heading into South Carolina.
He is now leading polls in both states; therefore, his prospects for emulating Obama look pretty good.
Pete Buttigieg is my second VP choice. Never mind that, like Harris, he is running for top billing. The point is that, like Harris, his background and experience are so impressive, he has more presidential potential today than Obama had when he announced his candidacy in February 2007.
Buttigieg is a Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar; he is 37; he is gay; he is a military veteran; and he is serving his second term as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Oh, he is married (not that that’s a requirement, mind you).
Yet chances are that you have never heard of him. For America’s sake, I hope that changes soon.
(“Biden-Harris 2020: That’s the Ticket!” The iPINIONS Journal, January 14, 2019)
The polls indicate that many of you have now heard of him.
Incidentally, the Anglicans are still in the throes of “splitting over God’s view of Sodomy.” This smacks of a groundhog-day spectacle.
But the North American and European Anglicans seem destined to split from their African and other conservative brethren. In this, they would ape the way Roman Catholics famously split from their Greek brethren in 1054 (over geographical, intellectual, political, and religious differences). That, of course, gave rise to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Related commentaries:
Non-white Anglicans…
Biden-Harris 2020…