# "Is Gay the New Black?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 11, 2008, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693 "2008-12-11T06:51:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/81 "2008-12-14T22:34:31Z")
> [@](#): > > The life of a White Gay Male in this country is not even close to that of a Person of Color in this country with respect to bias and discrimination experienced. > > So, no, in no way is Gay the New Black from my point of view. You’re cherry picking. A gay person could claim that discrimination is having your marriage rights restricted. In which case, there is no longer any discrimination against black people. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/82 "2008-12-14T23:15:43Z")
Or adoption rights, or being flatly unelectable for high office (e.g., as President), etc. I would wager that open, publicly avowed anti-gay sentiment is much, much higher in modern American culture than open, publicly avowed anti-black sentiment. This thing about job applications, incidentally, is unclear to me: have studies shown that people known to be gay have better luck with job applications than those known to be black? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/83 "2008-12-15T04:01:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > And you’re out of line posting insults in **Great Debates**. > > [/Modding] Is [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=497527) better? (Pit thread related to this one, btw, peeps) ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/84 "2008-12-15T04:38:44Z")
**brickbacon** and others, why are you capitalizing the word “black” every time you use it? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/85 "2008-12-15T04:48:09Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > **brickbacon** and others, why are you capitalizing the word “black” every time you use it? > > 😕 I pondered this too. [What is the rule regarding capitalization of ethnicity/race?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=439934) ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/86 "2008-12-15T15:12:46Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > This thing about job applications, incidentally, is unclear to me: have studies shown that people known to be gay have better luck with job applications than those known to be black? What’s a gay sounding name? > **[News Archives](https://www.findarticles.com/news/)** > > Explore the News Articles featuring Technology, Business, Entertainment, and Science & Health topics. Access reports, insights, and stories. > [@](#): > > Resumes with White-sounding first names elicited 50 percent more responses than ones with Black-sounding names, according to a study conducted by professors at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. > > The professors sent out approximately 5,000 resumes in response to want ads in the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. They found that the “White” applicants they created received one response–a call, letter or e-mail–for every 10 resumes mailed, while “Black” applicants with equal credentials received one response for every 15 resumes sent. [http://www.jobbankusa.com/News/Hiring/hiring100803a.html](http://www.jobbankusa.com/News/Hiring/hiring100803a.html) > [@](#): > > Devah Pager, a sociologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., sent equally matched pairs of testers - two black and two white - to apply for low-skilled jobs at 350 places of employment in the Milwaukee area and found that white ex-offenders were more likely to be called back for an interview than black applicants who had no criminal record. ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/87 "2008-12-15T15:13:48Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You’re cherry picking. A gay person could claim that discrimination is having your marriage rights restricted. In which case, there is no longer any discrimination against black people. Can you explain what you mean here? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/88 "2008-12-15T16:31:51Z")
> [@EasyPhil](#): > > Can you explain what you mean here? Interracial marriage _is_ banned? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/89 "2008-12-15T16:48:40Z")
I don’t think its offensive to liken the gay right’s struggle to being black, but I do think such analogy will not do much to advance the gay cause. “Who has/had it worse?” seems to inevitably follow from such a comparison (as this thread and the recent Jim Crow reparations thread shows), and this has a polarizing effect instead of unifying one. I also think it’s a strategic mistake precisely because black people as a group are socially conservative and are not particularly gay friendly…like many others, they don’t see sexual orientation and race as comparable things. I suspect that the majority of anti-SSM (white or black) have the position that being gay is unnatural, and therefore it makes no sense to make laws that cater around an unnatural condition. Bigotry and prejudice are present in there as well, but I think the fundamental issue is that gays are perceived as freaks, for the lack of a better term. Changing this perception will go a lot farther than making an argument like “discrimination against blacks is wrong, therefore so is discrimination against gays”. To many people–even non-homophobic people–the latter assertion doesn’t follow from the former. If you think being gay is unnatural and therefore a form of freakishness, the failure to accept this argument is even greater. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/90 "2008-12-15T17:37:30Z")
