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Is it no wonder that major African American civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Urban League, etc. have all come out in favor of Gay Rights?
I had no idea black organizations were in favor of gays....do you have links, book titles, or articles to prove this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Park
I agree.
Is it no wonder that major African American civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Urban League, etc. have all come out in favor of Gay Rights?
Yes and no. There are universals to all civil rights movements and aspects to each one that is particular to that one movement. It's just like anything. The comparison is valid in some areas but it only goes so far. I think anyone trying to be part of a civli rights movement has something to learn from past movements, but it's also important to remember there are major differences between being black vs. gay vs. any other minority.
Comparisons between the contemporary gay rights movement and the American Civil Rights Movement seem to come up quite a lot in public discourse about gay rights. Is this comparison appropriate? Why or why not?
This subject came up on another thread and took on a life of its own, so I thought I should give it its own space - especially as we are currently celebrating MLK day.
What say you?
Yes, they can be compared as they both relate to human rights and equal treatment. However, the fight for black equality is easily the greater problem. Easily! If gays are serious about this cause, they need to show this in two ways:
1) Stop discriminating against black gays within their own community. What a bunch of hypocrites to scream like manics for their own civil rights while concurrently practicing discrimination against black gays.
2) Wholeheartedly support racial equality for black people. Gays should be as passionate about equality for blacks as they are for their own rights. You can't scream for your own civil rights yet pretend as though racial discrimination against blacks no longer occurs. Gays should be supporting affirmative action just as much as they champion gay rights.
Equality for blacks is a deeper problem that cripples this society. Gays cannot scream for equal rights, yet participate in discriminating against blacks. How absurd.
yes, the two are comparable. obviously not exactly and no one comparing the two are trying to insinuate that gays have suffered more than blacks. however, it's pure ignorance to even think that gays haven't suffered due to something they were born as and can't changed (yes, it's my personal belief that people are born gay and it's part of their genetic makeup, and more and more, science is backing this point up). someone who is born gay can't change this fact any more than someone can change the fact that they were born black or female
in the end, at the very core of the gay rights movement, of the civil rights movement, heck, even of the women's rights movement, is a simple idea that a minority group deserves as much rights and freedoms as a majority group. these minorities (and do not make the mistake in assuming "minority" in this context can only refer to race/ethnicity) are simply fighting to be treated as equals and don't want a prejudiced majority deciding what rights they should or shouldn't have and they don't want a "separate but equal" system that very rarely turns out to be equal. if civil unions were equal to marriages, why won't heterosexual couples get them?
speaking as a black female, I feel ZERO anger over the comparison being made. looking at the core of these movements and it's clear to see how comparisons can be made
I'd take it a step further and say it's not even just about how people are born. The disability rights movement strives to have equal rights for people disabilities and many people aren't born with their disability. Also, religious minorities in many countries strive to have equal rights to the majority and they are not necessarily always born into their religion. Many male-to-female transsexuals were excluded from the women's civil rights movement but I believe this was wrong because they were just trying to be themselves too, even though they weren't born biologically female.
IMO, the core idea behind any civil right's movement is to be treated equally regardless of who you are. You don't have to necessarily have been born that way. If you are just being who you are, whether that's black or gay or disabled or of a particular religion or what have you, if you're not hurting others then there is no reason to deny anyone rights. We all deserve the same rights as human beings. That is the core concept.
No one has to know you're Jewish. Yet anti-semitic discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodation, education, career advancement, organization and club membership, even politics and voting is a historical fact that caused many Jews to have to change their names, deny their parentage, religion, and heritage to avoid prejudice. Legislation had to be enacted to prevent these unfair and discriminatory actions taken against Jewish people.
It's the same with gay people.
Race is not the only criteria why people suffer an abridgment of their civil rights.
The cruel irony is that there are reported cases of heterosexual individuals who have suffered homophobic bigotry simply because they are perceived to be gay!
And yet another example is deaf people. No one has to know you're deaf. People can't see that you're deaf if you don't use sign language. And people can't hear that you're deaf if you have good speech skills too. But is it fair to deny the deaf opportunities just because their minority status is "invisible" and therefore they have the "option" whether or not to mention it? Why does anyone have to know your deaf? Why is it anyone's business?
See how absurd that thinking is?
Yes, this is a difference between the black and gay movements, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the gay rights movement. It's just one of the differences between the two movements.
This debate seems to have strayed at least partly off topic.
I don't think anyone is arguing that homosexuals should be denied human or civil rights.
What is at issue is whether the "gay rights" movement is comparable to the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s which were fought to bring full citizenship to African-Americans. I and and many others believe that owing to the economically privileged status of most gays, and the fact that they never were never enslaved, or faced anything like the institutionalized racism and discrimination of the Jim Crow era, that if the two struggles must be compared, the comparison quickly dissolves into absurd incongruity. Gay people as a group are after all richer and better educated than most other Amricans, benefit from a variety of special legal protections, and enjoy and indeed have enjoyed the legal and civil rights of any other American (if they did not, how could so many legal remedies have been successfully enjoined?).
One could indeed argue that the "gay rights movement" ATTEMPTS to mimic the infinitely more significant struggles of black Americans for full citizenship and an end to violations of their basic human rights, but to further argue that such mimicry is anything other than a frivolous parody of the profound accomplishments of Dr. King begs credulity (hardly a shock, of course, since the entire corpus of gay thought, articulated and otherwise, relies heavily on parodic methodology, as a defensive palliative for its often essentially paranoid mind-set).
No one is asking the neighborhood hairdresser to use a separate drinking fountain, after all. Not that he would drink anything but Evian, anyway...
As a gay black man, I think its a slap in the face for many white gays claim that being gay is equal to being black.
There are just as many racist gay white men as there are straight white men. If you dont believe me walk around some of the gayborhoods in Chicago and San Francisco.
Ive never been denied a job because I was gay but I have been denied a job because Im black. When I walk down the street Iam seen as a black man not a gay man.
civil rights don't exist unless everyone has access to them . We will have to call them "Civil Priviledges" To say some people are more deserving of civil rights than others is like saying a cancer patent is sicker than everyone else so hospitals can turn every one else away.
civil rights don't exist unless everyone has access to them . We will have to call them "Civil Priviledges" To say some people are more deserving of civil rights than others is like saying a cancer patent is sicker than everyone else so hospitals can turn every one else away.
i agree. the type of discrimination that backs recieve is totally different than gays.
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