THE NEXT CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT? Michael Triplett

I am not conviced that gay marriage is "the" civil rights issue of our times, nor do I find the protests of African American ministers very impressive. So count me as a neither.

You are correct that the civil rights movement provides the "language" for describing social change over the last 50 years. That language, however, often fails to really capture present-day situations and I think the battle for SSM is not really a civil rights battle akin to Dr. King. I believe it is a complex equality issue but it is not built on the remnants of slavery and true oppression. That's not to underplay the levels of homophobia or intolerance in our society, but instead to say that they are different with one
not necessarily "more oppressive" than the other. They are just different.

On the other hand, I am not terribly impressed or surprised that African American churches have joined the "amen choir" against SSM along with other social conservatives. African American churches come from the same fundamentalist, evangelical, and charismatic traditions that produced Pat
Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and most of the social conservative movement. While their social politics may have been different, the messages have been very similar. Therefore, it is no surprise that white social conservatives
have co-opted African American ministers into their social agenda because they have shared the same social agenda for decades. They just don't share the same pews.

The relationship between African American churches and the gay community has always been strained. African American ministers have long preached that homosexuality would destroy the Black family and that homosexuality is a sin. This line of biblical preaching is best understood in the context of the AIDS epidemic in the African American community. While African American ministers were preaching gays would destroy the Black family, AIDS ravaged the African American community. Barely a word was spoken about compassion and tolerance and AIDS while the disease moved from African American men to African American women. Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, African American churches continued to preach about the sins of homosexuality while their congregations dwindled because of AIDS. In the late 90s, I spent a number of years working in AIDS services. I saw a parade of African American men who proudly declared they got AIDS from drug addiction and not from being gay, even though their medical histories showed that sexual transmission from infected men was clearly the mode of
transmission. These men, who were also having sex with women, were unwilling to acknowledge their AIDS because of the messages they received from their own churches. Being gay was a "white" thing that they could never discuss with their ministers, who preferred to ignore the existance of
African American gays.

So no one should be surprised by the fact that African American ministers have jumped on the bandwagon against SSM. As for their moral authority, that's another deeper, more complex question.
posted by Eve at 3:51 PM VOTE

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