'I thought, this is the same crap I went through 40 years ago.'

[WilliamPitt]

N.H. state Rep. Carol Estes, who is black, and couldn't marry her husband, who is white, until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned laws banning interracial marriage, on a proposed amendment to the N.H. constitution to ban the marriages of same-sex couples.

Making the case
Ethan Jacobs

On March 28, after listening to her fellow lawmakers debate for nearly 90 minutes about a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in New Hampshire, Plymouth Rep. Carole Estes addressed her colleagues and gave a speech that may go down in history as one of the defining moments in the state’s debate around same-sex marriage. Estes, a 68-year-old Florida native who moved to New Hampshire in 2004, described her experiences growing up as a black woman in the Jim Crow South, giving her colleagues a firsthand look at what it means to be treated as a second-class citizen.

“For the first 38 years of my life my public actions were limited or impacted by constitutional or legislative fiat,” Estes told her colleagues. “Most of you have never had to deal with the actions that I dealt with every day. By law I could not go to a theater, I could not go to a library or a restaurant where whites were. In fact, I was 18 years old before I ever spoke to a white as an equal. I could not attend a first-class elementary or high school. I could not attend a public college. I could not try on any article of clothing, nor could I return it when it was purchased. By law I served in a segregated Air Force unit. In uniform I could not choose my seat on a bus or a train. I could not vote, nor could I marry the man I loved because he was white and I am not.”
Estes told her colleagues that after suffering under a system of discrimination enforced by state and federal law, she could not allow gay and lesbian people living in New Hampshire to endure the same fate.

“To be charitable I am sure that these laws were enacted by well-meaning individuals who believed they were preserving a way of life, because after all the United States Constitution agreed with them. And the impact on 20 million black Americans was viewed as collateral damage,” said Estes. “Over the last 30 years I have worked mightily to overcome the feelings of being less than, and irony of ironies, I am now asked to enshrine discrimination in the New Hampshire Constitution and force a total of 700 same-sex couples, who in fact have been enumerated by the 2000 US Census, to become less than. For too many years we have spent time believing that I was a second-class citizen. The laws told me so. I cannot perpetuate such a travesty, even though the people say that they should vote. They have voted in the past, and in fact what we find is people become less than. I ask of you to please uphold the majority opinion and do not enshrine such discrimination so that anyone else has to undergo such a horrible thought, that they are less than.”

After Estes finished her speech the chamber erupted in applause as her fellow lawmakers gave her a standing ovation. The text of her speech was printed in the House Democratic caucus newsletter, and a video of the speech was uploaded to YouTube and posted on the progressive political blog Blue Hampshire. Local media also wrote about her speech in coverage of the debate. Following her speech the House delivered a decisive defeat to the marriage amendment, voting it down 233-124. A week later the House voted 243-129 in favor of a bill to establish civil unions, and the Senate judiciary committee held a hearing on a civil union bill April 10.

It is unclear if Estes’s speech swayed any votes against the marriage amendment, which had been expected to fail going into the vote. But in comparing the discrimination against same-sex couples to the discrimination that she faced as a black woman under segregation, she sent the message to her fellow lawmakers that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue. Opponents of same-sex marriage have worked at the state and national level to counter that message, accusing the LGBT community of hijacking the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement in an effort to drive a wedge between the LGBT and black communities. At the national level the religious right powerhouse Focus on the Family has argued that calling same-sex marriage a civil rights issue is an insult to the black community, a point that the organization includes in its talking points on its website. That point has also been hammered home by some prominent black clergy opposed to same-sex marriage including, locally, Black Ministerial Alliance President Bishop Gilbert Thompson, who in 2004 told ABC News, “I was born black. I was born male. Homosexuals are not born, they’re made. They don’t qualify.”

Yet despite the efforts by anti-gay activists to argue that LGBT rights are not civil rights, Estes is hardly alone among black lawmakers in making that comparison. In Massachusetts two of the leaders in the legislature on the pro-equality side, Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston) and Sen. Dianne Wilkerson (D-Boston), gave speeches to their colleagues during the 2004 debates on a same-sex marriage ban amendment that drew specific connections between discrimination against the black and gay communities. Rushing spoke about the court decision that found slavery illegal under the Massachusetts constitution and said, “We were able to take this remarkable position because of a constitution that said liberty would be available to every citizen of this Commonwealth. We are being called by some today to change that. We are being asked to say to one group, ‘You no longer have the rights of everyone else in this Commonwealth.’”

