The formidable champion of civil rights
Something that has infuriated me lately is the attempt by some so-called “Progressives” to insist that the civil rights battles fought for the rights of Black Americans are completely different than what faces the gay community today. Whether Neo-liberals want to admit it or not the struggles of Black Americans to be recognized and treated as equals are not unique in this world. Many other groups of people have and do struggle for the same thing. The list is long, but some historical examples are the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S., India’s fight for self-rule, and Protestants’ desire to worship free of persecution in Europe. Looking back on these conflicts, the average person living in the U.S. today would see each of these struggles as clear examples of right vs. wrong. Of course, protestants should have the same rights as other religions. Of course, Indians should have the right to rule themselves just as other nations do. Of course, women should have the same right to vote as men. Of course, black people have the same rights as other races.
However, during these struggles there was not a crushing majority that held these views. Just fifty years ago it would have been easy to find some very vocal people who would argue that Black people were less than Whites and did not deserve to be recognized as equals. These people were not considered crackpots either. Some of them were intelligent leaders in their communities able to articulate many reasons for their discrimination. There are still people that hold these views today, but the difference is they have been marginalized. You cannot be a leader in the present day U.S. and publicly push for a return to JimCrow. If you are a racist, you have to keep that very quiet because the vast majority of people will ostracize you if you don’t.
Today, we are in the middle of the struggle for Gay rights. Polls show varying levels of public acceptance of our equality. We are still in the period that allows homophobic views to be treated with respect. Gays are told we have to sit down with our enemies, or risk losing what gains we have made, as if our equality was something that straight society had the power to bestow upon us.
Here are some of the arguments made by both conservatives and so called liberals/progressives in order to disallow the comparison of the black civil rights movements to the current LGBT battles. They usually begin with a general condescension towards even making the case, this is to initially bully the reader into backing down from their stance before they even have to set up their first straw man.
One argument I read over and over is that being Gay is a behavioral choice, but one is born Black. This is not true. I never met any gay people who have ever said they made the choice to be gay. Just the opposite. Most of us struggled for a time trying to conform to being straight, just to make our lives easier. But even if we were to begin our discussion assuming that it is a choice, how does our gayness compare to one’s choice of religion? Catholicism and Protestantism are definitely not genetic traits. To belong to one of these groups, one must definitely make a conscious choice. Since, most of the anti-gay bigotry comes from organized religions, it is the height of hypocrisy to make the born vs choice argument. My gayness trumps your choice of voodoo. If we are to see struggles for religious freedom in the same way we see other civil rights battles, then whether something is a choice or not becomes irrelevant.
Another straw man is the notion that Blacks have been persecuted more than gays. First, I don’t believe there is a way to truly quantify this, but does it really matter one way or the other? Can we agree that gays have been and still are persecuted? Gays died in concentration camps in Nazi Germany just like Jews did. We have been the victims of countless hate crimes just because of our queerness. In fact, the scum bags who tortured and murdered Matthew Sheppard actually used the “Gay panic” defense in court, arguing that they were justified in killing Sheppard because he had come on to them in a sexual manner.
Playing the “my victimhood is greater than yours” game is a fruitless endeavor. Where does women’s persecution fall on that spectrum? How about religious freedom? True liberals and people who care about justice and equality see all these struggles as the same. Martin Luther King Jr. said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. “. However, many so called liberals are arguing that we need to be quiet right now, and listen to those that hate us. We must, for the sake of unity, accept people like Rick Warren who choose to discriminate against us, and who compare us to pedophiles and drug addicts. These people fundamentally do not believe that Gay people are equal to straights. They may assert that they do, but if they make arguments that our struggle is somehow less than the struggles other groups have endured, don’t believe them. If they urge gays to be ”nice” and not make waves, they are in fact our oppressors no matter what politcal party they represent. King also said, ”Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed. “
So, to all people who believe they stand with the LGBT community, do not fall for these attempts at divide and conquer. Stand with us, and the people who would deny us our rights will be marginalized the same way the racists have been. Do not fall for the lie that you must accept another’s bigotry. This is an hour of great struggle for the LGBT community and we need all the help we can get. When you look back at the civil rights movement of the sixties, don’t you want to believe that you would have been at the center of the protests, marching arm in arm with King? I can’t believe you would imagine yourself standing on the sidelines, or telling Black people just to be quiet. Stand with us and you will be remembered in the future as being on the right side of history. King had this to say about sideliners,”History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Do not be silent. Make your voices heard. Walk arm and arm with us and you are walking with King.
Posted by mawminc 
