The Rev. Madison Shockley, a minister at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in San Diego, said at The Center’s November Community Coalition Breakfast on Nov. 17 that he thinks the church is the biggest obstacle in the lives of GLBT African-Americans.

This and other issues affecting GLBT African-Americans, from homophobia to the impact of HIV/AIDS, were discussed at the breakfast. The Center’s development director Jennifer Jones moderated a panel of four speakers. Along with the Rev. Shockley, the panelists were: Phyllis Jackson, HIV/AIDS program services coordinator for NMA Comprehensive Health Center, Ashley Walker, executive director of the San Diego Human Relations Commission, and Denice Williams of the Early Intervention Program at UCSD.

Rev. Shockley said homophobia became part of the African-American church agenda about 10 to 15 years ago, and said he felt “sheer horror” when he saw a preacher stand in his pulpit and say, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

“I don’t know, but I bet it was a black preacher who first uttered that phrase,” he said. “It’s sad for a church that’s historically stood for civil rights, and certainly civil rights for itself and civil rights for all persons – so it was doubly tragic.”

Slavery, where masters sexually abused and used both men and women, represented a “systematic emasculation” of the African-American male, and “hyper-sexuality” emerged, Rev. Shockley said.

“We’ve seen this hyper-masculinity in rap music. We’ve seen this hyper-masculinity in popular culture – the idolization of black male sexuality,” he said. “It shows up many different ways but at its root is this hyper-sexuality, which was a reaction to the systematic and deliberate emasculation of a black man. The black church, which is a main vehicle of black culture that interprets our existence in our world, feels an extra burden to defend that hyper-masculinity.”

Walker said her brother, who died of AIDS in 1990, always found it difficult to receive recognition and respect for himself as a gay African-American, oftentimes feeling doubly oppressed.

“As a black man, he was cool. As a gay man, however, that part of himself he had great difficulty with and denied on and off,” she said. “In the black community, there’s a huge stigma about being gay…. My brother used to say that he lived at the intersection of Racism Street and Homophobia Avenue.”

The stigma associated with being gay forces many to accept their sexuality without pride, creating tension, denial and increased HIV rates among African-American women, Walker said.

“So the stigma runs deep, and we have a whole slew of folk who don’t see themselves as gay at all. They call themselves ‘hetero with a twist’…. They say it’s about gratification and not orientation.”

Williams, who serves on the San Diego HIV Planning Council, said from a health care perspective the biggest issue facing the African-American GLBT community is the increasing HIV rate.

“It’s overlooked because people who test positive who are African-American men or women, they don’t feel like they can be out about it,” she said. “They don’t feel like they can receive the services they need, and therefore they are out of care a lot of the time.”

In San Diego County, 51 percent of African-Americans with HIV/AIDS are out of care, Williams said.

Many African-Americans do not feel they belong within the larger GLBT community, Jackson said.

“In the early days, I would come to The Center and people wouldn’t speak to me,” she said. “I wouldn’t attend The Center’s activities because I wasn’t made to feel welcome. I can only speak as a black woman. So when I’m not made to feel welcome, I don’t participate.”

Jackson added that people need to step outside of their comfort zone more often and take more risks.

“We have to step out as African-Americans and other people. All human beings need to step out and just get real, because the truth is without you there is no me and without me there is no you,” she said.

Simply having events like the Nov. 17 forum is a step in the right direction, Jackson said, helping to integrate more of the subcultures and groups within the overall GLBT community.

“Even if we take baby steps, it’s a step in the right direction,” she said. “… Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep showing up. Get to know black people. We’re all right.”

Rev. Shockley said some success stories that reflect the increasing level of institutionalization of the African-American GLBT community are the Minority AIDS Project and Bishop Yvette Flunder, senior pastor at San Francisco’s City of Refuge United Church of Christ.

“You’ve got these kinds of presences that are establishing themselves in spite of – and begin to become a part of – the religious landscape,” he said. “Like it or not, they recognize it as part of the community. The more and more we have of that is progress.”

While the biggest success is yet to come, the African-American GLBT community needs to acknowledge, honor and claim their heroes who often go unnoticed, Walker said.

“When someone talks about whether or not gay rights and civil rights can be equated, somebody ought to tell them about Bayard Rustin, who completely coordinated the 1963 March on Washington…,” she said.

Rustin was an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was not widely accepted in the U.S.

“Some of the deeds are done,” Walker said. “They just haven’t been acknowledged and they haven’t been claimed…. So claiming the heroes, claiming the role models would be a huge step not only for black kids growing up but also for the community at large for the United States.”

Shockley said slaves were not allowed to marry and the entire African-American community needs to remember that fact when it comes to having an opinion about the issue of same-sex marriage.

“There’s a convention to understand what it means to be denied that basic human right and what people did in spite of slavery at the time to affirm their humanity,” he said. “You have to remind folks of that history. It all comes back to this stuff. All communities need to understand what it means to be deemed less than human and less than deserving of human relationships, and the recognition thereof.”

Walker said basic education focusing on what marriage means and what the benefits are needs to be put in front of the general community.

“The majority of people don’t read extensively,” she said. “The majority of people don’t sit around in groups and have literate, articulate conversations about the issues of the day…. We need to use different fronts to get the word out, get information out and build a foundation of basic knowledge of marriage and what it is we’re after, so that people will get a clear understanding of what it is we’re trying to do.”