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With the results of the election fresh on his mind, Pastor Ken Friendly called a meeting of black and white ministers in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss forming a chapter of the Traditional Values Coalition.
The African-American pastor of Lighthouse Christian Fellowship said the group will ensure that his state's legislators and school board members hear the racially diverse voices of religious conservatives.
''I don't care if a person is polka-dot,'' said Friendly, who expects to move beyond an anti-gay-marriage agenda to address helping children who are homeless or fatherless. ''If they're concerned about the will of God being done, then that's who this group is for.''
Fired up by pre-election summits and rallies and invigorated by election results, some African-American and Latino religious leaders say they are ready to join their white evangelical brethren to support traditional marriage and work on issues ranging from judicial nominations to improved adoption procedures. If successful, these racially diverse coalitions could influence the fate of a constitutional amendment on marriage as well as local, state and national elections for years to come.
As the presidential election illustrated, even small demographic shifts can make an enormous political difference. President Bush significantly increased his share of the Latino vote nationally, thanks in part to values-laden issues. In Ohio, Bush nearly doubled his share of the black vote from 2000, to 16 percent.
Many analysts attributed the Ohio vote to black churchgoers' opposition to gay marriage, which Bush also opposes.
Yet while some religious activists are willing to cross racial and denominational lines to oppose same-sex marriage, many say they are not about to support other Republican positions, such as lowering taxes and reducing the size of government. These black and Latino leaders say the time might be right to focus on issues and values that uniquely energize their ethnic constituencies.
The Rev. Dwight McKissic of Arlington, Texas, traveled to Washington for a September summit that Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Louis Sheldon pulled together for African-American pastors to join the fight against same-sex marriage. But McKissic, a Southern Baptist, said the bipartisan ''Not on My Watch'' group he started with other African-American clergy will remain an ''intentionally black'' endeavor, seeking passage of state and federal constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, but not joining white evangelicals on other causes.
The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a longtime Washington pastor and civil-rights activist, said new efforts to draw African Americans like him into a grand coalition with a broad-based agenda aren't likely to succeed. He opposes gay marriage - and joins in the diverse array of faces at Alliance for Marriage events - but he would ''part company with all of them'' on tax concerns.
''I would educate my friends in . . . the religious conservative movement that when this warfare of life is over, the question will not be how you voted on the gay marriage issue,'' Fauntroy said. ''The question will be, 'When I was hungry, did you feed me?' . . . I will not work on issues that penalize the least of these for the benefit of the wealthy few.''