White Evangelical Asks Black Evangelicals Why They Re-Elected Obama
In an open letter to black evangelicals, Michael Brown candidly asks whether they compromised their beliefs by voting for the re-election of President Barack Obama.
"Are you guilty, on any level, of blind allegiance to the Democratic party? And, on Election Day, did any of you compromise your convictions out of racial solidarity?" the radio show host and author of A Queer Thing Happened to America wrote Tuesday on Townhall.com.
"I simply do not understand how my black evangelical friends who so staunchly oppose same-sex marriage and who stand against abortion could cast their vote for the most radically pro-abortion, pro-gay-activist president in our history," he said as a fellow evangelical.
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According to exit polls from last Tuesday's presidential election, 93 percent of African-American voters backed Obama, a slight drop from 95 percent in 2008. Still, an analysis by The New Republic concludes that black turnout or support for Obama "might have exceeded '08 levels." Only 6 percent voted for Mitt Romney last week.
Turnout among African-Americans remained steady at 13 percent of the electorate.
Brown said he is not attacking black voters in his open letter but that he's simply inquiring why nearly the same percentage of black Americans who voted for Obama four years ago did so again this year.
Black Christian leaders have expressed their disapproval of Obama's policies while on Brown's radio show and have even urged parishioners not to vote for the president. Brown listed Bishop Harry Jackson from the Washington, D.C., area as one of them.
But he has been disturbed to hear that some black Christians have been cut off from family, friends, churches and even pastors for opposing Obama.
The radio host, who grew up in a conservative Jewish home, made it a point to note that he has criticized white evangelicals for placing their trust in the Republican Party or for looking to Romney to advance their moral and social agenda.
"I even wrote an article in June entitled 'Mitt Romney Is Not the Answer,' and I often told my evangelical radio listeners that I would not argue with them if they could not vote for Romney because he was a Mormon. So, I do understand black Christian reticence towards Romney (for these reasons, among others)," he stated.
Additionally, Republicans have not done much to win the confidence of black Americans, he noted.
But he still can't understand why most black voters backed Obama, who expressed his support for same-sex marriage in May this year.
"Was there no moral compromise involved in voting for him? Are there no issues that could disqualify him in your eyes? And must Barack Obama be elected and then reelected in order to make up for past injustices, as one black evangelical woman claimed?" he asked.
"Does it trouble you, my black evangelical friends, that the Democratic platform, not to mention the Democratic National Convention, was almost a celebration of abortion?" he continued, citing statistics showing the disproportionate number of African-American babies that are aborted compared to white babies.
"Again, I am not accusing. I am only asking."
