OPINION: Today's Civil Rights Movement

...its time for some constructive criticism.

This is not the first article to get into the Broadside attempting to defend the merits and benevolence of gay marriage. The opinion editorial from Brandon Cosby can be found at http://www.connect2mason.com/marriage and a response to it was posted as comment at the bottom.

However the substance of this one is far less noticeable than the Cosby work, as there is virtually no effort made at all to use any evidence whatsoever to back up the myriad of clichés and emotional blather found in the article. Ultimately, the work suffers from a long usage of loaded terms, lacking relevance or substance to arguments, contradictions, and even some doubtful statements often used to simply slam non-likeminded individuals.

Let’s start with the loaded terms. The author is convinced that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s is the Gay Rights Movement of today, even going so far as to try and disconnect the racial element of the CRM solely because few have ever called it the “Black Rights Movement.” Maybe the author should look at virtually every single documentary book and movie about the Civil Rights Movement and he would see that race is the central issue, not lifestyles or some general blanket empty usage of the word rights. Furthermore there was indeed a “Women’s Rights Movement”, typically considered to have begun in 1848.

It only goes downhill from there. The article makes such a futile effort to connect the CRM and the GRM, as he uses words like “segregation”, “bigotry,” “oppress,” and “equal rights” without actually showing how these apply to the GRM. And indeed the term “segregation of marriage” is just plain faulty reasoning. If the proponents of the bans wanted segregation, they wouldn’t be outlawing gay marriage they would be demanding that it happen away from where heterosexual marriages take place. The author is using terms like these and clichéd references to rights as a way of emotionally baiting his audience.

On the absence of relevance, just pick half the sentences in the column and one can find that they serve no actual purpose in proving that we as a community should fight for gay marriage:

“English philosopher Edmund Burke once said that, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

“America is the greatest country in the world because it’s a place where all races, ethnicities and religions can come and have completely equal rights. There’s no greater proof of this than seeing the son of a black Muslim from Africa become our president.”

These and other passages offer nothing of substance, least of all do anything for the central claim that this is the continuation of the struggle for civil rights.

They fail what I like to call the polygamy legalization test: these and other pathos-laden pleas could easily be used to demand the legalization of polygamy. In fact, let’s take one of the paragraphs and change it accordingly:

'Allowing polygamy shouldn’t be debatable in this country. Make no mistake; our tolerance has come a long way in the past 40 years, let alone the past 300, but as long as we continue to suppress the rights of American citizens who have not committed any crime, and as long as we as a people continue to oppose polygamy, we have no morals, we have no character, and we have no equality.
And for what? What does allowing many people to marry cost us? If two heterosexuals getting a divorce doesn’t hurt the sanctity of marriage, then neither does three four or more people getting married. And just as we don’t dare to infringe on the rights of those people, we have no right to oppress polygamists because we disagree with their lifestyles.'

Another issue with the column, one that really irks me, is the portrayal of the other side. It is inherently fascinating that the author would talk so harshly of people morally opposed to gay marriage and try to connect his cause to black emancipation. Does he not realize how little of the African American community supports his reasoning? Just look at the large numbers of black voters who while casting a ballot for Obama also cast a ballot for the sanctity of marriage. Nevertheless, the article goes into blatant misrepresentation of the other side in order to gain support from his readers.

“If two heterosexuals getting a divorce doesn’t hurt the sanctity of marriage, then neither does two gay people getting married.”

Yet very few people believe that. As examples Focus on the Family is very active in marriage counseling and considers the creation of “No Fault Divorce” to be as equally wrong as gay marriage. Denominations that overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage, like the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Roman Catholic Church, also hold strong opposition to divorce.

“There is no threat from allowing homosexuals to marry. They aren’t going to invade our schools and sneak gay juice into our children’s milk. They’re not going to come knocking on our doors to try and convert us to their way of life. It’s already been allowed in some states, and the world didn’t explode, babies didn’t start dying, and there weren’t huge outbreaks of ‘gayness.’”

Most of this passage is really just too insulting to even entertain a response to, which goes to show an opinion article in the Broadside can indeed insensitively attack other people with impunity. Beloved tolerance indeed. Yet what this passage does is that it greatly oversimplifies the genuine concerns people do have with homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular. There are problems with legalizing it, some of which is covered in a well written essay found at this URL:
http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

Then I found things that I did not expect, namely contradictions. Of course everybody has their own perception on what constitutes a contradiction in a text, but I think these are worth considering:

First sentence of final paragraph:
“America is the greatest country in the world because it’s a place where all races, ethnicities and religions can come and have completely equal rights.”

Versus the last sentence of the fourth paragraph:
“…as long as we as a people continue to oppose gay marriage, we have no morals, we have no character, and we have no equality.”

Last sentence of the sixth paragraph:
“This argument has nothing to do with the impact of homosexual marriages in our society—there is none.”

Versus pretty much the entire message of the article, which is to change our society for the better. If there is no impact, doesn’t that technically mean we would still be, in the arrogant words of the author, without morals or character?

Sentences in the first paragraph:
“The reason for this, among others, is that the fight for equal rights among different groups of people is a fight for the equal rights of all people. Every fight for equal rights is a fight for all of us, because for all of our differences, we are all created equal.”

Versus the last sentence before the last paragraph:
“To be gay isn’t to be different from us; it’s to be exactly the same.”

Finally, let’s note some interesting claims about certain groups and what they should be doing according to the author. In that, one finds another breed of contradiction: between what the author believes they should do and what the sacred texts of the religious groups in question say they should do.

“If you’re Christian, your savior gave his life to show us the evil that our bigotry can visit upon each other.” --Author

“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
--1st Corinthians 6:9-10

“If you’re Muslim, you’ve seen what bigotry can visit upon the innocent since September 11, 2001.”
--Author

“If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.”
--An-Nisa (Sura 4), ayat 16

“If you’re Jewish, your entire history is one of overcoming prejudice.”
--Author

“Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.”
--Leviticus 18:22

The author regrets having not done more to stop the bans from being passed in the states they were passed. If this is his way of helping the cause, then maybe it was better that he hadn’t done anything after all.