National Review Trades Black Clergymen

Conservatives are looking very hard for actual evidence to back up the storyline they’ve concocted that Barack Obama’s support for same-sex marriage will hurt him in some statistically significant way with black voters.

As National Review’s Noah Glyn writes here, they’ve already lost one example with Rev. Emmett Burns, a Maryland pastor who first said he would stay home in 2012 after Obama’s decision. Already Burns has changed his mind, noting that while he disagrees with Obama’s position, he will support his re-election.

So what does Glyn do? Find another black clergyman! He cites the example of Reverend Dwight McKissic of Cornerstrone Baptist Church who tells National Review just the kind of claptrap they want to hear: “The moral impact of this decision is equal to the military impact of al-Qaeda when they attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11.”

The article goes on to cite McKissic as if he were just a man of the cloth upset with Obama.

Except he sounds a little crazy if you dig in just a little. In 2005 McKissic blamed New Orleans’ sin for the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, claiming that “New Orleans flaunts sin in a way that no other places do” and that “There are 10 abortion clinics in Louisiana; five of those are in New Orleans. They have a Southern Decadence parade every year and they call it gay pride.”

As a result, McKissic claimed, “When you study Scripture, it’s not out of the boundaries of God to punish a nation for sin and because of sin. When I look at our country, at what’s happening, and what’s happening in New Orleans in particular, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”

Just the kind of crazy talk you might expect from someone offering up a juicy anti-Obama quote to National Review.

I don’t doubt that a majority of black voters probably disagree with President Obama on same-sex marriage. I think historically the black community in America has had problems accepting homosexuality. But while they are culturally conservative on this issue (as they are with others), they tend not to vote on these issues in presidential contests. If so, Republicans who have campaigned against gay rights would have done better with black voters in the last few elections.

In the worst case scenario I expect Obama will do as well with black voters as he did in 2008, no matter how many obscure, off-the-wall clergymen the National Review decides to interview.