Recently I posted a comment on Huffington Post in which I said that African-American people should be more sympathetic or empathetic with gay people than they are since they are both minorities who have been discriminated against.
There was a reply to my comment in which the writer denied that the two groups should be compared. I have thought of a few reasons why maybe that person is right.
1. It was never illegal to be African-American.
2. It is not illegal for two African-Americans to marry one another nor for African-American couples to adopt children.
3. African-Americans are not told, from the pulpit, that they are sinners, simply because of who they are, or that they are going to hell because they are African-American.
4. No one has claimed that natural disasters such as floods and tornadoes are the result of God punishing America for tolerating African-Americans.
5. African-Americans may have their own bars and so forth, but those bars don't get raided by the police.
Yes, all those things have applied to gay people. And where discrimination in hiring and housing on the basis of race is illegal everywhere, gay people don't have that protection under federal law, so they may be legally discriminated against in some areas.
On the other hand, African-Americans do get called names (as gay people get called faggot) and sometimes are beaten up or even killed for who they are.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
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