Similarities and Differences. The Irony.

[Moonwalk]

Interesting these latest discussions over whether or not the current gay rights movement can or should compare itself to the 60's civil rights movement. I find it incredibly ironic. First, because it implies that people want to keep their "rights" movement, whatever it may be, special and unique. To be fair, they might be right that each movement is unique in time, place, people and such. But the way it comes across, especially if they take offense to the comparison, is that they are trying to make every other equal-rights-movement sit at the back of the bus.

I'm sorry, but that is how it's coming across.

Second...well, this insistence on there being no comparison implies that any GLBT movements are and have always been somehow separate from all other civil rights movements. So we're saying that there were no blacks in the civil rights movement who were gay? No women in the women's rights movement who were lesbians? Gays have never been separate from any movements. There were revolutionaries in 1776 who were gay, there were slaves on the plantations. Likely there were also gays on both sides of the American Civil War. Every religion has had its gay members, whether they were openly so or not. And every oppressed minority, harassed or abused member of a religious or ethnic group has also had gays among them. And, to be fair, there've been a good number of gays on the side of the oppressors.

Getting back to the main point, however: Gay blacks have suffered the same as heterosexual blacks. And, here's the real irony, they've not only had to deal with bigotry against their skin color, but also their sexual orientation and that from their own families and friends. This is why it's absurd to try and split hairs over the issue. Because the same black person who got chased by dogs and firehoses while marching for the right to sit at a lunch counter is the one who was told by his blood relatives, if ever they found out the truth about his orientation, that he could no longer sit at the family dinner table.

It's been pointed out that skin color can't be hidden the way gay-ness can be. I think this misses the point, yet I'll pause a moment to remind those who argue this that there've been plenty of light-skinned blacks who passed, and Jews, not allowed in certain hotels or to join certain clubs, who changed their names and pretended to be WASPs. What does being able to "pass" have to do with the worthiness of a cause? Or trying to right a wrong? Or gain equality for a group that's being treated unequally and forcing people to pass rather than be themselves?

This is the point. It should be the one and only point. What matters isn't how much a group has suffered, why they have suffered, how long they have suffered inequality and injustice. Inequality is inequality. But what is most important is this: During the Civil Rights Movement, MLK compared the struggle of blacks in the south to the long bias suffered by Jews, and in doing so, made a connection with Jews. Many young Jewish people, far more than any other white group, came down South to face dogs and firehoses, to get beaten and even killed by racists in hopes of doing the right thing.

Consider that Prop. 8 passed in part because a great many black people voted in this election, and voted "yes on that proposition. If their college age kids can in any way be made to feel that GLBT fight is similar to that of their own 60's civil rights movement, maybe they, too, will stand up and fight the right fight. If, however, enough blacks insist that there's no comparison, or that they are offended by that comparison and GLBT should not make it, well then, they emphasize that it is okay to consider GLBT as a separate group. Not at all like or in anyway connected to them.

Not connected? Their fight is everyone's fight, not because they were like those people in the past, but because they were those people in the past. They know the injustice done to them because they were black or women or some minority religion, and they know their own, personal injustice, unrelenting, on-going...and related, in some way, to just about every family there is. I don't think their cause can be more like other causes than that. Who better to know how similar this current battle for justice is to those past, then ones who have had to face both? As has been said in other threads, anyone's cause against injustice and inequality is our cause. Not because they share our past, our skin color, or gender or our religion, but simply because they are human beings. And so are we. There is no movement for equal rights in the history of our species that is not rightfully comparable to this one because all such fights have to do with the rights of human beings. To try and say one group's fight for equality and justice had been, somehow, different, is to trivialize every other fight for such justice that has been or will be.

[Skittles]

1. RECOMMENDED!!

awesome post :thumbsup:

[Luminous Animal]

2. I wish I could rec this a thousand times.

This is an excellent post.

[Luminous Animal]

3. You should cross post this

in General Discussion : Politics. I'll back you up.

[LostinVA]

10. Agreed

[Moonwalk]

13. I honestly didn't quite know where to post this--

As I'm still getting the hang of posting on this forum. I'll take your advice and hopes it makes a difference! :patriot:

[DBoon]

4. did you have Bayard Rustin in mind here?

"...the same black person who got chased by dogs and firehoses while marching for the right to sit at a lunch counter is the one who was told by his blood relatives, if ever they found out the truth about his orientation, that he could no longer sit at the family dinner table."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin :

Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American civil rights activist, important largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier, and one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He counseled Martin Luther King, Jr. on the techniques of nonviolent resistance. Rustin was an advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes in the latter part of his career; however his sexual orientation was a platform used by many governmental as well as idealists groups to attack him. <1>

A year before his death in 1987, Rustin said: "Twenty-five, thirty years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian."

[Moonwalk]

12. I did not have this man in mind...

But thank you SO much for bringing him to my attention. I knew that there had to be a real person behind my thought that there had to be someone who experienced both bigotry against his skin color and his sexual orientation, but I didn't know who that might be. Thank you again.

Edited to add: I just re-posted this in General Discussion and I added in your wiki reference!

[silverojo]

5. Gay marriage and gay acceptance are very different things

Legalizing something doesn't make it accepted.

Personally, I'd rather be outed as a lesbian than as a Wiccan...which I also am.

