With the debate over same-sex marriage growing louder, arguments for and against the notion of marriage equality is once again exposing some deep divides in communities across the country, nowhere more prominently than in black America.
In recent weeks, for instance, black protestors have demonstrated outside the Supreme Court to show both support for and opposition to gay marriage. Detroit native and rising right-wing media darling Dr. Ben Carson has stirred controversy by comparing gay marriage to bestiality and pedophilia. And black pastors in Illinois have taken to pulpits statewide to urge their congregants to either support or condemn the state's efforts to legalize gay marriage.
The debate hasn't been limited to government policy on marriage but has also extended itself to history, too. For many black Americans, disagreements over whether to support same-sex marriage has often found its way to one central question: Is today's struggle for gay rights and same-sex marriage comparable to the black civil-rights battle that was waged for the better part of two centuries?
The question comes up for any number of reasons, but often because blacks, whom many believe should easily see a parallel between the struggles of gays and folks like Ida B. Wells and Martin Luther King Jr., tend to poll as being less favorable to gay marriage than many other groups. (This attitude appears to be changing, however, according to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal survey.)
Among blacks who oppose gay marriage, there also seems to be a certain level of resentment toward those who would compare the gay-rights movement to the push for black equality, with opponents arguing that anti-gay bigotry cannot compare to the historical dehumanization that blacks have endured. Jack Hunter, a white southerner writing for American Conservative, captured some of this argument recently:
The debate over gay marriage has been portrayed as the civil rights struggle of our time. I’m generally a supporter of same-sex unions and hold the same view as President Obama—I’m personally for it, but believe it should be decided at the state level. I find it legally objectionable that those in longstanding same-sex relationships do not have the same inheritance, tax, and hospital-visitation rights as straight couples. Whatever the courts or states decide now and in the future, I hope this changes.
That said, gay marriage is simply not on par with the black civil rights struggle. Not even close.
Snip...
I have gay friends who are married. The states in which they reside might not recognize their unions, but their friends and families do, and they generally live their lives in peace. No one is turning water hoses on them. They are not being attacked by police dogs. There is no Bull Connor or Ku Klux Klan. They are not being lynched en masse, drinking at separate fountains, or being ordered to the back of the bus.
This is not to say that gay Americans who wish to have the full benefits of marriage afforded to heterosexual couples don’t face adversity. That’s a major part of the current debate. But it is to say that any hardship they face can’t compare to what black Americans faced 50 or 150 years ago.
There have been instances during the gay-rights movement that arguably could be compared to the black civil rights struggle, like the Stonewall riots of the 1960s or Matthew Shepard murder in 1998. Suicides and other problems related to public attitudes about homosexuality have also unquestionably been a horrible ordeal. Still, with the possible exception of the mistreatment of Native Americans, there has been nothing quite like the systematic exploitation and institutional degradation experienced by earlier black Americans.
My purpose here is not to belittle the fight for gay marriage, only to note that those who keep attempting to draw a reasonable comparison to the struggle of African-Americans are in many ways belittling the black experience in the United States.
Hunter might not find a lot of blacks who agree with him on other issues, but he's sure to find concurrence with this statement.
But is it valid?
Personally, I don't think so.
In fact, I believe it's a severely short-sighted argument for blacks -- or anyone who sympathizes with black struggle -- to make.
Understand, I have a deep respect and admiration for the black civil-rights organizers who, since the abolition of American slavery, have agitated for people of African descent to enjoy equal treatment under the law. And I believe blacks have as much right to be custodians of American history as anyone else -- especially history that we were so instrumental in making.
But I don't think it's correct for us to make selfish claims to what was essentially a struggle not just for civil rights but, as Malcolm X explained, also a battle for human rights. We don't have the market cornered on historic struggle. Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics -- all have had to fight their own civil-rights battles and, like gays, have every right to look to American history (of which the black civil-rights movement is a part) for parallels and inspiration and rationales for their own struggles.
And just because gays may not endure the same level of daily physical violence that blacks faced in the Jim Crow south doesn't mean that it "belittles" blacks' experiences to suggest that the systemic institutional discrimination against gays runs parallel to the institutional racism blacks have faced.
Racist violence was merely an outgrowth of an encoded, institutional attitude that said that black life held little value. Even though anti-black violence has been dramatically diminished, the issue of institutional discrimination remains (see sentencing disparities for black criminals vs. white ones; stop-and-frisk policies like the one in New York City; salary imbalances between blacks and whites who do the same job).
Likewise, for gays, the issue isn't just the attitudes and actions of ignorant individuals but also the fact that the state itself has singled them out for exclusion. Hell, it's apparently a big deal to even suggest that gays be afforded the same legal protections from violence and mistreatment as others. I mean, can you imagine Royal Oak residents treating as controversial an ordinance that guarantees African-Americans fair treatment and safety from hateful violence?
Further, the "not comparable" argument also tends to ignore the fact that, despite the stereotypes and pop cultural depictions, not all gays are well-off white men. There are millions of working-class gay black men and women in this country. What of the discrimination they face? Given that they deal with homophobia as well as racism (and sexism), is it fair to suggest that their struggles are even more burdensome in some ways than even the problems that I face as a straight black man? Does it belittle their experiences to compare the gay-rights movement to the black civil-rights fight?
Tell that to Bayard Rustin and James Baldwin.
Black people marched and boycotted and protested for the right to be accepted as human beings, to enjoy the same privileges and benefits of American citizenship as our white counterparts. We wanted to marry who we wanted, work and live where we liked, join whatever organizations we saw fit to be part of. And no one had the right to dictate otherwise, even if the nation's dismal history of race did say otherwise.
While the fight to make this a reality certainly continues, I think it's safe to say that African-Americans and others who believed in racial equality won the philosophical debate. Separate water fountains and bathrooms have been relegated to the dustbin of history. Serious political candidates no longer thump Bibles to justify anti-miscegenation statutes. Nobody argues openly that blacks be treated as social inferiors or denied the same rights as others.
It doesn't diminish our struggle for gays to embrace these victories and see them as signs that the country can move past the bigotry that straitjackets so many of their lives. No, it doesn't mean that the gay-rights movement is an exact replica of the black civil-rights struggle. It's not and never will be. But it's also not so foreign that we should pretend as if gays have no right to borrow from African-American history.
The black civil-rights struggle has been a beacon of hope for people all over the world. And that's exactly why blacks should be neither angry, threatened nor surprised that another excluded group of Americans would use that history to help light their own path to equality.