More: http://www.baywindows.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&AudID=0813BC739F2044E5A03DCF2DE3FDF7C9&tier=4&id=A905C0250913475DB0B2B7787A830098

[ThomCat]

1. Damn. That's wonderful.

I wish more people would make that connection. :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I've always thought it was a civil rights issue

and that the laws against black/white marriage were a valid comparison. Glad to see this represenatative saying it from experience.

[MADem]

8. Unfortunately, Rev. Jesse Jackson does not share that view. He's a bit

'unenlightened' to put it kindly, in that regard. He's a bit, er, bigoted, when it comes to gay rights, and he's not alone, either:


"If the KKK opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them," Reverend Gregory Daniels, a black minister from Chicago, announced from the pulpit in February. A few eyebrows were raised, mostly in the gay community, but that reaction was overshadowed by the disappointment with a much more prominent Chicago minister, Reverend Jesse Jackson. In a speech at Harvard Law School in February, Jackson spoke out against same-sex marriage and rejected comparisons between the civil rights and gay rights movements. "Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution," he said, and "they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote."

Was this the Jesse Jackson I thought I knew? I first met him in 1984 when he brought his Rainbow Coalition to my college campus for a presidential campaign that openly included gays and lesbians. I was with him again in the 1990s at Harvard Law School, when he came to lend his support to our movement for faculty diversity. I traveled with him to Zimbabwe in 1997 to speak up for gays and lesbians in that country. All along I had assumed that he supported full civil rights for us, but apparently I was wrong.

In my lifetime, African Americans were denied the right to marry white people, and now we who are black dare to deny matrimonial rights to gay people—people like me. In a recent poll, 65 percent of blacks opposed same-sex marriage, although other surveys have shown strong support for laws banning discrimination against gays. What offends most black people is the comparison between the gay-marriage struggle and the black struggle for civil rights.

In the past six months, dozens of black ministers across the country have spoken out against same-sex marriage. And despite the common liberal portrayal of these clergy as stooges of the white religious right, some of the ministers, like Jackson and Reverend Walter Fauntroy, who once represented Washington, D.C., in Congress, have long records fighting for progressive causes. Has the black church succumbed to the machinations of the white religious right? "I'm sure they're being co-opted, but they don't need a great deal of co-optation," says Reverend Peter Gomes, a black Baptist minister. "I think they come to the prejudice on their own."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0421,boykin,53751,1.html

[kirby]

13. Maybe this is a generalization, but...

Isn't the 'black' community one of the most anti-gay communities out there? I get the impression homosexuality is really 'frowned' upon among blacks. Considering Rev Jackson is both black AND a reverend, I'm not real surprised on his view, though disappointed.

[progdonkey]

17. it's like anti-choicers who become pro-choice when it's their daughter...

We see all these black leaders talking about civil rights, etc., and being on the side of morality, but often we fail to realize that some of them are just as bigoted as the David Dukes of the world. ie. They only care about "civil rights" when it applies to their own group. If they were white females, they'd care about women's issues but not minority and gay rights; if they were white men, they wouldn't care about those issues as well as women's issues. It's only because it affects them that they preach fairness and equality.

Jesse Jackson and these other preachers care about black men because they're black and things that affect (straight) black men affect them--that's all. There's no reason to expect them to care about women, other minorities, or gays. It's just a bunch of straight black men who only care about the rights of straight black men--change black to white and you've got the GOP.

[marmar]

21. "Maybe this is a generalization"

Yes, it is. And as a heterosexual African American male who wholeheartedly supports equal marriage, I take umbrage. But please feel free to continue stereotyping. :eyes:

[evilkumquat]

32. Cynthia Tucker Says Otherwise

In her opinion piece of 10/23/2004 titled "HOMOPHOBIA RUNS RAMPANT IN BLACK AMERICA", she says:

"Unlike the Cheneys, who remain among the royalty of reactionary politics, many parents who publicly demonstrate their love for gay or lesbian children find themselves alienated from family, friends and community. That is especially true for black families, given the vile homophobia rampant in black America." (Emphasis mine)

http://www.uexpress.com/asiseeit/?uc_full_date=20041023

I am pretty sure I have read more from her on the subject of black homophobia; this article was found through a quick search and I was too lazy to do more.

