May 25, 2006  |  By: CHELSEA JENNINGS  | COMMENTS     

THE EQUALITY RIDERS visiting anti-gay campuses across the country were the latest to make sweeping comparisons between the gay rights movement and the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans. That controversial analogy is both far too easy to come by and far too hard to justify.

Worse yet, to compare the two movements betrays an ignorance about the real roots of our movement, and an ignorance about black America today.

Of course there are similarities between the LGBT rights movement and the African-American civil rights movement. There are similarities between all struggles for equality.

But being gay is not the same as being black, and the comparison glosses over the unique experience of being African Americam. Even those of us who “look gay” rarely show up on the radar of those who assume everyone is straight. Invisibility may be offensive in its own right, but it lessens direct, personal discrimination.

Race is never invisible. No salesperson has ever followed me around a department store, no cop has ever pulled me over, solely because I look like a lesbian. That we were never enslaved goes without saying.

More importantly, being gay is not linked to systematic economic oppression. We aren’t forced to live in ghettos — in many cities, the gay neighborhoods are among the hippest and nicest. Many black neighborhoods lack a decent grocery store; we have Whole Foods.

The pay gap between men and women makes two men pooling their income (without children) the wealthiest demographic in the country.

IF YOU MAINTAIN there are more similarities than differences between the LGBT rights and black civil rights movements, and you disagree that this comparison belittles the unique black experience, consider this: Do we want what blacks have?

Their civil rights struggle is far from over. All these issues — residential segregation, unequal education, racial profiling and enforced poverty, among others — are what pose as “racial equality” today.

The situation for blacks in this country hasn’t improved nearly as much as white folks’ manners. I’ve heard it said that, “People say hateful things about gays in public they would never dare say about blacks.”

This doesn’t prove much, except that political correctness has become a nice cocktail-party cover-up for structural racism. If that’s all the LGBT rights movement has to look forward to, I’ll take today’s honest bigotry over tomorrow’s hypocritical, backstabbing version any day.

The greatest irony is that when we compare the black civil rights and LGBT movements, we often ignore the legitimate link between the two: black lesbians and gays, who experience discrimination from each group because they belong to the other.

Civil rights metaphors are an even bigger joke when we consider the disenfranchisement of blacks within the LGBT community. Co-opting language and tactics from the civil rights movement without coming through on its promises is self-serving and undermines our movement instead of legitimizing it.

ALTHOUGH THE COMPARISON IS racist at worst, this doesn’t mean the LGBT movement is without lineage; but the women’s rights movement is the more accurate precursor.

After all, homophobia is an extension of sexism. The ban on male-male sex is to prevent a man from “subjugating” another man like he would a woman.

Lesbians are threatening because they don’t allow men to sexually subjugate them, or else lesbian sexuality is disregarded as a non-sexuality because it doesn’t involve men.

Same-sex marriage is a threat to traditional marriage — or at least the patriarchy behind it. When women have full equality, LGBT rights will be within walking distance. 

Validating our movement by comparing it to the black civil rights movement is a mistake. The gay rights movement is valid on its own, and it’s a crucial extension of the struggle for gender equality.

We don’t need to pretend the Equality Riders faced the same risk or had the same impact as the Freedom Riders before them. So let’s drop the pretension, and offer LGBT blacks inclusion instead of lip service.