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The possibility of state-endorsed gay marriage has mobilized conservative evangelical groups to a degree not seen since the peak of the abortion wars. "I have never seen anything that has energized and provoked our grassroots like this issue, including Roe v. Wade," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

The debate in Massachusetts has united an ethnic rainbow of evangelicals. Wesley Roberts, head of the People's Church, the oldest African American church in New England, defended heterosexual marriage amid scorn from The Boston Globe and some state lawmakers. African American pastors united behind Roberts, who also leads the Black Ministerial Alliance. He received support from Eugene Rivers's Ten Point Coalition and the Cambridge Black Pastors Conference. In contrast, Roberts said, African American state representatives are out of step.

"Not one black legislator came out for the marriage amendment," he said. "Seventy percent of our African American population oppose gay marriage. … Gay marriage is wrong, and the black churches have a much stronger voice than the black politicians."

The same could hold true nationally. Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (MarriageDebate.com), said Democratic politicians are facing a national revolt from African Americans, who are more conservative on social issues and are uncomfortable framing gay marriage as a civil rights issue.

"The gay marriage issue is huge in its impact on the African American community," Gallagher told Christianity Today. "It's dividing the community because it is so against what they stand for."

A Pew public opinion poll recently found that disapproval of homosexual marriage is rising most rapidly among ethnic voters, who traditionally have voted heavily for Democrats.

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, told CT that people are beginning to notice the trend among ethnic Americans. "I have been hearing that the gay marriage issue is affecting African Americans and Hispanics."

Back in Massachusetts, evangelical communities of many ethnic groups

are rallying. Roberto Miranda of the Hispanic Alliance of Churches and senior pastor of Congregación León de Judá, held several rallies.

Bob Tanzie is pastor of the predominantly second-generation Asian American New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Boston, which "strives to be nonpolitical" but is now considering a response on homosexual marriage. Christians who attend both the church and Wellesley College reported that an online campus forum received about 130 pages of mostly hateful replies after broaching the subject.

"After about four pages, it got personal," the pastor says. Tanzie invited Roberts to prepare his church for the controversy.

Pro-marriage alliances at both the national and state levels are fragile, however, and could shatter over the issue of civil unions. The state constitutional convention foundered on the issue. Some local evangelicals want to keep nonmarital civil unions out of the state charter. They believe it would affect marriage and have immense social and economic ramifications.

"[The issue of] civil unions is merely marriage by another name and devalues the institution of marriage," said Ron Crews of the Massachusetts Family Institute. "Some business owners for moral reasons wouldn't want to be required to provide benefits for same-sex partners."

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April 2004, Vol. 48, No. 4