On one hand, generalization is dangerous, and unfairly labels a whole group without taking into account the progressive nature of individuals; unfortunately, generalization sometimes helps pinpoint the problems in a given group.

To me, though, for members of any traditionally oppressed group of people, whether it be women, blacks, asians or the Irish, to fight like mad against bigotry targeting them, to not only ignore discrimination against another group but actively support it, smacks of such hypocrisy that one could almost say they deserve whatever treatment they get.

Freedom for all or freedom for none.

Evil Kumquat

[noiretextatique]

52. i take issue with the notion that black people are more homophobic

than any other group in america.
homophobia ia rampant in america...period.

[MADem]

34. There's evidence to suggest it isn't a generalization, unfortunately

You can't call an attitude held by a majority "stereotyping."
Here are some rather sobering citations:

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/stateof/hutchinsonreport330
The Hutchinson Report: Talk of ‘The Sissy Church’ – Meaning Tolerance for Gays – Inflames Many Blacks
Date: Thursday, March 29, 2007
By: Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

The Rev. Dennis Meredith’s mouth had to drop when his head deacon brusquely accused him of turning their place of worship into "a sissy church” and left in a huff. Rev. Meredith had committed the unpardonable sin to the deacon -- and, as it turned out, hundreds of other black members at the predominantly black Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta -- of embracing and welcoming gay members.

The deacon and the other members that fled the church in protest over gays are not a hateful, intolerant aberration. There are reports from other black churches of members marching out in indignation when their minister preaches a message of tolerance toward gays.

The first big warning sign that the issue would inflame, polarize and even energize blacks within and without the black pulpit came in 1997 when Reggie White, the Green Bay Packers perennial all-pro defensive end and an ordained minister, touched off a firestorm of protest from gay groups with a rambling, hour-long talk to the Wisconsin legislature in which he took a huge swipe at gay rights and gay marriage. He later barnstormed through several mid-Western cities pushing the anti-gay gospel at pro-family rallies....A year before White’s outburst, a Pew poll measured black attitudes toward gay marriage and found that blacks, by an overwhelming margin, opposed it. A CNN poll eight years later showed that anti-gay attitudes among blacks had not changed much since then. At a tightly packed press conference in October 2003, five of Michigan’s top black prelates publicly called on the state legislature to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The ballot measure passed in November, and more than 50 percent of blacks backed it. ....





http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/16908/

A July CNN/USA Today poll found that far more blacks than whites condemn gay marriage. At first glance this seems puzzling. An arguable case can be made, as some gay marriage proponents make, that the social and legal taboo against gay marriage is the same taboo that prevailed for decades against interracial marriage. In 1967, the Supreme Court dumped all state laws against interracial marriage and declared that "freedom to marry" is a basic right of all Americans. It did not specify that marital freedom should be solely between a man and a woman.

When a state tells a couple they can't marry because of their race, or because they are of the same sex, then it's still discrimination. But blacks don't see it that way, and it's no puzzle why they don't. Numerous polls repeatedly show that many blacks are just as, if not more, conservative than whites when it comes to support of the death penalty, stiffer sentences for drug use, support for school vouchers, and school prayer.

The issue of gay marriage pricks the social conservatism of many blacks, and their exaggerated notion of manhood. From cradle to grave, many black men have believed and accepted the gender propaganda that real men talk and act tough, shed no tears, and never show their emotions. When black men broke the prescribed male code of conduct and showed their feelings they were harangued as weaklings, and their manhood instantly questioned. They also believed the racial propaganda that manhood was reserved exclusively for white men. In a vain attempt to recapture there denied masculinity, many black men mirror America's traditional fear and hatred of homosexuality as a dire threat to their manhood.

Many blacks, in an attempt to distance themselves from gays and avoid confronting their own fears and biases, dismiss homosexuality as a perverse contrivance of white males that reflected the decadence of white America. While many Americans made gays their gender bogeymen, many blacks made gay men their bogeymen and waged open warfare against them. A parade of rappers, black novelists and poets railed against the gay life style as unnatural and destructive. Many black ministers, as many white Christian fundamentalist ministers, wave the Bible and rail against homosexuality as the defiler of faith and family values....A survey that measured black attitudes toward gays published in Jet Magazine in 1994 found that a sizable number of blacks were suspicious and scornful of gays. A Pew Poll two years later that measured black attitudes toward gay marriage found that blacks by a whopping margin opposed them. The recent CNN poll showed that anti-gay attitudes among blacks have not changed much since then.





http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/02/10/black_clergy_rejection_stirs_gay_marriage_backers/

The Black Ministerial Alliance, the Boston Ten Point Coalition, and the Cambridge Black Pastors Conference issued a joint statement this weekend opposing gay marriage.

