Dan Savage on D. L. Hughley: "Hate is hate."

I think it's always difficult to try to understand the way someone that has had a different upbringing and functions with a completely different kind of thought process from our own. D. L. Hughley, I presume, was taught to fear the "Lord" from a young age. Even if he isn't all that religious, he fears God. And I think if you grow up in that environment then you are less likely to understand gay rights and marriage equality.

At least D. L. Hughley says he voted against Prop 8. But I think he was trying to interview Dan Savage from the point of view of a Black Christian and that's why he came off as homophobic. But I think the gay community should not give up on Black Christians. There should be more outreach done through the church. Every church should have been contacted to use as a platform to tell the story of the struggle of gay people to reach equality, to be treated as an equal human being with equal civil rights! Maybe then we can truly change minds.

The history of prejudice and the fight for civil rights is not proprietary--no one group holds a distinct "advantage" over another in such an argument, and to insist otherwise is insulting. Millions of people have died from hate; one person dying from hate is one too many.

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But the black civil rights movement is different from the gay civil rights movement. Why?

Well, let's see:

1)  Blacks were SLAVES

2) Blacks were segregated (used separate facilities)

3) Blacks did NOT have the right to vote

4) There's NO coming out for black people (everyone knew you were black from the moment they saw you)

5) Many blacks came from poor black families (so not only were they disadvantaged because they were black but doubly disadvantaged because they came from a family of generational disadvantages) which is a great set back

I think that is what saddened me most about the Prop 8 vote as it regards the black community. It was not that they literally lost the battle for us -- after all, they are only 6% of the California population. I think what shocked me the most was the 70% of black folk who agreed with the straight white males who (despite Obama's win) control this country. I always thought oppressed people stuck together. We may not agree on everything, but we never helped the people in power to oppress another group. It is a very basic concept, found in all cultures and religions (particularly Christianity) -- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." What happened to that on election day?

...but gay men and women have been tortured, burned at the stake, rounded up and sent to camps, gassed, bashed and denied equality for much the same period of time as black people. Just as gay and bisexual men were leading relatively open lives during the Greek age, African kingdoms thrived and traded with Europeans and the Middle East. Our histories are equally rich, and horrific, and the implication that one of our histories is more "vital" or "important" than the others' is the wrong way to view it. We should celebrate and honor ALL of our histories, not try to divvy up a value of our histories.

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...that the hundreds of thousands of men with pink triangles tatooed on their arms during the 1930s would agree with you. So many victims of this senseless and irrational hatred.

I say we take the warning labels off everything and let nature take it's course.

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Prior to November 4th, I probably would've agreed with you. Since then, though, my opinion of Dan Savage has dropped so significantly that I'm not inclined to listen to anything that he has to say, particularly on issues of race. Savage has, indeed, mollified his tone since that inflammatory, borderline racist rant following Prop 8's passage, but it's hard for me to pretend as if that never happened. 

Moreover, I wonder: if this were another issue and a columnist had wrote something blaming one demographic group, would they be getting the same authoritative microphone that Dan Savage is getting? I've seen clips of Savage on CNN, Comedy Central and HBO since Prop 8's passage and not one person has asked him about that column. Had someone written a column, for example, blaming McCain's loss on Hispanic voters (which, by the way, isn't that far-fetched of a notion), what network would give him/her a seat at the table and, if they did, what journalist wouldn't think it incumbent to ask a question about it. 

And, you have to consider: what does that say about the dearth of LGBT leadership and their visibility and what does that say about the relative importance networks place on this particular issue (that is, civil equality)?

It's food for thought.