Before the election, I predicted that President Bush would win roughly 30 states, that Latinos would back the president by about 40 percent or better, and that African Americans would support the president by 15-20 percent. “If these three predictions came true,” I told my radio audience, “then despite the close poll numbers, the president would win decisively.”
I was close, but where I was off is extremely discouraging.
As I awoke the day after the election, I was delighted – even thrilled – to see that the No 1 issue among many of the exit polls for a person’s motivation for voting this year was “moral values.” I had a strong suspicion that the “Constitutional Amendment to Protect Marriage” would pass overwhelmingly in the 11 states where it was on the ballot. I was pleased to see that even in Oregon, arguably one of the most liberal states in America, that it passed by nearly 60 percent.
Finally the mainstream press for a few days would be forced to discuss this phenomenon of “voting on values.” So why my disappointment?
In the year leading up to the election, I had worked closely with African-American pastors from across the nation to help get the “values message” out. Knowing that the Democrats would use quite illegitimate messages to try and scare African Americans into voting for Kerry, it seemed to me that we had a chance at getting at least 20-25 percent of the community focused on the truth. And I was encouraged by what I saw.
On March 29, 2004, we gathered the largest gathering of clergy ever assembled at New York City Hall. The pastors came from across the five boroughs and at least half were old-school traditional pastors from the deeply steeped Democratic neighborhoods. Led by more prominent pastors like Bishop Roderick Caesar, and Harlem-based pastor Michael Faulkner, the large contingent of black pastors said that day that there would be no supporting candidates who sought to support the aggressively immoral agenda of radicals in society today. Only months later, many of those same pastors came together to again promote a public demonstration in support of the president’s Constitutional Amendment to Protect Marriage.
But then I began to hear the rumblings.
Jesse Jackson – first in his own city of Chicago, and then across America as part of the Kerry campaign – began to go church to church and tell pastors to forget about the moral issues of our time.
“Get Bush out, then we’ll straighten out the other stuff” was the message that my friends amongst the African-American clergy were told.
Jackson then departed on a whirlwind tour taking the message church to church. In Chicago, the pressure was enormous. I heard personally of 15 separate churches that were approached and told to “knock off” the protest on the same-sex marriage issue and “get on board.” To my knowledge – and to their credit – none of them did.
That could not be said for all. James Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Chicago, should have been a strong proponent to protect marriage. Instead he threw his support behind Barrack Obama, who by every measure is someone who supports the radical homosexual agenda, partial-birth abortion, and even born-alive abortion.
It was no wonder to me that when the analysis came down that showed Bush had received 11 percent of the African American vote that columnist and op-ed writers were also noticing that the biggest issue in the race was morality. Every pastor who knew better – who could have spoken out on what God says concerning morality and the crisis we face, but chose instead to pad their own agenda with additional access and power – had in essence betrayed the believers they shepherd.
The huge observation by those same op-ed writers is this: How could the election have ended up as the great debate between moral virtue and entitlements?
Maybe there is no shame in some circles anymore, but I talk to thousands of folks every day who tell me that they are now sad at this reality.
In the election that redefined the debate over morality and biblical virtues in our time – by and large – the African-American church could no longer count itself among the community of values.
