Is Gay Marriage Comparable to the Black Civil Rights Movement?

November 11th, 2010 - By LaShaun Williams

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The issue of civil rights has and will continue to resurface as our society evolves and various “sub-cultures” forge to the forefront. In the 1960s it was black Americans fighting for racial equality; and, now it’s the gay and lesbian community pressuring for the right to marry. The two movements have been compared to one another as bouts for basic human liberties, but are sexuality and race really one in the same?

Sexual preference is contrived from a combination of genetics and carnal desires. There are studies that have shown predispositions to particular emotions and actions resulting from DNA makeup. Several scientific studies have also revealed the monumental role that environmental elements play in human development. Race, on the other hand, is solely based on DNA composition. Going to the tanning bed can make your skin darker, but it won’t make you black. Being adopted by an Asian family and embracing their traditions is wonderful, but it doesn’t make you Asian. So, while race is unchanging, sexuality is (at least somewhat) pliable.

Paralleling the Black Civil Rights Movement with the push for gay marriage is like comparing apples to oranges (or Kanye West to Michael Jackson). To a degree, the likening is almost offensive. Black skin is black skin, period. For centuries, blacks in this country were considered less than human merely due to the hue of their skin. Race and skin color are decided before birth and something over which no human being has control. Yet, black Americans were enslaved, dehumanized and disenfranchised for it. Unlike sexual preference, race cannot be hidden in the closet or (in most cases) enjoy a “double-life.” While, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual preference, all persons are entitled to basic civil liberties, discrimination based on race is not equivalent to that imposed on the decision to act out on sexual preferences.

The issue of gay marriage is more closely related to that of religious freedom and expression, both suppressed by the blanket of patchwork Christianity that covers this country. Hence, maybe the real question to be pondered is (since there is clearly a connection between church and state) whether or not it is fair to inflict biblically-based limitations on loving, homosexual couples while heterosexual couples are permitted to easily marry and divorce as many times as they please. If we are going to be so “Christian” about marriage, there should be a set of criteria that must be met to divorce, right?

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    I had hoped to do my Doctoral Thesis in Rehabilitation Psychology on a comparable topic, excepting, since it pertains to expert athletes who are no longer within the limelight. I definitely feel it's a valid and interesting study!

  • miamac

    I standing on my tip toes applauding this writer. I wish I could stand even higher. Point made and point taken. I agree wholeheartedly. Years ago when aids was considered hideous and taboo, a 'white' co-worker who was gay and whose outwardly appearance gave away his 'secret' looked to me for compassion. It seems all of his colleagues (white, black or otherwise) in the company was shunning him. He presented this theory to me, you know civil rights and gay rights being the same. I told him I disagree and gave him this picture: A white man and a black woman are walking away and someone is asked to describe them. The describer so matter-of-factly states, "It's easy. I see a 'white man' and a 'black woman.' Did you notice she mentioned nothing about your sexuality?

  • sigh…

    @RUBY…you're an idiot! @Don't lose focus…you're my hero!! lol

  • PaintedSkin

    While I see believe everyone should be free to love who they want to, I do not think that the civil rights movement should be equated with the Gay movement in the US. Racial segregation was based on something that cannot be hidden- race. Gay people are not segregated because they are gay, why? because you can't tell someone is gay or straight by looking at them. Gay people have more rights now than black people did during the times of segregation.

    Gay people in the US have it way easier than gay people in Uganda or elsewhere where it is a crime punishable by jail sentence or death. Think about them when you are complaining about how bad you have it. I do hope though that people would just leave others alone to live their lives as they see fit. Love is love.

  • http://www.mediaanarchist.wordpress.com Krusher Kronkite

    Are you serious? I would of said yes if our people would of had advanced since then. But unfortunately we have fallen off dramatically. At least the gay community has support and financial power.

  • Ronnie

    @just focus…I can agree that these two groups have and are struggling fighting their fight but the fact of the matter is it is totally not the same. You cant possibly compare the civil rights movement to the LGBT fight. They are on different levels. I wish they would stop being compared. I think the reason why they are compared in the first place is to try to make the other one mean more when in reality it is a new fight

  • Ruby

    The truth be told, there are so many gays in powerful positions in the media…Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, Suze Orman, etc. that you can't compare their "struggle" with the black civil rights movement. Gays have become like the Jews. Too many in powerful positions to criticize publicly. Don't push your "rainbow" agenda down my throat!

