Juan Williams warns Obama gay marriage push upsetting to the black community

If you haven’t been near a TV with a cable news channel on it over the weekend, then you might have missed that same-sex marriage legislation was passed and signed into law by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo late Friday night.
Although it was hailed by many, the question is what’s next and where does it go from here politically? On Sunday’s “Fox News Sunday,” during the Web-only “Panel Plus” segment, Fox News contributor Brit Hume predicted “a major political collision” between the states that have legalized it and those that haven’t and won’t. 
“I don’t see how this ends up being anything other than eventually some major political collision between the states that have gone ahead and done this,” Hume said. “I don’t think national popular sentiment supports it although it may be easing on this issue. I don’t think it’s going to be a major issue in the 2012 election but it is very explosive to the people who oppose it. It is an unthinkable outcome to those who are for it. It is the only course of progress, it’s tolerance itself. It does not seem that you know, these arrangements where people are allowed the same rights but not actual marriage is going to satisfy the gay lobby which very much wants to have marriage between a man and a man, and a woman and a woman, and have the universally recognized.”
But Fox News contributor Juan Williams said this had implications for one of President Barack Obama’s major constituencies, the black community. He explained why this issue is where the black community and the White House differ from each other.
“[I]n the black community, people just can’t understand Obama on this issue because there just is not the strength of support for any form of gay union, gay marriage, civil [unions],” Williams said. “That’s what happened in California if you recall in terms of that referendum that sunk this effort in California. I don’t think the black community is going to walk away from President Obama on this but it is a fascinating dynamic to sit down with black ministers, black social leaders and talk about this. I mean they are back in the ‘50s on this subject.”
And in the community Williams explained that same-sex marriage is a threat to the black family according to some.
“[T]o me, you know I think very threatening and socially upsetting to people – the black family is just in bad shape right now anyway,” Williams said. “But the idea that you are giving the imprimatur of the church and of the society to two men marrying just doesn’t make sense to a lot of people who are not technically your people – the conservatives.”
Kirsten Powers, also a Fox News contributor and columnist for the New York Post, advised gay marriage proponents not to compare same-sex marriage to civil rights.
“But it’s also offensive to a lot of people in the black community,” Powers said. “It pushes them away to compare this situation to what black people had gone through in this country, you know – to compare it to segregation and lynching and things like that. I think it’s a bad message for the gay community to be using.”