Silence=Death

“King’s first educator in non-violence” was gay -Julian Bond, Chairman, NAACP

The developing meme coming from Obamanation is that gay people got what they deserved when prop 8 was passed in CA, primarily due to overwhelming support from African American supporters who also supported Obama. They are saying that if only we had done our part to help the AA community, or reached out to them, maybe they would have stood with us.  That is a lie.  And I for one won’t let these thugs rewrite history without putting up a fight.  If you don’t believe me when I say that the gay community has always stood shoulder to shoulder with the black community during the civil rights movement, maybe you’ll believe somebody who was there.  As Mr. Bond says at the end of the interview, the key word here is rights, and all of these movements are meant to ensure that EVERYONE has them:

For those of you not familiar with the title of this post, it was the rallying cry for ACT UP! in the 80’s and 90’s when the gay community was literally fighting for it’s life.  Back then nobody wanted to talk about AIDS.  Some of us took to the streets and screamed until we were blue in the face until somebody finally listened.  Now we face another existential dilemma.  Members of the new Democratic coalition, along with members of our own gay community are trying to permanently push us away from the table when it comes to civil rights.  I do not intend to let that happen silently.

Hate is an ugly thing

h/t to ugsome:

Iam a perfect example of why the fight against Proposition 8, which amends the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, failed to win black support.

I am black. I am a political activist who cares deeply about social justice issues. I am a lesbian. This year, I canvassed the streets of South Los Angeles and Compton, knocking on doors, talking politics to passers-by and working as I never had before to ensure a large voter turnout among African Americans. But even I wasn’t inspired to encourage black people to vote against the proposition.

Why? Because I don’t see why the right to marry should be a priority for me or other black people. Gay marriage? Please. At a time when blacks are still more likely than whites to be pulled over for no reason, more likely to be unemployed than whites, more likely to live at or below the poverty line, I was too busy trying to get black people registered to vote, period; I wasn’t about to focus my attention on what couldn’t help but feel like a secondary issue.

In case you’re wondering how such a narrow minded load of crap could get published in the LA Times, it is because this is the MSM’s attempt to use the race card to squash the palpable anger in the gay community.  It is not the fault of Obama, or the AA community, or even this self righteous bigot, it is our fault for having the audacity to think that we are just as equal to every other American.  We should be ashamed to ask for our civil rights without first ensuring that every insult against the black community is paid in full.  I say NO.  NO to this kind of morrally repulsive game of “my victimhood is more important than yours”.  Because according to Jasmyne Cannick’s rules, she is always going to be first in line for that handout, and everyone else is not only selfish for wanting theirs too, but they’re racist for daring to equate their discrimination to that of blacks.  The fact that she admits that gay marriage is a “secondary issue” invalidates anything she has to say about civil rights.  But she feels full license to do so.

Second is the issue of civil rights. White gays often wonder aloud why blacks, of all people, won’t support their civil rights. There is a real misunderstanding by the white gay community about the term. Proponents of gay marriage fling it around as if it is a one-size-fits-all catchphrase for issues of fairness.

But the black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community.

Like Cannick, apparently many black people, gay or straight, feel like this is an issue that belongs to them.  No it doesn’t.  It belongs to all of us.  Civil rights are human rights. If it has become wrapped up in christianity in your community, that is your problem, not mine.  Nobody seems to have any trouble calling white christians to task for supporting Prop 8.  In case Ms. Cannick isn’t aware,  a lot of white christian churches were heavily involved in the civil rights movement as well.  Jews also played their part.  But this is not a religious issue.  It is a an issue of human dignity and equality.  However, I’m not even willing to accept her premise.  The wife of Rev Martin Luther King Jr herself said before she passed that he would have seen gay rights as part of the same struggle for equality for which he gave his life.   I’ll take his word over Ms. Cannick’s any day.

But finally we get to what this hate speech is really all about:

Maybe next time around — because we all know this isn’t over — the gay community can demonstrate the capacity and willingness to change that America demonstrated when it went to the polls on Nov. 4. Black gays are depending on their white counterparts to finally “get it.” 

This isn’t about civil rights, or gay rights, or the black church. This is about revenge.   Jasmyne is angry at gay people like me, correction  white gay people like me, who had the audacity to not vote for His Preciousness.  See, according to her, this election was about paying for the sins of the past, and how dare we not comply.  The price we pay is having our rights denied.  It doesn’t matter that the gay community did overwhelmingly support Obama, the fact that a good chunk saw that Obama was a homophobe and didn’t vote for him is enough to sentence us all to second class citizenship.