“Gay is the new black” is a really stupid slogan, but both groups are and were fighting for their rights. Questions about who had it worse seem pointless and counterproductive. Everyone’s entitled to all the civil rights everyone else is. If you take one right away from someone, even a minor right, that’s an injustice that needs to be rectified. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/91 "2008-12-15T17:51:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Can you explain what you mean here? Discrimination is manifested in different ways to different groups. You listed the specific ways that blacks are discriminated against and implied these are the only important forms of discrimination, so therefore only blacks are discriminated against. But other groups are also the subject of discrimination, it’s just different forms of discrimination. Hispanics are discriminated against via language; Jews are discriminated against via religion. Blacks do not suffer from either of these, but it’s still discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/92 "2008-12-15T18:35:23Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I don’t think its offensive to liken the gay right’s struggle to being black, but I do think such analogy will not do much to advance the gay cause. “Who has/had it worse?” seems to inevitably follow from such a comparison (as this thread and the recent Jim Crow reparations thread shows), and this has a polarizing effect instead of unifying one. I also think it’s a strategic mistake precisely because black people as a group are socially conservative and are not particularly gay friendly…like many others, they don’t see sexual orientation and race as comparable things. “Not particularly gay friendly” is a bit of an understatment. I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of use in worrying about how blacks feel about the comparison, as they’re going to be overwhelmingly opposed to gay rights no matter what we call it. However, I think the comparison has a lot more traction among other racial groups, especially whites. How many blacks are going to oppose gay rights, simply because we’re borrowing the language of the Civil Rights movement? And how many whites are going to support gay rights, because they don’t want to end up on the wrong side of another social divide, the way so many of them were when race was the issue? I suspect that second group is going to be significantly larger. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/93 "2008-12-15T18:47:07Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > “Gay is the new black” is a really stupid slogan, but both groups are and were fighting for their rights. Questions about who had it worse seem pointless and counterproductive. Everyone’s entitled to all the civil rights everyone else is. If you take one right away from someone, even a minor right, that’s an injustice that needs to be rectified. I think, as someone said, the slogan was a play on a fashion slogan, you know, “little black dress”, or how you can wear black with any other color? All right, I confess, I forgot all about my promise to find more cites for the “gay panic defense”, until reminded in the Pit. So, I did just that in the last half-hour or so. I found while it HAS been less successful in the past decade or so, it’s still around, and has at least resulted in reduced sentences, and the fact that it’s still on the books, and considered a legit defense is, to my mind, quite disturbing. First, a study on the GPD: -[PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: THE HOMOSEXUAL PANIC DEFENSE](http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/lwsch/journals/bctwj/21_2/03_FMS.htm) -[Law report: “Repeal Gay Panic Defence”](http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_5148.php) > [@](#): > > "‘Gay Panic Defence’ is a shorthand label, not an accurate legal description. But as the Law Commission recognises, it is one of the main ways that the provocation defence operates. Of the four known cases in the past five years when the provocation defence has been pleaded successfully, two have involved the ‘Gay Panic Defence’. -[Gay Panic Defense Could Get Boost from Kentucky Bill](http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/usa/kentucky/kynews5.htm) -[“Gay Panic” Defense in Brutal Slaying of Jamaican Ambassador](http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2007/07/gay-panic-defen.html) -[“Gay Panic” Alleged in Killing of Popular Jamaican Priest](http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2006/12/gay_panic_alleg.html) -[Gay Panic Defence “justifiable” - MP](http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_5186.php) -[Panic mode: Why do killers still get away with the “gay panic” defense?](http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=1135&catid=4&volume_id=147&issue_id=234&volume_num=40&issue_num=42) > [@](#): > > If a gay man ever attempted to argue that he was forced to kill a straight woman because he feared she would make a pass at him, the judge, the jury, and the press would probably laugh him out of court. > > But in at least a handful of cases across the country, criminal defendants recently have attempted to convince juries that they temporarily endured insanity after discovering their murder victims were lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. It’s known as the “gay panic” courtroom strategy, and one man secured an acquittal in 2003 based on that tactic after he killed a gay Fulton County prosecutor in Atlanta. And where on one particular case, which resulted in “voluntary manslaughter”, rather than felony murder, with which the defendent had orginally been charged. He would have gotten life without parole-instead, he gets fifteen max. -[“Gay Panic” defense still wins cases](http://www.bilerico.com/2008/04/gay_panic_defense_still_wins_cases.php) -[Verdict in Steven Scarborough case: Guilty of voluntary manslaughter of Victor Manious](http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04/verdict_in_steven_scarborough.html) -[Gay Panic Defense Still Works in Michigan | Lavender Newswire](http://news.lavenderliberal.com/2008/04/11/gay-panic-defense-still-works-in-michigan/) -[Michigan: ‘gay panic’ verdict - manslaughter, not murder](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5041) -[Gay panic: the defense that will not die](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5029) I think, btw, that **you with the face** probably made a better argument against the comparison, though I still disagree. (Although I DO think the whole, “Well, MY group is more oppressed than YOUR group” round of arguments gets us nowhere) ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/94 "2008-12-15T19:01:54Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > “Not particularly gay friendly” is a bit of an understatment. I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of use in worrying about how blacks feel about the comparison, as they’re going to be overwhelmingly opposed to gay rights no matter what we call it. I think there’s much short-sightedness in this view. Blacks vote, you know. And it keeps coming up that blacks are responsible for the Prop 8 mess. So yeah, I think gays should be worrying about how blacks feel about the comparison. If not now, when? > [@](#): > > However, I