My Rant About Gay Rights Advocates' Reactions to Gay Marriage Bans
Gay marriage is the civil rights issue of our time and everyone deserves equal rights, but to cite Barack Obama's win as a symbol of change and acceptance and to whine about not being able to legally marry is comparing apples and oranges.
Stripped down, a few simple factors are the basis of why Barack Obama won the 2008 Presidential election:
A) The economy is currently in peril. B) He's half white. C) Joe Biden is white. D) Sarah Palin is incompetent. E) The Republican Party has a low approval rating.
My ancestors have been enslaved for 400 years and 100 million have died in the slave trade, 150 years after emancipation, Barack Obama is the President-elect. From basic calculations, one can conclude that centuries of barbaric human rights violations later and a black president will be in office. How many hundreds of years has gay marriage been placed on the ballot?!
I understand that the LGBTQ community is being discriminated against and prejudice is injustice. I'm African American, I get it, but statements are being made with a tone that suggests, 'How dare a black man lead and we can't marry?!' Sounds like hints of bigotry to me.
Those in favor of banning gay marriage vary. Religious folks of all races vote against gay marriage. I know black people who voted in support of gay marriage and white people who voted against it, yet I'm lumped into one category as a homophobic black person because of my race.
Are gay people forgetting the history of this country - racism, sexism, classism, ageism, homophobia, prejudice - bigotry!!!! Is that going to vanish quickly just because you want it to?
If religion continues to be used as a source to fight "evil" in the forms of reproductive rights, gay marriage and more, shouldn't that be considered as the main factor that's stalling legalized gay rights? Many religious citizens don't consider electing a biracial man as president to be a sin, but they perceive gay marriage to be morally wrong. Why compare Barack Obama to gay marriage? Once again, apples and oranges, people, and that argument is weak at best.
Be patient with this very new issue. You will have your moment soon. :) It's overdue, but it's coming.
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November 11th, 2008 5:33 PM
I think this is about hate and people using their religion to justify that hatred. Blacks are getting a huge backlash because of Prop 8. I think the fight against gay marriage is an issue that black people need to back out of gracefully. We don't need to be taking the heat for another minority group's failure to secure rights for themselves. Haven't blacks been scape-goated enough? I really think we should just stay out of it.
November 11th, 2008 3:43 AM
The African American community has a history of homophobia, not surprising; however, religion is still the main obstacle in this battle.
Many blacks grew up in the church, have parents who grew up in church, neighbors who are religious, family members who are religious fanatics - it's very likely that many people, black or white, feel that gay marriage is morally wrong.
I had to call the cops on my cell phone for a lady who said she felt unsafe in the presence of No on Prop 8 protesters. She was white, religious and had her 3 kids with her. My point is, religion involves members of every race. What's the % of Christians, Mormons and Catholics who voted Yes on Prop 8?
In many black, white, hispanic and asian voters' minds, they're not discriminating, they're just voting based upon their religious convictions.
November 10th, 2008 10:20 PM
Alright, I might as well go ahead and say it: I'm ashamed. I am ashamed that out of all of the people that voted yes for Prop 8, 70% of them of those people were African Americans. Seventy percent! As an African American, when I heard that my people voted in such an overwhelming majority for this, I held my head down in shame because we of all people should not be voting in such high numbers to take away someone else's rights. I am ashamed of this.
November 10th, 2008 7:22 PM
You make really good points! As someone in favor of gay marriage, I would be embarrassed to hear someone say , "How dare a black man lead and we can't marry?!' If that's someone's strongest argument, ugh...
So many of the arguments against gay marriage are the exact things said by people who opposed interracial marriages. I think, in time, we as a society will be more accepting, but I suspect it will never have universal tolerance, much the way we still have people opposed to interracial marriage.