I will confess that I'm not always a fan of Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post opinion page because, in my view, he too often sells out to the apologists for anti-gay propaganda and misogamy. In today's Washington Post, however, he has a piece in the Washington Post that nails it and adds to the complaints I voiced this morning concerning the tools of the Christianists. Capehart takes no prisoners in his indictment of the cowards and bigots who claim to support civil rights - but only if those seeking equality look just like themselves. Here are some highlights from Capeharts column:*
Today's Post editorial on the marriage-equality debacle in Maryland wisely takes the long view. “The trend in public opinion continues in favor of equal rights for gays in general and same-sex marriage in particular,” the editorial board points out. “The direction of the debate seems clear enough; the pace is frustrating.”
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A pace not helped at all by cowards in the state legislature who talked out of both sides of their mouths to the gay community and who refused to heed the call of leadership. Or by African Americans who can’t or refuse to see that one’s civil rights should not be encumbered by race or sexual orientation.
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And then there was that other spineless profile in courage, Del. Tiffany T. Alston (D-Prince George’s). She, too, was a co-sponsor of the marriage-equality bill. But when it came time to vote in the Judiciary Committee, she literally fled the House. Alston, her chief of staff and Del. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore) rode around for 15 minutes to avoid casting votes.
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Alston and others who use that lame argument should contemplate what would have happened if “the people” had their say back in the 1950s and 1960s on questions of integration, voting rights and discrimination. Putting the civil rights of a minority up for a popular vote is never a good idea. As we have learned so many times in this nation’s history, sometimes “the people” need to be led by public officials with the guts to do the right thing even when their constituents are not (and may never be) supportive.
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What I find even more troubling is the wedge being driven between African Americans and gays. After the marriage-equality bill was tabled, the Family Research Council gave “particular thanks” to black preachers, their churches and legislators “who spoke out against the attempted hijacking of the concept of ‘civil rights.’
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”Del. Emmett Burns (D-Baltimore County) is one of those who found the linkage offensive. “The civil-rights movement as I knew it … had nothing to do with same-sex marriage,” he said. "And those who decide to ride on our coattails are historically incorrect."
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Fine, don't listen to the gays. Listen to Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an architect of the famed 1963 March on Washington who was beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on “Bloody Sunday,” one of many beatings he suffered. “I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation,” wrote Lewis back in 2003. “I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.”
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“The civil-rights movement was about puttingteeth into the Declaration of Independence.” It still is. The strugglefor civil rights and equality is part of a continuum. As Dr. Martin Luther King often said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” African Americans neither own that arc nor have exclusive right to it. Gay men and lesbians have every right to followit until it bends toward justice for them.
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Black preachers and those in the black community who play lackey to the likes of Family Research Council are cutting their own throats long term. As a gay American, why should I and many others give a damn about black civil rights when too many in the black community are only too willing to throw me and other LGBT Americans under the bus driven by racist white Christianists like the coven at Family Research Council? When these same Christianists and their GOP allies seek to roll back civil rights legislation, these cowards ought not be surprised if they find themselves standing alone with the knowledge that they brought it upon themselves..
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