In response, gay and lesbian African-Americans are hastily pulling together an organization they say will seek to end their invisibility within the black church.

But the region's black pastors, some long associated with liberal political causes, say they are proud to be speaking out on an issue they consider to be hugely important. Several said that gay marriage would contribute to the further erosion of traditional family structure in the black community.

"As black preachers, we are progressive in our social consciousness, and in our political ideology as an oppressed people we will often be against the status quo, but our first call is to hear the voice of God in our Scriptures, and where an issue clearly contradicts our understanding of Scripture, we have to apply that understanding," said the Rev. Gregory G. Groover Sr., pastor of Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/05/15/MNGUP6M3ON1.DTL

Some of the nation's best-known black clergymen will come together in Washington, D.C., on Monday to denounce homosexual unions -- the same day judges in Massachusetts begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. The Supreme Court refused Friday to intervene and block clerks from issuing these marriage licenses. ..."Gays have never gone through slavery nor been put down and abused like blacks,'' said Bishop Frank Stewart of the Zoe Christian Fellowship, a group of 21 churches in Southern California. "It's an insult to use that parallel.''

In San Francisco, a coalition of seven African American pastors called San Francisco Tabernacle Clergy have prepared their own joint statement condemning same-sex marriage and comparisons to the civil rights movement.

[ruggerson]

37. Unfortunately

you are the exception to the rule. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that homophobia and opposition to gay rights is higher in the african american community than in the general population.

[KittyWampus]

58. It's a fact that a large percentage of the African American community is antipathetic to gay issues

YOU may not be a very large number of other blacks are.

I didn't believer until Catwoman told me otherwise and provided links to several discussions.

[Zhade]

26. And his bigoted, homophobic view is dead wrong.

Thankfully, our rights don't hinge on dimbulb assessments like his.

We WILL have them, no matter how long it takes.

Shame on Jackson for encouraging the kind of thing he's fough against for his own community.

[HamdenRice]

29. I think you are misinterpreting Jackson's comments; And the courts agree with Jackson

I read Jackson's comments not as being opposed to same sex marriage, but opposed to the comparison of the history of discrimination against African Americans with the history of discrimination against gays and lesbians, and to the comparison of the degree of protection of civil rights for minorities and the degree of protection of civil rights for gays.

There are some Christian fundamentalist black ministers who are opposed to gay marriage on so-called moral grounds. And there are African American politicians and civil rights leaders who are opposed to providing a strict level of constitutional protection to gay marriage on constitutional grounds -- namely making the comparison to rights for minorities.

You are conflating the former with the latter.

The latter argument (and I'm not saying I agree with it, but it certainly has strong legal grounds) goes something like this: Under constitutional doctrines, some rights are given stronger protection than others. Ever since the Carolene Products case of 1938, the Supreme Court has said that laws that burden three kinds of constitutional rights are given the most stringent review by federal courts -- a kind of review called "strict scrutiny" -- (1) laws that affect discreet racial or religious minorities (civil rights cases), (2) laws that affect the political process by excluding people (voting rights cases), and (3) laws that burden fundamental rights such as the First Amendment (civil liberties cases).

Other rights are given lower levels of scrutiny. Even gender discrimination -- discrimination against women -- is given a lower level of scrutiny than discrimination against racial and relgious minorities. That level of scrutiny is called "semi-strict scrutiny."

All other forms of discrimination are given a yet lower level of protection, called "rational relationship" analysis.

Some members of the civil rights community have been concerned that courts would extend strict scrutiny to gays -- an unprecedented extension of the court's most powerful rights protection -- and that that could lead the beginning of the erosion of that powerful weapon as it is extended to more and more situations. Their argument is that while they are fine with extending rights protections to gays, it should not be in the form of strict scrutiny. They point, as Jackson did, to the 3/5ths clause, slavery, and Jim Crow as the historical basis for granting extraordinary protection in this one area, and lower levels of protection in others.

