The Disproportionate Impact of Antigay Family Policies on Black and Latino Same-sex Couple Households

Abstract

This paper examines the racial dynamics of antigay activism, and the particular, disproportionate impact of antigay family policies on Black and Latino same-sex couple families. Starting in the mid-1990s, antigay activists have passed dozens of laws and constitutional amendments banning and repealing state recognition of gay and lesbian relationships. For two decades the antigay movement has portrayed sexual orientation nondiscrimination laws as “special rights” that threaten the civil rights of people of color, especially Black people. They have portrayed the gay and Black communities as mutually exclusive, and pointed out the obvious difference between race and sexual orientation, accusing gay activists of hijacking the civil rights legacy of the 1950s and 1960s. While antigay bias and racism are indeed different, legal protections for gay people and families do not threaten the civil rights of people of color, or anybody, for that matter. In fact, the cruel irony is that the antigay policies of the Christian right pose a disproportionate threat to Black and Latino same-sex couple families. This is because Black and Latino same-sex couples are twice as likely as White same-sex couples to be raising children (particularly Black and Latino lesbian couples), and because they earn less and are less likely to own the home they live in. Policies restricting family recognition, whether of partner relationships or parent–child relationships, disproportionately harm Black and Latino same-sex couple families. Black same-sex cohabiting partners are more likely than their White counterparts to hold public sector jobs which may offer domestic partner health insurance; many antigay marriage amendments and laws prevent public sector employers in those states from offering such benefits to gay and lesbian employees. Latino same-sex partners are more likely to be non-US citizens; this means they are disproportionately affected by the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s failure to recognize same-sex couple families. Both Black and Latina female same-sex partners (partnered lesbians) are more likely than their heterosexual and White non-Hispanic counterparts to serve in the military, despite the ban. They are also discharged at a higher rate. For all these reasons, equal treatment for same-sex couples and gay, lesbian and bisexual people constitute issues of racial justice as well as human rights and equality.