Gay is Not the New Black

I know that people are still upset about Proposition 8 passing, but some of the ways people are expressing their disappointment bothers me. Many are saying that the struggle of gay people is akin to the civil rights struggle of blacks. Those who say this are doing both the gay civil rights movement and the black civil rights movement a disservice. Just like blacks should not compare their struggle to that of Jews during the holocaust, gays should not compare theirs to that of blacks during the civil rights movement. As one RealClear Politics article so aptly puts it.

One has to either be ignorant of segregation laws and the routine humiliations experienced by blacks during the era of Jim Crow, or one has to be callous to black suffering, to equate that to a person not being allowed to marry a person of the same sex. They are not in the same moral universe.

There is in fact no comparison between the situation of gays in America in 2008 and the situation of most black Americans prior to the civil rights era. Gays are fully accepted, and as a group happen to constitute one of the wealthiest in American life. Moreover, not being allowed to marry a person of the same sex is not anti-gay; it is pro-marriage as every civilization has defined it. The fact is that states like California already grant people who wish to live and love a member of the same sex virtually every right that marriage bestows except the word "married."

So, guys let's respect each other's suffering and not try to tear each other down. Black people voted for Proposition 8 not because they are anti-gay, but because they are pro-black community values. These are values that they learned growing up and the question of gay rights just has not been a big issue. They likely don't understand what gay marriage is exactly and how it fits with what they live everyday. What are the rules? Who is the bride and who is the groom? What does this mean for their church worship experience? Start by helping them to understand, not by telling them that being gay is just the same as being black...because it just isn't.