The late Republican Senator William J. “Pete” Knight’s widow, Gail J. Knight, is supporting several proposed anti-gay initiatives on the upcoming June ballot. Among them are initiatives to amend California’s State Constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman, to rescind all previously approved domestic partnership benefits and to eliminate the option of domestic partnerships all together.

See what I mean nasty.

It’s expected that each of these initiatives will pass the circulation process with the 600,000 valid signatures necessary to qualify for the June ballot which is going to put to test the “united we stand” relationship that we saw with this year’s election between Democratic elected officials, labor unions, civic, community and church leaders. African Americans will undoubtedly be caught directly in the middle, as supporters on both sides of this issue will be out in attempts to court the Black vote.

But it gets nastier.

Five out of six Black elected officials already felt the backlash for their support of the vetoed AB 849, the bill passed by the California Legislature that would have provided equal rights and protections regardless of sexual orientation sending an outcry of dissent from Black clergy and congregations who oppose any legal rights for gays.

California’s gay rights movement, lead mostly by whites, has been able to make relatively no in roads within the Black community on this issue, even though they like to take credit for getting the endorsement of the state NAACP on AB 849. And while the NAACP’s endorsement of rights for lesbians and gays did set precedence, it is by no means an “in” into the Black community on this issue, nor does it represent the mindset of California’s Black civic leaders. It’s a widely known fact that white gays cannot create or deliver the message to the Black community on this issue.

Several high profile and influential Black pastors have already spoken out against marriage rights for gays including West Angelus Church of God in Christ’s Bishop Charles Blake, the newly installed Revered John Hunter of F.A.M.E., and television evangelist Fred Price, who hosted white anti-gay lobbyist Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition at his church earlier this year. But relatively few Black leaders have spoken out in favor of extending equal marriage rights to gays.

Labor union leaders have been relatively quite on this issue as well, even though we all know that many teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters are either lesbian, gay, or bisexual and have just at much at stake in June’s election as they did in our November 8th election.

I guess the big question is, will the solidarity among unions and civic leaders continue into 2006 even when the initiative doesn’t directly affect the majority of its members? Will the big bucks used to defeat the Governor’s Special Election be raised yet again to defeat anti-gay initiatives that are hurtful to more than just union families but that attack any family that is not legally married containing one man and one woman? It should be noted that the anti-gay amendments that are calling for the removal of domestic partnership rights are not just going to harm gay families, but heterosexual families that are not legally married as well.

Can we expect to see the AFL-CIO’s Martin Ludlow campaigning on behalf of his lesbian and gay union members? Can lesbian and gay families depend on the Alliance for a Better California to come back to the table and defend equal rights with their millions of dollars? Or will everyone just retreat to their respective corners and expect someone else to take up this fight?

White gay rights organizations have been notoriously absent on minority issues in California. So it will be interesting to see how this battle is played out the Black community as it is perceived as being the most homophobic of all races, and at times rightly so.

The team spirit that prevailed and eventually beat the Governor’s Special Election is going to be even more pivotal in the upcoming June election to defeat the anti-gay initiatives headed towards the voters. Taking a lesson from the 2004 Presidential campaign where abortion and gay rights were used as wedge issues to drive religious and socially conservative Blacks to polls, California’s gay rights battle will be won or loss in communities of color. Union, civic and church leaders who have enjoyed the luxury of silence on gay issues will no longer be able to ignore the new battle for civil rights in California.

Let’s get ready to rumble.

Editor's note : Chosen by ESSENCE Magazine as one of 25 Women Shaping the World, Jasmyne Cannick is a social and political commentator and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. She is the co-chair of the National Stonewall Democrats Black Caucus and a board member of the National Black Justice Coalition. Based in Los Angeles, she can be reached via her website at www.jasmynecannick.com .