ARDMORE, pa. — Like many black Americans, Dorsey Jackson does not believe in same-sex marriage, but he wasn’t disillusioned when Barack Obama became the first president to support it. The windows of his suburban Philadelphia barbershop still display an “Obama 2012” placard and another that reads “We’ve Got His Back.”
If Obama needs to endorse same-sex marriage to be re-elected, said Jackson, so be it: “Look, man — by any means necessary.”
With that phrase popularized by the black radical Malcolm X, Jackson rebutted those who say Obama’s new stand will weaken the massive black support he needs to win re-election in November. Black voters and especially black churches have long opposed same-sex marriage.
But the 40-year-old barber and other blacks interviewed in politically key states say their support for Obama remains unshaken.
Some questioned whether Obama really believes what he says about gay rights or merely took that stand to help defeat Republican Mitt Romney — suggesting blacks view the first black president less as an icon than as a straight-up politician who still feels like family.
“Obama is human,” said Leon Givens of Charlotte, N.C. “I don’t have him on a pedestal.”
On Tuesday, Givens voted in favor of banning same-sex marriage in North Carolina. Many black precincts voted 2-1 for the ballot measure, which passed easily. The next day, Obama told the nation in a TV interview: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
But this fall, Givens plans to register Obama voters and drive senior citizens to the polls. Givens, a retired human-resources manager, said he suspects the president’s pronouncement was “more a political thing than his true feelings.”
But he’s not dwelling on it.
“We can agree to disagree on gay marriage,” Givens said.
Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by a mere 14,000 votes, thanks largely to a huge black turnout. Nationally, 95 percent of black voters chose Obama, and 2 million more black people voted than in 2004. No one doubts Obama will carry the black vote this year, but whether he can again turn out such large numbers could prove crucial to his chances.
Much of the opposition stems from religious beliefs. Church is the backbone of black America — 22 percent of black people attend religious services more than once per week, compared with 11 percent of whites, according to recent AP/GfK polls.
Mel Brown, a 65-year-old project manager in Philadelphia, says same-sex marriage “is between them and their God. The God I serve does not agree with that.”
Gap in support
According to a Pew poll conducted in April, 39 percent of blacks favor same-sex marriage, compared with 47 percent of white Americans. Forty-nine percent of blacks and 43 percent of whites are opposed. But blacks — like other Americans — have become more supportive of same-sex marriage in recent years. Support has risen since 2008, when only 26 percent of blacks favored same-sex marriage and 63 percent were opposed, according to Pew.
