Why did 70% of California African-Americans vote against gay marriage on November 4th?

While a narrow majority of white voters opposed Proposition 8 (which defined marriage as "valid and recognized" only between a man and a woman), and a small majority of Latinos supported it, the black community overwhelmingly said "no" to the top "civil rights" priority of gay activists.

Liberals explain this surprising result with insulting (and occasionally racist) claims that black voters didn't understand the real nature of the fight, and suggestions that they were misled by TV advertisements or their impassioned pastors.

Conservatives, on the other hand, hail the tally as a sign of powerful, sturdy black support for traditional marriage --- an odd conclusion for a community with disproportionately high rates of out-of-wedlock birth and single parent households.

In fact, my conversations with several leaders and thinkers in the African-American community lead to another explanation for the one-sided rejection by black voters of the homosexual agenda.

At least in part, the support for Proposition 8 reflected deep resentment for the gay community's appropriation of the rhetoric and symbolism of the black civil rights struggle, along with understandable anger at the offensive analogy between African-American identity and gay sexual orientation.

For three reasons, the comparison of the gay struggle with the black struggle insults the memory of black heroes of the past and trivializes the problems of the African-American community of the present. Continued...