Until this kind of juvenile approach to civil rights is denounced by both the African American and gay communities, neither will ever be free.  This is yet another sick consequence of an Obama victory.  People like Cannick fell like they can use something as sacred as the civil rights movement as a blunt instrument to bludgeon anyone who dared oppose Obama.  Ironically this type of disgusting rhetoric may very well work.  Goons like Cannick know that most gays do want to advance the civil rights struggle of the African American community and are bound to second guess their initial reaction to this vote.  We can not let this happen.  Cannick is nothing but one of Obama’s brown-shirted thugs making sure that your thought is pure and make sure that you feel adequately shamed so as to remain silent.  And as someone in comments said…

SILENCE=DEATH  And in case you don’t believe me, I’ll bump up the video from the last post:

Pam Spaulding: another hypocritical gay apologist

this is what hypocrisy looks like

You know, I am sick and fucking tired of these so called leaders of the gay community whining about the passage of Prop 8 in Califorrnia.  It’s not bad enough that they want to try to scapegoat other groups like the mormons for their own self-destructive support for a homophobic dirtbag, but they have already begun to turn on those in their own community when they justifiably ask the African American community to explain their complicity in this travesty.

The backlash is upon us, and it’s going to get uglier unless our organizations step forward and say something. The desire to scapegoat blacks for Prop 8’s defeat has exposed the now not-so-latent racism in our movement.I have already blogged a lot about why the lack of effective communication (and I’m not even talking about outreach on gay issues to socially conservative blacks) between white people in general and people of color. That dearth of understanding and mutual respect for difference, and lack of desire to seek common ground through personal relationships ultimately leads to what we are seeing here.

No, what leads to what we are seing here is homophobia, plain and simple.  And I’m not prepared to give any group a pass on that, no matter what their race, color, religion, etc.  To do otherwise would be discriminatory.  Pam believes that we should blame ourselves for not being nice enough to conservative blacks.  Well what about her lack of outreach to the mormon community?  Shouldn’t we avoid scapegoating them because, you know, the gay community hasn’t tried to reach out to them either.  This type of double standard is insulting and indicative of the internalized homophobia in people like Spaulding.  This did not happen because of racism in the gay community.  African Americans who claim that this is due to lack of outreach from gays are rationalizing their own homophobia.  It is also a typical crutch that we’ve seen over and over of crying racist whenever anyone asks certain members of the AA community to take responsibility for their actions.  In this case the stripping of basic civil rights from gay people.  Pam even has the nerve to link to a DK diary that tries to say that we should ignore “the math” that AA’s in California voted 3 to 1 for the measure.  According to them, the exit polls lie, and over represent black voters.  These are the same people that used exit polls to paint whole states like West Virginia and Kentucky as racist hillbillies.

But Pam isn’t content at scapegoating her own (gay) community for this situation.  See, she has no probem casting blame, just as long as it is not aimed at black people.

Hypocrisy much? The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints is unhappy about the fact that the media spotlight is trained on its participation in making Prop 8 happen…
The people protesting the church’s significant role in an another state’s democratic process — members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave millions of dollars to remove the civil rights of human beings — are merely exercising their right to free speech to highlight that role.

Hypocrisy much indeed.  So let’s break this down.  If a religious community supported this bill it is OK to heap on them blame and white hot hate.  If the black community does the same, we should blame ourselves for not reaching out to them.  Oh, and I guess for Pam money is more important in a democratic election than votes.  Guess she typifies what happens when you support a man who made his way to the top by buying people off, and accusing his opponents of racism.  What a load of hot steaming…..

But of course Pam was also one of the people who wanted to throw the transgender community under the bus when it came to passing ENDA.  Although she said she supported the inclusion, she argued that both sides of the issue (inclusion of T’s or not) should have a voice in the debate.  I’m sure her desire to keep her blogging gig at AmericaBlog  had nothing to do with her muted support…Bigots like her see equality as a heirarchy.  Apparently African Americans are at the top, gays somewhere in the middle, and religious groups down in the mud.  Pam, you’re never going to get any rights until you recognize that everyone’s rights are equal, and they are equally sacred.  You are a shameful disgrace to not only the gay rights movement, but to civil rights in general.

***UPDATE***  I found this video on youtube which I think is a good first look at homophobia in the black community.

This was one of the first comments left for that video:

Black homosexuals are race traitors. Homosexuality is a European thing, and If you are gay in Africa, your faggot ass is going to jail. The white Media is manipulating blacks into homosexuality as a form of population control. They destroy the black family and confuse little children. Fuck homosexuality. I might not vote for Obama because he is a faggot lover. And dont EVER align homosexuality with Black struggle.

That sounds a lot like Obama’s pastor to me.

And finally, until Pam can find something as offensive as this about African Americans by the gay community, she can STFU.

Oh, and despite how hard I tried, I couldn’t find any mormons singing about murdering gays, just sayin’….