Earlier this week, Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post wrote a column outlining why he thinks African Americans should embrace gay rights, specifically the freedom for committed and loving gay and lesbian couples to marry.
As an African-American woman who has been active in my support for the LGBT community for decades -- both with the ACLU and outside the organization -- it comes down to the very basic truth that for equality to have real meaning, fairness and equal treatment under the law must extend to everyone. This is what informed ACLU fights against discriminatory laws like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and DOMA that I helped to lead in the 1990s in the organization's Washington Legislative Office. Importantly, it is also what the struggle for the freedom to marry is rooted in.
Last month, I, along with my brother, testified before the Maryland Legislature in support of legislation to extend the freedom to marry to same-sex couples. As someone who was born and raised in the Cherry Hill neighborhood of Baltimore City, it was a wonderful opportunity.
My brother, William "Billy" Murphy, and I spoke to the legislators as members of a proud family with a heritage of advancing equality for all people. We told the gathered legislators that the Murphy family has been standing for the principles of fairness and equality for many generations. For example, my ancestor, John Murphy Sr., a former slave, started the Afro-American newspaper, which played a vital role in the civil rights movement.
Because the principles of fairness and equal treatment under the law have long been core to my identity, extending these principles to the LGBT community and same-sex couples has always been something I care deeply about.
As I explained to the Maryland legislators in my testimony, same-sex couples in our community share the values of commitment and family. Gay and lesbian couples marry for the same reasons I married my husband -- to take care of each other and our children. This includes African-American same-sex couples. The Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area is home to roughly 5,000 African-American same-sex households. Many of these couples are raising children together, while making comparatively lower wages than white households. African-American same-sex couples in Maryland have much to gain from ending the unfair exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from civil marriage.
In doing this work, I am heartened by the ever-increasing number of prominent African Americans, both religious leaders and civil rights icons, who are embracing the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, including Julian Bond, Rep. John Lewis, Rev. Al Sharpton, and the late Coretta Scott King. These are all individuals who dedicated great parts of their lives to seeing that people be treated fairly. I imagine that they approached these issues, like I do, with a guiding conviction that discrimination is wrong and all people should be treated with fairness and equal treatment under the law.
We are at a critical threshold moment for the LGBT community in this country. African Americans can play a pivotal role in working to strike down remaining discriminatory barriers facing LGBT people, including gay and lesbian couples and their children. I know that I will be doing my part to ensure that America is a country where all people are treated fairly and entitled to equal treatment under the law.
Aubrey Sarvis: There Can Be No Second-Class Service Members
It has Rules and Laws and Can only be fulfilled By Christians.
HUSBAND, WIFE, FATHER, and MOTHER are CHRISTIAN roles and can only be filled by Christians, anything else is a cheap counterfeit. So if it's not a Christian, it's Not a Marriage, it's some cheap unethical copy of the real Honest and Pure thing!!
can have free hearing aids from the Veterans Administration. Is that a "right?" Yes, in
the sense that he can get them legally. But the reality is that he has signed up for a
system of privileges, preferences, and benefits that society grants him because society
gets something in return -- it gets people to defend the country. By analogy, the
institution of marriage is set up so that society gets the advantage of stability, which
is derived from having the maximum number of its members grow up with a male parental
influence and a female parental influence. It is that focus to which the whole of society
must understand and re-emphasize before the family-based instability creates social and
psychological problems that are more widespread. Marriage isn't a live-and-let live right of the kind in the Constitution.
Would some folks magically turn Gay and not marry you?
Would not adopted kids be better off with married same sex parents than at an orphanage?
ALL OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST EQUALITY BOIL DOWN TO
"WE DON'T WANT 'THOSE PEOPLE' SITTING IN OUR PART OF THE BUS"
-- or are simply religious arguments, which do not belong in civil law
Personally I believe the priority of African Americans should be to reduce the 14.1% unemployment rate. You understand.
FYI the article is outdated, Since Maryland legalized gay marriage on March 1st. Now lets work on bringing down unemployment.
Definately there is a wish for equality and the recognition of their rights, but there are issues for transgender people that are far more important than same sex marriage.
Most transgender people just want to stay alive, to be respected for who they are, to live in safety without discrimination, to have jobs and be adequately housed long enough to even consider marriage as something important in their lives.
So why should this section of society who are most at risk, be include in all these discussions at all.
Is the idea somehow along the lines of “let’s add transgender to the mix to pad out the numbers to make our argument seem greater” or is there a genuine attempt to include them in their own right.
