What Goes Around, Comes Around

While I myself detest Kerry Healey’s race baiting and fear-mongering tactics, I don’t have much sympathy for the Reverend Jeffrey Brown (pictured left), pastor of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, who’s been crying foul over Healey’s most recent attack ad—you know the one, a woman walking alone in a parking garage, it ends with a sanctimonious “Deval Patrick should be ashamed, not governor.”

I think it’s safe to say that the ad, which continues to air, has backfired and resulted in much consternation. In Brown’s own words: “When I first saw [the ad], the effect for me as a black male, it just killed me. It’s the kind of race-baiting ad that plays to the worst fears of suburban America. It has crossed the line, as far as I’m concerned.”

Those of us who consistently oppose the politics of fear and division can rightly be outraged at what Frank Phillips referred to in the last gubernatorial debate as the ad’s “racial subtext.” When Brown expresses his outrage, however, he just sounds like a hypocrite.

But wait—isn’t it reasonable for black leaders to be outraged at an ad that just about everyone (other than Healey herself) finds offensive? Of course it is. But it’s far less reasonable for someone like Brown to cry foul amidst what he calls race-baiting after engaging for so long in gay-baiting.

Brown has been a vocal critic of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and affixed his name to the “Joint Statement in Support of Constitutional Amendment Initiative,” signed by the state’s conservative clergy back in 2004. Moreover, as co-founder of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, he was one of three co-authors of the “Black Clergy Statement on Marriage,” which urged the Legislature to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

Brown didn’t stop there, however. He went on to express his personal outrage that GLBT people would have the unmitigated gall to define their struggle as a battle for civil rights: “I’m offended that they’re comparing this to civil rights. Marriage is not a civil right, and the struggle of gay and lesbian people cannot be compared to the struggle of blacks.”

The fear-mongering tactics employed by the opponents of marriage equality are not simply equal to, but surpass Kerry Healey’s fear-based attack on Deval Patrick. They talk about the destruction of marriage as an institution, the negative impact that same-sex marriage will have on children, and the dreaded gay agenda. In their opposition to same-sex marriage, they have demonized GLBT people, and Reverend Brown is part of that equation. It’s easy to demonize, and back in 2004, Brown was quick to jump on the anti-gay bandwagon. Now, the shoe is on the other foot, and Brown is being given a painful reminder that it’s not as much fun when you’re the one being demonized.

The moral of the story for Brown and others like him is that just because conservative Republicans zealously court the African-American community in the battle over same-sex marriage, it doesn’t mean that deep down they’re not racists.