The US Supreme Court and state courts like the Massachusetts Supreme Juridical Court, have agreed with that view. Even the gay rights organizations have treaded carefully in this area and as I understand it have not embraced the idea that gay rights should be protected with strict scrutiny.

In Lawrence v. Texas -- which found sodomy laws that discriminated against gays were unconstitutional -- the Supreme Court based its analysis on a fundamental right (privacy) and not specifically on providing strict scrutiny to discrimination against gays. That's why Lawrence v. Texas did not automatically grant marriage rights.

The Mass. Supreme Court case that decided that it was unconstitutional for Massachusetts to fail to provide marriage rights to gays did so on the basis of "rational relationship" test, not the strict scrutiny test.

So the view of the civil rights establishment is consistent with the way the courts are protecting gay's rights to consensual sexual behavior and marriage.

[MADem]

31. You read his remarks wrong. He opposes same sex marriage

...plain and simple. You're "cutting him slack" that he does not merit on this matter at all--he said it, I imagine he meant it:

But Jackson reiterated his support for the heterosexual definition of marriage, saying, "In my culture, marriage is a man-woman relationship."

http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?date=2004/02/17/6

So see, I'm not "conflating" anything. If we are going to hold people's words up for close and parsed scrutiny, and use the standard that "By their words we shall know them" well, we know a little something about the Reverend Jackson from his very own words, don't we? "His culture" (is that a personal culture?) doesn't like gay people marrying. He will allow them a 'civil union' but as far as he's concerned, what is happening every day across Massachusetts is just wrong in his book. Gays can have the "less than" option, not the Full Monty.

Funny, he doesn't, apparently, have a problem with having relationships with coworkers that produce children behind the wife's back, though! Is that part of his personal "culture," I wonder?

[HamdenRice]

36. Once again, the articles YOU cite contradicts you

You have made Jackson seem like a homophobe by selectively quoting him. The articles YOU yourself cite have these additional statements:

First the Voice article:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0421,boykin,53751,1.html

Was this the Jesse Jackson I thought I knew? I first met him in 1984 when he brought his Rainbow Coalition to my college campus for a presidential campaign that openly included gays and lesbians. I was with him again in the 1990s at Harvard Law School, when he came to lend his support to our movement for faculty diversity. I traveled with him to Zimbabwe in 1997 to speak up for gays and lesbians in that country. All along I had assumed that he supported full civil rights for us, but apparently I was wrong.

<end quote>

The author is disappointed with Jackson's stance on gay marriage as a civil right, but makes clear that Jackson has an excellent record on supporting gay and lesbian equality here and abroad

From the Planetout article:

http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?date=2004/02/17/6

In Massachusetts, the state that's served as one of the main battlegrounds over same-sex marriage, the Rev. Jesse Jackson declared Monday that the fight of gays and lesbians wanting to marry should not be compared to the fight African Americans faced for civil rights.

"The comparison with slavery is a stretch in that some slave masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution and in that they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote," Jackson remarked in an address at Harvard Law School.

Later, in an appearance at Holy Cross Church in Worcester, Jackson made sure others knew that he did support some rights for same-sex couples, noting "Gays deserve the right of choice to choose their own partners."

"If you don't agree, don't participate and don't perform the service," he said, according to the Associated Press.

<end quote>

The rest of the article makes clear that (1) Jackson is (rightfully in my opinion) uncomfortable comparing the history of discrimination against African Americans to discrimination against gays, (2) he is in favor of rights for same sex couples and (3) would not perform marriage ceremonies himself.

Basically, he is aligned with the view of the majority of Democrats -- namely, civil unions. I've tried to explain why the traditional civil rights movement opposes calling the gay marriage issue a "civil rights" issue for technical, constitutional reasons. As for his personal decision not to perform ceremonnies, please be reminded he is a Baptist minister and is entitled to follow the doctrine of his church in the performance of pastoral functions, while supporting human rights for gay people.

You may disagree with that position, but you are way out of line calling him bigotted. You are just plain wrong and should admit it.

His views are perfectly clear; you are just trying hard not to understand them, and to mischaracterize them.

[MADem]

38. Don't try to shift the damn goalposts. We aren't talking about his views

on "civil unions" or on tolerance. We aren't even mitigating by saying "AWWW, most DEMOCRATS agree with him..."