Technically speaking, Wicca is a religion by legal definition in the USA, supposedly protected by law. (As gay marriage would be, when it becomes law.)

Here's my point...

I have to stay "in the broom closet" because of Christians, Muslims, and other fundie wackos, despite the fact that practicing my religion is legal. (But there have been attempts to make it illegal...remember Jesse Helms?)

Similarly, gay oppression WILL NOT stop just because gay marriage is legalized. (And then Prop 8 made it illegal again...sound familiar?)

I recently realized that both issues--gay and wiccan/pagan oppression--are actually mere branches of one larger issue.

That issue? Religion being allowed to butt into our lives AND our laws.

What gays, straights, and EVERY tolerant person must do is precisely what we've been accused of doing: We must marginalize religious fanatics, by standing up for sanity. Make them feel as persecuted as they THINK they are...as persecuted as WE are.

Laws can help, of course...things like outlawing homeschooling, "Jesus camps" where kids are brainwashed, and get kids back into the public schools again, where they'll learn first-hand that science is real...that kids of other races and cultures aren't out to get them.

We also need to pressure the media, just as the right has, to make TV reflect society. TV shows are no longer all-white or all-straight, and they should no longer be all-Christian.

Pretty bad when the best we Wiccans have been portrayed on TV was in Bewitched, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, and especially Charmed. Ever seen too many shows that include Hindus? Any other religion, besides Christianity?

Persecution against gays and people of other religions will continue for as long as fundie Christianity is allowed to influence mainstream society. It's a fanatic, fringe belief, and should be treated as such.

Look what the Moral Majority (ha!) has done to change the world to their way of thinking. It's time for our side to take back society with a similar movement of our own.

I guess that's why I'm not any more offended by Rev. Warren than any other "man of the cloth"...because, to me, ANY religious person who's involved in ANY Presidential swearing-in is extremely offensive to me. I always felt this sort of thing crossed the line between church and state.

[BeFree]

21. Exactly

Our common ground is that our opposition - the ones who would make slaves of us all-
are the fundamentalist who are infecting our government and causing our dis-ease.

The sooner we unite against our common foe, the sooner we become free.

[noamnety]

6. I agree with this

and at the same time I am trying to listen to the other people who are offended - in large part because of a couple of DUers I respect a great deal and am continually learning from. I am trying to hear these voices here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=258x4396#4939

and reconcile it with my belief that civil rights advocates build off the lessons learned from previous struggles by other leaders, and my belief that those leaders would want their struggles used to advance equal rights for others.

I am not posting a lot on this issue because I think there are two truths here, and I am not sure yet how they fit together. I don't want to dismiss their concerns, and also I view this as a large web to be deconstructed, a web that incorporates gay rights, women's rights, militarism as masculinity, colonialism and racism, not one of it truly separate from the rest.

[Raster]

7. Mrs. King speaks for me.

Coretta Scott King, speaking four days before the 30th anniversary of her husband's assassination, said Tuesday the civil rights leader's memory demanded a strong stand for gay and lesbian rights. "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice," she said. "But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'" "I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people," she said.

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," she said, quoting her husband. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy."

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."

But perhaps her most eloquent statement on the subject came in 1994, again invoking the words of her late husband in support of equal rights for all:

For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law...I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." On another occasion he said, "I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible." Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

[Jamastiene]

20. I wish she was still here with us.

:cry:

[Brazenly Liberal]

8. Well said! K&R

Human rights are human rights. Period. If they are being denied, it's wrong regardless of the particulars of the bigotry at work.

[LostinVA]

9. Very nice post

[racaulk]

11. Fantastic post!!!

K&R

Also, another call for you to cross post this in GDP. :hi:

Welcome to DU!

[donco6]

14. Good post.

But be prepared - a lot of people won't like it.

[keepCAblue]

15. THANK YOU for saying what needed to be said. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. n/t

[Jamastiene]

16. K&R

[Vanje]

17. Too late to Rec. Not too late to kick nt

[Bluenorthwest]

18. Error: You've already recommended that thread.

so, kick, as they say.

[Jamastiene]

19. A VERY interesting piece of trivia

Another similarity the civil rights movement of the 1960's and the gay rights movements have in common. This is a big one a lot of people do no know about at all. I'm curious who gets it. It is not completely irrelevant if you look at the big picture about civil rights and the anti-gay movement.

Here are some hints:
Person, place or thing: It's a person.

Quote from this person about the Civil Rights Act:
He told a local paper that the Civil Rights Act had been misnamed: "It should be considered civil wrongs rather than civil rights."

He also said this about DADT:
"ur poor boys on the front lines will have to face two different enemies, one from the front and one from the rear."

You can click this link when you think you know the answer to read more about it.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=862

The article is entitled Holy War. The first quote is on page 1 of the article. The second quote is at a link on the page to quotes from various preachers over the years. It can be found here:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/slideshows/117_antigay/IR117_antigay_01.html

Why is this a similarity? The Bible was used by sick, twisted, hateful people to justify slavery, Jim Crow laws, and "separate but equal" and it is also being used against gay people.

[Moonwalk]

22. Nice point about the Bible being used to justify

taking away human rights, and you forgot that it's also been used to keep women from having equal rights as well. So toss in the women's movement along with all the rest.