article: Same-sex marriage is surely a civil right

Many blacks oppose such unions for religious reasons, but bigotry is bigotry, even if it’s cloaked in faith. Blacks should know this better than most.

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The fight for gay rights is like our civil rights struggle, however, and it’s hypocritical for groups that have had to fight long and hard to win their own constitutional rights to turn around and try to deny them to the next group. We’re seeing this in the descendants of immigrant groups that were despised and vilified during their early days in this country, and that now want to deny recent immigrants the means to become lawful citizens.

This hypocrisy was apparent to me as I was growing up in a black Baptist church. I routinely heard ministers condemn gays from the pulpit, even though half the male choir members, the choir director, the flower arranger and plenty of other male church members were obviously gay. The church would have had difficulty functioning without them.

Because it’s difficult enough to be black in this country, I know that black communities would prefer not to have to deal with the added stigma society attaches to homosexuals, and the obvious link to HIV and AIDS. And with stable heterosexual marriages rare enough in black communities, some African-Americans think that encouraging same-sex marriage would only complicate the situation.

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I won’t dismiss the beliefs of blacks who believe that homosexuality is immoral, but I’d caution them that morality has often been used as a cloak for old-fashioned bigotry, fear and discomfort with people and behaviors that are different.

Read all of: Same-sex marriage is surely a civil right by Sheryl McCarthy ~ USA Today ~ 8/21/2006

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