How could a good catholic vote for that immoral creep?
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How can Black Baptists go to church on Sunday and sing, clap, shout and dance and then go to the polls on Tuesday and vote for a man and a Party that espouses same-sex marriage and killing little babies?
I see two main underlying reasons based on history, coupled with a third issue of lack of current leadership:
1) White evangelicals, to our sad disgrace, in the main failed to support the civil rights movement. There were important exceptions — Billy Graham was blasted early on by too many conservative Christians for taking positions for which he was much later praised — but we're reaping the seeds today of our fathers sitting on the sidelines. Yes, there were left-wing and even Communist elements in the civil rights movement, but the silence of white evangelicals caused too many black Republicans in the 1950s and 1960s to desert the party that freed the slaves because they decided the Democrats were actually doing something to help them while Republicans sat on our hands and mostly did nothing.
2) Not only did many white evangelicals of two generations ago remain silent and do nothing, Nixon's “Southern Strategy” brought some of the worst and most bigoted segments of the old Democratic Party into the Republican Party. I'm not necessarily attacking Nixon on his goals, but his plans had some dangerous consequences that I'm not sure were unintended, and at the very least were predictable “collateral damage” that he showed little interest in stopping or even mitigating. This is less of a problem in conservative Christian circles where most Bible-believing Christians knew in their hearts even in the 1950s and 1960s that black skin is not the mark of God's curse, despite some extreme rhetoric, but it can be a real problem in secular conservative circles where bigoted anti-black attitudes have not yet died.
3) We simply do not have many examples of black Republican leaders, and it's hard for the average black person to join a party when he's virtually the only non-white face at most events he attends. Yes, we have Condoleeza Rice, Allen West, Herman Cain and a few others, but they're too often the exceptions which prove the rule. Apparently, this year was not the year for the rise of someone like Herman Cain, but perhaps he'll have an important role in a Republican cabinet beginning in 2013, and perhaps West will continue to rise in importance as a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
There are three significant segments of black voters — members of biblically faithfulful black churches, black military NCOs and officers, and the black middle class — which should be Republicans but are not. As white evangelical churches develop better ties with black evangelicals, as bad memories of past racism die out, and as black Republican leaders emerge, I hope we'll see more blacks vote for their logical self-interest and not vote Democrat against their own interests.