Yesterday I wrote a diary about some of the negative responses to Obama's HRC speech.
I was of the opinion that there are more pressing issues in this country that affect everyone, not just one group. I must say that I was taken aback by the comments defending the negativity.
One such comment compared Gay rights to the plight of slaves. Immediately, I thought this comment was absurd and really stretching the struggle for equal rights. For some reason, that comment has been banging around in my head all day.
Is it possible that the struggle for gay rights really do compare to the struggle for rights based on skin color?
In 1862 and 1863, two executive orders by President Lincoln made up the Emancipation Proclamation. Essentially this act freed the the slaves after centuries of forced servitude. Although this act freed many slaves, it would take the completion of a civil war and the 13th amendment to the Constitution to end slavery for good. After the war many blacks were able to "work" on the same plantations that they had served as slaves. In many of the southern states, blacks were free, but still shackled by intense racism. The Ku Klux Klan rose in the south after the civil war and was fed by this racism. Many blacks were shot and lynched and there were no investigations or "hate crimes" back then. You were killed because of who you are and how you were born.
You were killed because of who you are and how you were born.
This brings me to October 7, 1998, when Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson murdered Matthew Shepard for the same reason. There are others in the United States;
The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans in 1973,
Harvey Milk in 1978,
PFC Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell, KY in 1999,
Seaman August Provost in June of this year. Repealing DADT could have saved his life.
The list goes on and on and on and on.
An executive order freed the slaves. Another executive order can save lives.
I understand the frustration in the LGBT community. I will not tell you to be patient.
Today, hatred and bigotry still exists. There is racism out there, but we know that hatred, we see it and can identify it. The problem isn't so easy in the gay community. Many of the anti-gay rhetoric comes from "good" people; churchgoers and Christians. When a person professes to be holy and close to God and calls homosexuality a sin, it's not so easy to see the face of this hatred; for it is veiled behind a holy bible. Now, I know that all Christians don't share this belief, but it is a major driving force in denying equal rights.
The two struggles for equal rights are very similar. It wasn't all that long ago that people of mixed races couldn't get married in this country. Now, that seems absurd to people now a days. Let's hope it won't take too much longer for gays to have that same right.
When I'm 80 years old, I'd like to look back to this time and think how absurd things used to be.