I was talking with a friend yesterday about gay rights when he declared, "discrimination against gays; it's the same as discrimination against Blacks." Opponents of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) use the same argument concerning the discriminatory practices of the armed forces. But you cannot compare homosexuals to Blacks. Gays are not a race of people. Discrimination against Blacks is very different from discrimination against gays.
The Black struggle in America has historical basis and implication. Slavery and Jim Crow were practices that raped our families, our identities and our culture. Today, Blacks remain politically and economically oppressed. Poverty and violence have resulted from this systematic oppression. The gains of our ancestors seem to have been temporary.
In contrast, homosexuals are not economically oppressed. As gay rights advocates indicate, they are our lawyers, our doctors, our teachers, etc. Gays represent mainstream America in that they have gained economic freedom and affluence. Politically, many government officials have begun to admit their homosexuality. The struggle of gays is not comparable.
13 comments
“Discrimination against Blacks is very different from discrimination against gays.”
“In contrast, homosexuals are not economically oppressed.”
I haven’t heard of anyone being refused an adoption because the kid would ‘be exposed to the black lifestyle.’ There may be, but it certain doesn’t get as much press.
I think you’re gerrymandering oppression. THEIRS isn’t that bad, YOURS is/was horrific. sounds like an incel.
But you cannot compare homosexuals to Blacks.
This is something that’s annoyed me for a long time…people saying “you can’t compare X to Y, because X is like this, and Y is like that!” Well, you just compared those two things yourself, didn’t you??
Not economically oppressed… what a shock that dude does not know that for a long time you could be fired for being LGBTQ, especially if you worked with kids. Dude also doesn’t know that are far more likely to be homeless and once we do become homeless, we are more likely to deal with discrimination that extends our homelessness.
And we don’t experience violence? Wow… how about the trans people who have been murdered, you know, for being trans? Or how about, just as an example, Mathew Shepard?
This dude could also, you know, try asking a black LGBTQ person, and see what their experience is. But I doubt they will since they seem to think the groups are mutually exclusive.
Until very recently: LGBTQ+ citizens could not gain the benefits of marriage, could not leave their significant other the beneficiary of their wills or insurance if their relationship was known, did not qualify for many medical benefits either as family or even individually considering malicious medical misinformation that clings even today, could be summarily denied work or fired from a position, and were/still are generally treated as though they are criminals of the worst nature as a mere fact of their existence. And this baseless perception affected everything - affected absolutely everything - from the basic observance of rights as a human being let alone as a worker should they seek legal recourse to employment, to housing, to the ability to travel, and anything and everything to do with being in proximity to children.
And that’s just the economic impact you seem to think is more important than the whole human rights and being murdered in the streets to the legal consequences of a public shrug aspects.
Not only are laws currently being worked on in the US to roll things back to that sorry state entirely new fucked up laws such as one that will put teachers and parents on sex offender registries for accepting and supporting children who come out going a step further than your example by stripping the rights of people AROUND the oppressed to facilitate their oppression and frighten off support. And this is not even diving into the very real threats of reintroducing conversion “therapy” or going full Scott Lively which are by definition acts of genocide currently acceptable in public discourse in the same vein “The Jewish Question” once was.
This reminds me of Hannah Pearl Davis (AKA Just Pearly Things) who is a youngish tradwife (currently age 28) who insists that feminism is based on a lie because women have had full legal rights since at least medieval times, have also been more powerful socially and politically than men because of Chivalry, and all sorts of other ahistorical nonsense. She weirdly seems to imply that her husband is basically her slave because he supports her economically, though hasn’t said so outright that I’m aware of.
This isn’t entirely comparable (see what I did there?) because the OP presumably isn’t themselves gay (though it’s entirely possible, just a bit weird, for them to be so) but there’s a similar “mistaking relatively recent developments for having always been true, because I’ve never experienced anything else” vibe going on here.
The only difference is that unlike LGBTQ kids, black ones don't have to come out to their parents. But discrimination against them is the same attitudes, as Coretta Scott King rightly pointed out.http://www.historymuse.net/readings/CorettaScottKingBlackandGayCRts.html
Also like relations between black and white lovers, in some places, it was a crime for consenting adults to get it on if they were both homosexual men - until quite recently.
They're both forms of discrimination, there's also no true "black race", it's a human concept. But it's true that you're less of an asshole if you discriminate less, against people for their skin color, or against people for their orientation...
The Civil Rights Movement of the 20th Century. The Civil Rights Movement of the 21st Century.
No Difference.
Within the marches led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, were white people then.
Black people in Pride Parades today .
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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