The point here is that he wants a "LESS THAN" ceremony for "the gays." A "separate but equal" accomodation.

What part of that quote that says he thinks marriage in HIS culture is for MAN-WOMAN relationships do you not understand?

He's only a LITTLE BIT bigoted. That makes it OK, eh?

Spare me your verbal gymnastics in defense of the indefensible. The guy does not want gays to have the same marriage rights, conferring federal benefits, that HE enjoys--his girlfriend and kid on the side, notwithstanding. Their pain isn't as important, their rights not as significant. But hey, he wants them to have "nearsies" so he's one of the good guys???

You got one thing right--his views ARE perfectly clear. Just like those "well-meaning" racists back in the day who wanted the separate schools to be every bit as good as the schools the white kids went to...just not on the same side of town.

[HamdenRice]

39. Whatever. Last week it was most Chinese eat dogs

This week it's Jessee Jackson is a bigot.

In both instances, your own cited articles contradict you. In both instances you proved yourself egregiously wrong on the facts.

The only "goalpost" is whether your statement, that Jessee Jackson is a bigot against gays, is true. It isn't.

But I realize from your other posts, that you will state baldly wrong things and refuse to admit you are wrong and take responsibility for your egregious statements. The rest of DU reads your posts and evaluates your positions and rhetoric anyway so there's no point in me belaboring it.

Whatever dude.

[MADem]

41. No it was YOU putting that "most" shit out there. You clearly have reading comprehension issues.

I made it very clear that it was a minority practice, but the sheer raw numbers were huge, and you, as you seem to like to do, gave the facts a little twist to suit your agenda.

But hey, whatever dude, indeed.

My cited article says what Jesse said--the words that came out of HIS mouth. That he thinks MARRIAGE is reserved for MAN WOMAN relationships.

And you manage to find ambiguity in that plain, bald-faced statement. You think the 'civil union' thing is just as good, and oh, he's been nice to gays in the past.

He just doesn't want them having that pesky marriage thing.

How far must you stretch to excuse or mitigate plain and simple prejudice? Soft prejudice, sweet prejudice, but prejudice nonetheless?

Or is it that it isn't really so bad since it "only" involves those gays???

Gimme a break.

[HamdenRice]

42. Ohh noooo! You discovered my secret agenda!

You discovered my agenda to coddle dog eating Chinese homophobes in Jessee Jackson's Rainbow Coalition! Woe is me!

[MADem]

47. I have discovered it--you like to pick fights with people and change the subject when you get called

on a lousy argument or a falsehood.

You just did it in that bs post.

Oooooh, nooooo, indeed.

[HamdenRice]

53. Change the subject? You own words contradict you

Here are words from your post that I responded to:

"He's a bit, er, bigoted, when it comes to gay rights, and he's not alone, either: "

That's the question. Is Jackson a bigot when it comes to gay rights? Obviously he isn't, and began speaking in favor of gay rights decades ago, even when he was running for president, and long before it was a mainstream cause. He went to homophobic Zimbabwe to argue in favor of gay rights.

You changed the subject to (1) attacking Jackson on his personal life (post 31), and (2) the substance of the gay marriage debate, ie whether civil unions are sufficient (post 38).

You may think that support for civil unions as an alternative to calling exactly the same right marriage is beyond the pale, but it isn't. It's a mainstream progressive position.

This is exactly the tactic you pulled in the dog meat thread. The issue was whether eating dog was common in China. When it was proved definitively that it wasn't, you accused others of saying killing dogs is OK (?!?!?!?!!?).

Here, the question is whether Jackson is a bigot. It has once again been proven definitively that you are wrong. But you persist in your ever more bizarre rhetorical twists.

If you are a decent person, you should simply admit that Jessee Jackson is not a bigot and leave it at that.

It is strange that one week you are screaming that Chinese people commonly eat dogs (they don't) and the next week that a respected African American civil rights leader is a bigot against gays (he isn't). That, plus you are all over the Imus threads, calling him an anti-war progressive, defending a man who has constantly spewed racism over the air for the last 30 years.

You tactics and racial obsessions are on display for all to see.

[MADem]

54. What, are you a broken record? Saying "Your words contradict you" doesn't make that true, either

I guess Jackson's prohibition against gay marriage isn't bigoted, according to you, because he hasn't been a TOTAL shithead to gays. Awww, how sweet of him. Not.

