There were not many Black people outside San Francisco City Hall Monday or Tuesday among the hundred or so folks in the crowd before the first same sex ceremonies were held in City Hall. Besides the few Black Civic Center Plaza “regulars,” the handful of Black people in the crowd were friends or relatives of couples getting marriage licenses.

But it was a different scene outside City Hall four years ago when Newsom performed the first same sex marriages. Hundreds of protesters descended on City Hall, including a contingent of African American pastors from throughout the Bay Area ...

One of those pastors was from Antioch who rattled out all the usual reasons why the religious community believes same sex marriage is a bad idea. I didn’t see that minister among the handful of protesters outside City Hall this week. Antioch happens to be a city with one of the largest foreclosure rates in the United States where thousands of homes and business properties have been lost to foreclosure.

During the 2004 same sex marriage protests, many of the African American protesters either drove or flew into San Francisco from the outlying areas of the Bay Area, other parts of the state of from other parts of the country. Four years ago many of the same sex protesters said they had no problem driving from the distant areas like Stockton, Sacramento and Santa Rosa.

Today, most folks in the outer reaches of the Bay Area are becoming much more selective regarding trips to San Francisco. A drive from the Central Valley or other outlying areas to The City will run close to $100 RT, which probably has a lot of same sex protesters thinking twice about making that run to the city. Out of town same sex protesters who four years ago wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping on Priceline and picking up a cheap last minute plane ticket to San Francisco now can’t afford can’t afford the sky high airfares anywhere. A short trip between LA and the Bay Area that four years ago would cost just over $100 RT now runs a minimum of nearly $300 RT

Four years ago, African Americans ministers from the Bayview who were part of the contingent of ministers protesters protesting outside of City Hall felt that the issues of crime, including the 71 murders of mostly Black San Francisco residents in 2004, and gentrification were secondary to the issue of gay marriage. In the four years since those ministers were protesting outside City Hall, the City’s murder rate has increased every year, with last year’s murder rate of 98 killings the highest number of murders in a decade.

San Francisco has been mostly immune from the subprime crisis, but the San Francisco communities with the highest foreclosure rates are the very communities where these ministers hailed from four years ago. In the past four years a number of Black San Francisco churches have closed or relocated, following the thousands of African Americans who in the last four years have moved from San Francisco to the East Bay and Central Valley.

Four years ago a majority of Californians, including many African Americans, felt so strongly about the same sex marriage issue that they supported Proposition 22, a state ballot measure that defined marriage as a life long commitment between a man and a woman, by a 61-39 percent margin. Today the latest polls show that a similar ballot measure that will be on the November 2008 ballot would fail.

Four years after the initial same sex marriage protests, Barack Obama could be elected the first Black president of the United States. It’s also a time when thousands of Black Californians have lost their homes, or are on the verge of losing their homes to foreclosure; can’t afford the commute to and from work or any kind of plane trip.

Four years ago the Iraq war had just started; today many African Americans are worrying about relatives and friends going back to Iraq for their third, fourth or even fifth tour of duty. The already high national unemployment rate means a young African American teenager or Black convict just released from San Quentin will have a much harder time finding a job.

Have African Americans leaders, regardless of their personal or religious feelings toward same sex marriage, realized that there are more important issues in America right now than protesting same sex marriage?