Including transgender in the equality and fairness issue as in this case is not working,
its token inclusion here does not help their cause one bit.
How long will it take for transgender issues to come out into the light and be seen for what they are and not be buried on some other good cause?
Surely the time has come where society can acknowledge transgender people for who they are and not use them as pawns in the game of life.
LGBT Rights: A Matter of LAW
Since the mid part of 2011 the majority of Americans support legalizing gay marriage. This means that popular support is now on the side of homosexuals as well.
Since we are in no way a theocracy, the simple fact of the matter is that religion has absolutely no bearing on the issue of whether homosexuals deserve the same rights as everyone else. What people think their religion says about homosexuality carries zero LEGAL WEIGHT in this discussion.
When you take away those three arguments, it's readily apparent that those that oppose gay marriage don't really have anything left with which to mount a logical, reasoned, rational defense against homosexual s being allowed to legally marry.
I'm a straight man who's been with the same woman for 20 years, married for 13 of them. Homosexuality in no way negatively affects my marriage or my life. I've counted many homosexuals as my friends over the years. It is unconscionable that in 2012 people are still trying to deny homosexuals the rights they've been guaranteed under the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers intended them to have, based on some antiquated, superstitious religious dogma.
1- your first argument is essentially what one chief justice said, and by the way we all agree with what he says however the definition of "marry" means "with someone of the opposite sex". You don't address that subtle but very significant element.
2- popular support, there are thousands of polls, you are correct that the % who support gay marriage and civil unions is increasing, however the nation is still deeply divided. Last number I remember was essentially 50% opposing and 30% pro marriage and 20% pro civil union.
3- fully agree, religion has nothing to do with this.
But then, you restrict the entire debate to those 3 issues. I believe adoption rights to be the most controversial thing about gay marriage. Nature's recipe:
male & female love each other, nothing wrong with that, male & female's love can create a baby, male & female have a baby, baby lives with mummy & daddy
(fe)male & (fe)male love each other, nothing wrong with that, (fe)male & (fe)male's love canNOT create a baby, they live together without a baby.
Baby has the right to live with mummy & daddy, nature is wise. If biological parents are not available for any reason, then adoption by a male/female couple is the closest alternative. No one has the right to deny a male/female family to
2. I don't know where you got your numbers, or how long ago they were from, but as of May of last year Gallup polls report that 53% of Americans support allowing gays to legally marry. And here's a link that proves it: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/22/time-majority-americans-support-gay-marriage/
Since then support has only increased.
"Nature's recipe" is nothing more than another excuse to try & justify discrimination against homosexuals.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-sexual-continuum/201006/25-year-long-study-finds-children-lesbian-parents-may-be-better-adj
"Compared to established norms, the children of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence. They were rated significantly lower in social problems, rule breaking, and aggressive problems. This led the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue a report in support of same-sex parents raising children."
The ability to procreate has NEVER been a criteria for marriage.
In Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Kennedy's opinion grounded the right of consenting adults to have sex on how intimate and personal the conduct was to those involved, not on the conduct being traditionally protected by society (as in Bowers), procreative (as in Eisenstadt and Roe), or conducted by married people (as in Griswold).
Furthermore, portions of Justice Scalia's dissent appeared in Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling in Perry v. Brown (formerly Perry v. Schwarzenegger) supporting same-sex marriage and finding California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional:
"If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct...what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "the liberty protected by the Constitution"? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry."
This view of equality is deeply troubling. Only certain groups can be equal. And those groups need to act like the majority to gain acceptance.
This is all a sham. The ACLU is helping the majority to enforce a specific culture on all people. This is nothing to be proud of.
I can't imagine from where you pulled this. There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution that even remotely suggests it.
And until recently, hasn't "the majority" been "enforc[ing] a specific culture on all people?" Any but heterosexual relationships are still not recognized by the federal government and those of all but eight states.
I will agree that's "nothing to be proud of."
I felt I could spend my time and money on those things because my state has the best basic needs equality in the nation when it comes to everyone in the LGBT so there was no conflict.
Basic needs are housing, employment, schooling, health care and public accommodations. They need to be protected for everyone regardless of sexuality, presentation, role or identity before the fundraising and lobbying machines are re-aimed toward marriage equality. Those powerful political machines shove other equality efforts aside and gobble up available funding (while providing nicely paid careers for those in the lobbying organizations), never actually returning to help those they shoved aside.
It's easy to say that marriage is the best use of resources when you feel secure in your job, your housing and your ability to use a public restroom without hassle, regardless of your affluence. Most LGBT people however are not that fortunate.