Oh my. That's a heck of an astute piece of writing, Phil. Very succinct.
Comparing the infringement on civil rights that gays are experiencing to that suffered by black Americans is to begin a game of “top my oppression” that you’re not going to win. The struggle for equality — beginning with freedom from human bondage (see: references to the book of Exodus at the Gospel Brunch) — has been so central to African-American identity that many blacks find homosexual claims of a commensurate level of injustice frivolous, and even offensive.
I don't think the writers intended to offer any solutions, but I think they did a fine job of identifying the underlying paradox.
Furthermore — and perhaps even more painfully for those of us who support gay marriage and all that it represents — Christian teaching on marriage is not the only reason so many blacks supported Proposition 8. Although it has come as a shocking realization to many in this community, a host of sociological studies confirm that many blacks feel a significant aversion to homosexuality itself, finding it morally and sexually repugnant.
OUCH! Suddenly we White people are faced with the awful reality that churchgoing Black people are no more progressive than churchgoing White people -
and there are more of them!
