ATLANTA, March 3 (UPI) -- Black Georgia lawmakers are lining up against an amendment banning same-sex marriage even though they may be personally against homosexual marriage.
Black House members, many of them church deacons and ministers, support the state's laws banning same-sex marriage.
However, Georgia's Legislative Black Caucus views the state constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage as denigrating a minority.
It's also seen as playing into the hands of conservative Republicans seeking to spark a larger turnout of their base in November's election, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
"I'm a pastor and I don't support gay marriage, but I resent people playing political football with our religious beliefs," said state Rep. Ron Sailor Jr., a Democrat whose suburban Atlanta district contains some of the state's most conservative black churches.
The constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority vote in the state's lower house for the amendment to appear on the ballot this November, may be reintroduced in the Democratically controlled House as early as Thursday.