think the comparison has a lot more traction among other racial groups, especially whites. How many blacks are going to oppose gay rights, simply because we’re borrowing the language of the Civil Rights movement? Well, for one thing, it gets people’s attention away from dispelling harmful myths about gayness, which I think represent the biggest social barrier to gay rights. “The language of the Civil Rights movement” is different than repeatedly comparing homosexuality to being black. The noise surrounding this analogy may keep people resistant to the larger argument that same-sex marriage should be legalized. > [@](#): > > And how many whites are going to support gay rights, because they don’t want to end up on the wrong side of another social divide, the way so many of them were when race was the issue? I suspect that second group is going to be significantly larger. Okay, but whites are fast losing their majority status. Pinning all your hopes and dreams on a shrinking demographic group may be a losing bet. And ignoring black people (and Hispanics, too) because of the assumption that nothing can change their minds can not possibly be the right answer. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/95 "2008-12-15T19:58:18Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Brickbacon, bridging from your second citation, doesn’t it speak volumes that gays have not even been able to ASK for the right to form a legitimate family unit until recently? But did gay themselves, in a general sense, desire to be married? Equal marriage rights wasn’t a yearning that was ignored by the heterosexual community. You can’t really apply today’s thinking to bygone eras. It seems to be that most homosexuals (at the time) reluctantly accepted the societal limitations that that part of their identity would be expressed solely in a sexual manner. That the need to for a larger gay culture (ie. parades, art, music, community) was unnecessary- or at least not practical at the time and place. While that pathology is largely a result of the discrimination the GLBT community has faced (faces), you can’t ignore that fact that the community has only recently emerged from that repressive existence. > [@Miltonyz](#): > > November 2nd was a day I lost a little bit more faith in my fellow man. African American voters voted by a convincing margin against alowing gays to marry. I believe it’s been cited at 70%. A community that as little a fourty years ago was eating firehouses in the streets trying to gain equal rights. A community that had dogs set upon them. A community whose leaders died in order that maybe their children would be able to have a better life. And yet even as they struggle to this day under the weight of instituional racism, the community as a whole goes gladly to the polls and denys others their rights. I share your regret, maybe even more so since I am Black. But this is where I think most people don’t understand that breakdown that is happening here on a fundamental level. Most people, Black or otherwise, do not seek to make things harder for others. They are not sadists, and they don’t actively hate large groups of people. On a basic level, people don’t like change, being told what to do, being told they are bad, or having others question what they hold deal. You can get people behind equal rights, access, and treatment so long as you frame the issue in a way that allows them to feel as though they are gaining something too. In a way that makes them feel like they won something too. The gay community has not done that effectively. They tell people they misunderstand their own religion, are bigots, and that the gender roles are repressive, etc. All of that is true to some extent, but it will not convince most people to come into the tent. This is also complicated by the fact it’s hard to do good PR in an information society. The civil rights movement succeeded largely because each milestone was carefully crafted. MLK reputation wasn’t sullied by bloggers and nosy reporters, Rosa Parks could be chosen as the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, etc. That’s part of the reason people are so protective of it. > [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Or adoption rights, or being flatly unelectable for high office (e.g., as President), etc. We’ve already addressed adoption rights. According to [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_adoption), no state explicitly prevents a LGBT person from adopting a child. I should note that the situation isn’t since there are states that prevent couples from adopting jointly. Second, your point about the Presidency is speculative. Many didn’t think we’d elect a Black president either. If the right gay person came along, it’s definitely possible. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > To many people–even non-homophobic people–the latter assertion doesn’t follow from the former. If you think being gay is unnatural and therefore a form of freakishness, the failure to accept this argument is even greater. Very well said. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/96 "2008-12-15T20:34:11Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > But did gay themselves, in a general sense, desire to be married? I don’t know, I wonder if homosexuals of yore experienced the feeling that humans call “love”. I wonder if they even felt a need for companionship and family, like normal people. I’m sure they never asked for marriage rights before, because they don’t possess the natural human desire to form a family, not because it was impossible for them to be openly gay in the first place. > [@](#): > > Equal marriage rights wasn’t a yearning that was ignored by the heterosexual community. Yeah, it wasn’t ignored… it was simply unthinkable. > [@](#): > > you can’t ignore that fact that the community has only recently emerged from that repressive existence. You don’t have to ignore it, you only have to realize that it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not they deserve to have a particular set of rights. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/97 "2008-12-15T20:56:02Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I think there’s much short-sightedness in this view. Blacks vote, you know. And it keeps coming up that blacks are responsible for the Prop 8 mess. So yeah, I think gays should be worrying about how blacks feel about the comparison. If not now, when? Over two thirds of blacks in California voted for stripping gays of marriage rights. That’s a huge, hardened, anti-gay demographic. While it would be great to turn that around, it might be in our better interests to spend our efforts against softer targets, then beat our heads against a group that’s so uniformly opposed to us, and which shows no sign of changing that attitude in the near future. > [@](#): > > Well, for one thing, it gets people’s attention away from dispelling harmful myths about gayness, which I think represent the biggest social barrier to gay rights. “The language of the Civil Rights movement” is different than repeatedly comparing homosexuality to being black. The noise surrounding this analogy may keep people resistant to the larger argument that same-sex marriage should be legalized. I’m not speaking directly to the “gay is the new black” slogan, which I agree is pretty stupid, but also obviously meant to be more of a play on words than an actual argument for gay rights. I’m referring, instead, to posts by **brickbacon** , which I’ve seen echoed in the black community at large, which take exception to any sort of comparison between the black civil rights movement and the gay civil rights movement. **brickbacon** has specifically objected to the gay civil rights movement using the language of the black civil rights movement without first “paying our dues” in that movement. > [@](#): > > Okay, but whites are fast losing their majority status. Pinning all your hopes and dreams on a shrinking demographic group may be a losing bet. And ignoring black people (and Hispanics, too) because of the assumption that nothing can change their minds can not possibly be the right answer. Who said anything about ignoring Hispanics? Oddly enough, one of the more heartening things to come out of the passage of Prop 8 was the fact that only something like 52% of Hispanics voted for the proposition. I expected opposition there to be much higher. There’s definitly an opportunity to make a lot of headway there, but I don’t think that effort is going to be effected one way or the other by analogies to the black civil rights movement. ---
**Author:** ![Zhen\_ka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecccb3/32.png) [@Zhen\_ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zhen_ka)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/98 "2008-12-15T21:20:59Z")
[QUOTE=brickbacon] I share your regret, maybe even more so since I am Black. But this is where I think most people don’t understand that breakdown that is happening here on a fundamental level. Most people, Black or otherwise, do not seek to make things harder for others. They are not sadists, and they don’t actively hate large groups of people. [/QUOTE] **“If exit polling is to be believed, seventy percent of California’s African-American voters did indeed vote yes on Prop. 8, as did upward of eighty percent of Republicans, conservatives, white evangelicals, and weekly churchgoers. But the initiative would have passed, barely, even if not a single African American had shown up for the polls.”** —New Yorker magazine, Dec. 1, 2008 Let’s not lose perspective, at least where Prop. 8 is concerned. The proposition would have passed, regardless. Direct your criticism where it belongs: the Mormon church and its predominant White membership. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/99 "2008-12-15T22:08:02Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Over two thirds of blacks in California voted for stripping gays of marriage rights. That’s a huge, hardened, anti-gay demographic. I disagree with your broad brush characterization. Why do you think blacks are “hardened” any more than anyone else who voted for the thing? What are you basing this opinion on? > [@](#): > > While it would be great to turn that around, it might be in our better interests to spend our efforts against softer targets, then beat our heads against a group that’s so uniformly opposed to us, and which shows no sign of changing that attitude in the near future. What are you basing the view that black folks are unamenable to attitude shifts just like anyone else? And why be so confident that the rate of change in blacks is so much smaller than other groups, when a highly visible gay rights movement is relatively so young? In my own (black) family and circle of friends, I’ve seen positive changes that are no different from that occuring on a societal level. Even in my religious parents. To me, there’s a certain irony in likening gay rights to the black Civil Rights movement, but then pessimistically writing off blacks as being so impervious to persuasion that it’s not worth the effort in reaching out to them and making arguments designed to effectively work against their particular religo-cultural hangups and pre-conceptions. It seems like a recipe for…exactly what we saw this past Nov. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693/100 "2008-12-15T22:29:14Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I don’t know, I wonder if homosexuals of yore experienced the feeling that humans call “love”. I wonder if they even felt a need for companionship and family, like normal people. Very cute, but it does not address the original issue. I know gay people today that don’t desire to have a family and be like"normal people". I think that attitude is fairly common today, and probably the majority opinion in days past. Experiencing love, and wanting to the live the lifestyle many straight people live is very different. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I’m sure they never asked for marriage rights before, because they don’t possess the natural human desire to form a family, not because it was impossible for them to be openly gay in the first place. You wrote this backwards right? > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Yeah, it wasn’t ignored… it was simply unthinkable. You don’t have to ignore it, you only have to realize that it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not they deserve to have a particular set of rights. Unthinkable in the way letting twenty-somethings or immigrants be president is. Or unthinkable in the way selling virtual property is. Not thinking of something does not mean it’s unthinkable. You are attributing something to extreme malice when it was just not something in the public consciousness or in the minds of most gay people at the time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-the-new-black/476693.md?page=6)