NAACP Endorses Marriage Equality
The leading black civil rights organization added its voice to an issue that has long divided African-American voters.
| Posted Sunday, May 20, 2012, at 1:48 PM
Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s board approved a resolution Saturday supporting marriage equality “as a continuation of its historic commitment to equal protection under the law.” In the resolution, the NAACP says that marriage equality is “consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
As the New York Times emphasizes, the NAACP resolution is largely symbolic. But following President Obama’s announcement that he supported granting marriage rights to same-sex couples in the United States, the endorsement could help efforts to make sure black voters turn out to vote in November. Some had been quick to say that Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality would hurt enthusiasm among black voters, notes the Associated Press.
The NAACP resolution is only the latest sign that attitudes within the black community could be changing. In November a poll found that 58 percent of African-Americans viewed marriage between people of the same sex as unacceptable but a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 54 percent of African-Americans agreed with Obama’s support for marriage equality.