  • Ruby

    Marriage is man and woman….period. I don't want to know about your deviance.

  • choke yo ono

    @don't lose focus, THANK YOU!

  • Don't Lose Focu

    Why does it matter whose struggle is more authentic? Both groups have suffered tremendously at the hands of those who disapproved of their existence. Conversations like this one do little to advance the progress of both groups. Can we just move on? Thanks.

  • Please Believe

    Preach! My best friend for the past 12 years is a black gay woman and the only time we've had a big fight where we haven't spoken to each other for days was over this issue. There is absolutely no comparison between the two. The two struggles must stand independently on their own. If the comparison is made to make black people see or sympathize with their cause, it has done the opposite for me. I have zero tolerance for thinking getting lynched and beaten and told to sit at the back of the bus is the same as your right to get married…it -is-not.

  • Ashley

    HOWEVER, gay people are still discriminated against, and are killed on the basis of sexuality. How is that not a civil rights issue?

  • http://zjoww.wordpress.com Aisynia

    I concur with the other responses here. Though I have friends who are gay/lesbian it frustrates me to hear them speak of civil rights. I can't look at someone and tell they are homosexual (unless they are flamboyant). What I can tell when looking from a distance is what ethnicity they are. The two simply do not equate. Whether or not gays have the right to marry is a different discussion altogether.

  • EW

    Iam so glad u explained it in a way that people can truly understand the difference btwn. the two, and it’s a travesty to think any differently.

  • Lawd da Mercy

    Black is not my sexual preference, I was born this way. I can't move to another city an be on the "down low Black."

    People have lost their mind, with that comparison.

  • CutieReppinNY

    THANK YOU!!! Finally someone isn't afraid to speak the truth. The black civil rights movements and the gay rights agenda are nowhere near on the same level. When Gays have to use separate bathrooms, cross the street or look at the ground when a straight person comes through, are banned from being educated, and are lynched for whistling at straight people then we can talk.

  • coleman young 1987

    thank you. well writing and explained. truly a case of apples and oranges. ..my African-american grandmother wasn't asked to give up her seat on a bus to a white man ( in the black section of a public bus) because he was gay and she wasn't..

  • Nic

    Thank you for sharing this perspective. I've been sharing your same thoughts about this issue for some time, and I'm almost always met with disagreement usually on some "discrimination is discrimination" type of mess. I'm sorry, but it's just not the same.

    We don't even need to go into the history, because it's known all to well. But I can say there hasn't been a single day in my life that I haven't realized that I'm black. Some would say that maybe someone gay can feel that same way. Well, okay.

    But, when people are discriminated against for being gay, it's usually just in the context of their sexual practices and personal relationships. Being discriminated against for being black can permeate throughout every thinkable aspect of your life. Not only do we struggle with relationships (statistics, single-parent households rampant, down-low activities, no available "good black men"), but there is so much more. I'm told/shown everyday that I'm not attractive because of deepness of my skin tone, shape of my body, coil of my hair. I'm told/shown everyday I'm not intelligent or capable enough because "black people don't make it to college" or we aren't educated enough to make anything of our lives. I'm told/show everyday not worthy to be married and am doomed to be someone's "baby-mama."

    These are things no gay person deals with for being gay. I WISH my only issue was people not approving of my relationship because it couldn't/wouldn't break us up anyhow. But the things I struggle affect me in ways I relate to others. For instance, in school as a science major and the only black girl in the lab, no one wants to be my partner because they assume that I'm not that bright and pass me up for the Asian girl or the white guy. That's how it affects me.

    Simply put, no one ever assumes your incapable in other areas just because you're gay. People assume you're incapable in every area because you're black. Black – something I have no choice to conceal when it's convenient. You can "forget to mention" your sexual preference. I can never say, "Oh, by the way I'm black, but don't worry about that." They unload their statistic-based/stereotypical assumptions on me as soon as they see me walk through the door.

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