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Same-Sex Unions Draw Civil Rights Parallels

By Menaka Fernando and Diana Hernandez
February 27, 2004, Daily Bruin (UCLA)

The debate on same-sex marriages has suddenly taken the country about 40 to 50 years back in time.

Terms like "separate but equal," states' rights and the Civil Rights Movement have gone from the pages of U.S. history textbooks into the mouths of prominent leaders and on to airways across the nation in recent weeks and months.

The link drawn between the two movements have prompted many black leaders to voice their support for same-sex marriages despite the fundamental difference of the group of people who believe they are being discriminated.

Many campus civil rights experts and student leaders think this surge of support from the black community has resulted less from the similarities between the movements and more from the responsibility that some feel to oppose discrimination of any kind.

Most opponents of gay rights do not believe they are violating civil rights and wish to maintain the sanctity of marriage.

Black leaders speak out

While images of President Bush pushing for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and woman contrast images of thousands of gay and lesbian couples lined up outside San Francisco City Hall to obtain marriage certificates, many black leaders have linked the movement to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Congressman John Lewis, D-Georgia, who was one of the speakers at the 1963 March on Washington, has written about the strong connection between the two movements.

"Some say let's choose another route and give gay folks some legal rights but call it something other than civil rights," Lewis wrote in an op-ed piece in The Boston Globe in October 2003. "We have been down that road before in this country. Separate is not equal."

UCLA law Professor Brad Sears, administrative director of the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation and the Law, strongly agrees that the "separate but equal" argument is analogous to the issue of gay marriage.

"Brown v. Board should be legal support that civil unions are not constitutional," Sears said, referring to the 1954 Supreme Court case that called for the racial integration of public schools and prohibited a "separate but equal" policy that had been implemented by many states.

Other leaders from Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton and former Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun to members of Martin Luther King Jr.'s family have given their support for gay marriage.

Religious conflict

At the same time, several religious leaders in the black community are voicing their views about holding on to traditional religious doctrines and their views opposing gay marriage. Some of these leaders also emphasize the lack of connection between the two forms of civil rights movements.

The Rev. Talbert Swan II, a Massachusetts religious leader and author, has asserted his view that the movements are not linked.

"Homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle. ... I could not choose the color of my skin," Swan told Fox News in a November 2003 report.

In an address given at Harvard Law School, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said making a connection between gays wanting to be married compared to the black community's fight for civil rights is a "stretch."

Though Jackson said he did support some rights for gay and lesbian couples, he believes marriage should be a union between a man and a woman.

But other religious leaders across the country and student leaders on campus are pushing the scriptural arguments aside and say they're simply pushing for human rights.

Sexual orientation is a touchy subject for many religious people in the black community, said Na'Shaun Neal, chairperson of the African Student Union.

There are many in the black community who believe marriage is a gift given by God, but that does not mean they have the right to dictate the lives of gay people, Neal said.

Neal said fighting for civil rights is a part of the "African American experience" and that he will continue to fight oppression of people's identities.

"There are divisions in all communities ... but I see a lot of parallels," Neal said, referring to the civil and gay rights movements.

Drawing parallels

Many campus experts believe the parallels can be laid out on several levels.

Sears, a lecturer who specializes in gay and lesbian issues, sees the movements intersecting at a few key points.

They are comparable because they are both forms of discrimination, they both reignited the debate of the state and federal government's role in regulating civil rights, and both stem from philosophical principles, Sears said.

He argued that the philosophy behind prohibiting slaves rights and rights of the black community stemmed from economic reasons that began with white masters not wanting to have their authority undermined. Meanwhile, the opposition to gay marriage comes mainly from religious philosophy, Sears said.

For some, the fights further overlap because equality based on sexual orientation is still a fight for equality.

"The gay rights movement is a Civil Rights Movement. I couldn't even think of what else to call it," said Ronni Sanlo, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Center on campus.

Sanlo said the LGBT community's quest for equality constitutes a civil rights movement. They want to have the same rights other people in this country have, a goal that has yet to be fully reached.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court also drew parallels between the movements when it ruled a ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional earlier this month. In its ruling, the court cited laws that struck down bans on interracial marriage in the late 1960s.

For all of these reasons, the gay rights movement is intricately linked to the civil rights movement, and has been since the late 1960s, said Susan Cochran, a professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and chairwoman of the LGBT Studies Faculty Advisory Committee.

The gay rights movement took force in the 1950s, becoming more formally organized. Heavily influenced by the civil rights movement of the time, various groups fought the persecution faced by homosexuals. The movement finally escalated in 1969 as a result of the Stonewall Riots – a police raid on a gay bar in New York City.

The parallels aside, black student leaders on campus say it is important for black leaders to fight all forms of oppression.

"If the gay community isn't successful in obtaining the right of marriage ... it sets back other communities," said Anica McKesey, president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council and former ASU chairperson, adding that she feels connected to several communities as a bisexual, female black leader on campus.