"While some black clergy have been pulled into this debate, our black churches are smarter than that," said Lettman-Hicks, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC). "They won't simply be used as pawns to push NOM's hate."

Conservative groups have caught the most fire for fueling race-based animosity toward gay marriage, but progressive leaders have also played a role in stoking discord between the leaders of black and gay activist groups. The race question regarding same-sex marriage first cropped up in 2008, when California blacks -- a mere 6 percent of state voters -- were blamed by some gay leaders for the passage of Proposition 8 in the wake of reports in The Washington Post and CNN that exit polls showed seven in 10 black voters backing the measure barring marriage equality.

Although subsequent analysis found black support for Proposition 8 was only 6 percent higher than on average -- instead of nearly 20 percent -- the specter of black homophobia has loomed over the marriage equality movement ever since. "I certainly think the black community got a bum rap following the Prop. 8 vote," observed veteran activist Stuart Campbell, executive director of Equality North Carolina, the state's leading pro-LGBT non-profit. "And we had no one to blame but ourselves for not more effectively conveying our message to communities across the state."

Four years on, equality activists concede that the legacy of Proposition 8 has directly influenced their anti-Amendment 1 initiatives. Partnerships with clerics like Barber -- along with specialized media campaigns targeting African Americans -- were identified early on as essential tools for engaging black voters. Also important: avoiding the type of civil rights comparisons that so outrage pastors like Wooden. "There's no longer any question that using civil rights rhetoric and language infuriates black people," said Aisha Moodie-Mills, who helped lead Washington, D.C.'s, successful same-sex marriage initiative before joining the Center for American Progress.

Barber takes care to presents Amendment 1 in terms of social justice and legal sanctity. If the Amendment passes, he warns, blacks could be the next target of regressive referendum campaigners."It's a dangerous precedent to allow the majority to vote for the rights of a minority," he said, "even if you agree with that majority." Moodie-Mills, meanwhile, frames the debate "as an economic issue, a quality-of-life issue; people will actually suffer if these policies become law."

Nonetheless, an anti-Amendment1 ad campaign by the group Every1Against1 confrontationally compares the battle for gay rights to the one by African Americans for civil rights in the segregated South. With its stark images of a water fountain, a lunch counter, and the back of a bus, the campaign brazenly re-imagines central scenes in 1960s Civil Rights fight. Insensitive -- if not downright offensive -- messaging such as this, said Moodie-Mills, "shows just how disconnected some LGBT groups still are on the ground." Last week's television campaign from pro-equality group The Coalition to ALL Protect NC Families featuring solely white faces didn't help much either to bridge the divide. Coalition Campaign Manager Jeremy Kennedy acknowledged the omission, but attributed it to "limited economic resources" rather than an intentional attempt to put a white face on gay rights.