This has been such an exciting week because the Federal court struck down the gay marriage ban (aka Prop 8) in California. This is a huge victory for Gay Rights in the state of California, and also for the entire country. Even-though the ruling was made in a California court by a California Judge, it still sets legal precedence. And legal precedence can be used and cited in any state, and even in a Federal court. Right after I got the good news, I stumbled upon a short youtube clip taken from one of Dr. Martin Luther King's speeches. Call it fate or serendipity or a sign from a higher power, but either way, this wasn't just a random coincidence. It was very clear to me that I was meant to share it with my blog readers and frame it in the proper context so even those that have opposing views, can still see the logic in my argument.
I've heard this speech hundreds of times, and yet I still get chills every time I listen to it. I'm posting this video because I see a very present correlation to the fight for gay rights that's going on in this country right now. I think it's very sad that many of my fellow African Americans fought so hard for racial equality, but still can't see the injustice in denying equal rights to the GLBT community. I know there are some people that feel uneasy or even offended whenever the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's gets compared to the present day Gay Rights movement. And I'm sure some of those people would consider it complete heresy to even associate Dr. Martin Luther King with anything having to do with Gay Rights. If that's your belief, then fine... you're entitled to form your own opinion (even if that opinion is a product of ignorance perpetuated by hate and cloaked in intolerance lol). I'm not saying that one movement has a greater social relevance than the other because comparing the hardships of each is irrelevant. Although we've made huge progress on the road to racial equality, we're still not there yet. And the fight for Gay Rights has a long and hard road ahead that we must travel. I strongly believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would be a great ally to the GLBT community and would fight right along with us.
I challenge anyone who reads this, to watch the short clip, and then honestly tell me that they can't see the connection and how it can apply to the Gay Rights movement.
After reading my blog, someone sent me an interesting link. It's a letter from the founder of The Black Panther Party Huey Newton, about his support of GLBT community and their fight for equal rights. This was written way back in the 1960's. I was completely blown away and shocked that I had never read about this or heard about this anywhere before. I was lead to believe that The Black Panther Party was a very misogynistic and homophobic type of organization, and just now in 2010 I'm learning that that was not the case at all. Here's the link so you can read this explosive information for yourself, and take whatever relevance you can from it.
ReplyDeletehttp://globalwire.blogspot.com/2008/07/huey-newton-on-homosexuality-sexism.html
Wow. The speech is amazing and the parallels are clearly there. Thanks for posting this. And I love that someone sent you the Huey Newton info. That's really cool!
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