He's denying gays the right to marry. With his own words, he is saying that. And he is using his "culture" as an excuse.

How can you with a straight face call that NOT bigoted?

I won't admit that Jackson is not a bigot because he is bigoted against gays having the same rights he has. And too bad if that doesn't sit well with you, because you take liberties with facts and make false accusations, along with repeating the same old tired horseshit "contradict" phrase, when ya got nuthin' to back up your horseshit.

You are the one with "tactics" on display--accusing others of having "racial obsessions" to try to CHANGE the subject (you do that a lot) when they dare to use direct quotes to prove an argument that you cannot refute.

You are a master baiter, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Of course, that would take a modicum of decency, thus I'm not gonna hold my breath on that score.

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MADem]

60. There you go again--making shit up, as you do

I never said Imus was NOT a bigot. Then, if you read what I wrote, you'd see that.

I never said the Chinese "commonly" ate dogs. I said twenty million dogs, some (St. Bernard crossbreeds) weighing up to two hundred pounds, were consumed each year. That is a simple fact.

But do go ahead with your little :rofl: fellow, your childish, Limbaugh-like mispelling of my screen name, and your immature snark to go along with your blatant and deliberate fictionalizing of what others say.

Because frankly, that's about all you've got. And that's not very much, is it?

I've concluded that it isn't a comprehension problem, but instead a deliberate attempt to pique. Your life has to be pretty godamned pathetic if this is the kind of crap that gives you your sad little jollies. My sympathies.

[MADem]

55. Dupe..NT

[HamdenRice]

30. OK, after a little research I can say your presumptions are simply wrong

I wrote the post above about the technical, legal reason some civil rights leaders are opposed to calling gay rights "civil rights."

After reading the article you yourself cite, and a few other sources, I can add that Jackson has a good record on gay rights. In the article you cite, the author mentions that he flew with Jackson to Zimbabwe to speak out against discrimination against gays in that country. He did say that as a minister, he would not perform gay marriages, but that each minister should decide for himself or herself.

Jackson has also participated in gay rights rallies and demonstrations. So calling Jackson "bigoted" is clearly out of line.

However, both the author of that article and your post I think are misuderstanding the technical, constitutional reason they are reluctant to call gay marriage a civil rights issue, and are conflating that with actual religious bigotry against gays.

[MADem]

33. It's not out of line. He has said plainly he opposes same sex marriage.

What part of "In my culture, marriage is a man-woman relationship," is UNCLEAR?

Don't give me the "Awwww, he didn't MEAN it" excuse. He totally meant it. He will "allow" "The Gays" their little "civil unions" but they simply HAVE to be "less than" the heterosexuals to satisfy the Reverend. They can't have MARRIAGE, because, according to the Reverend, who doesn't do too well with the marriage vows himself, that's only for the "man-woman relationships."

So, I guess that's only a LITTLE bit bigoted. Separate but equal, eh?

Gimme a break. Amazing how some people are held to a lesser standard.

[HockeyMom]

3. Exactly

and bought to you by exactly the same "relgious" people who pushed the former.

[MuseRider]

4. Will

That is wonderful. Could you cross post it in the GLBT forum please? Or I could but I am leaving for a while. This really is good, I have not even had time to read the entire thing but it is bookmarked. Thank you.

[annabanana]

5. Jim Crow is alive and well.

LGBT rights are civil rights. So we keep fighting.

[JohnnyLib2]

6. Terrific! She should speak to the Dem. Convention for sure.

[demigoddess]

19. i second that emotion. I would like to send a copy of her speech to my

state representatives. They need some enlightening.

[donco6]

45. I would love to hear her give this exact speech.

And I think the result would be the same.

[Hekate]

56. That's a great idea -- send it on to Dem Party HQ

It IS a civil rights issue, and I find it remarkable that the white religious right is able to warp this issue as an insult to the black community -- just as they twist the issue of choice, which they call genocide against black babies.

Ms. Estes gave a noteworthy speech.

Hekate

[Tiggeroshii]

7. That's what I thought too when I heard about the anniversary recently.

It wasn't until recently(within last decade) that a consistent majority of Americans began to approve of interracial marriage -a 1996 poll showed only 56% approve of interracial marriage). In the seventies of course there was a very strong majority against it(in the 70%'s I believe). It's astonishing how much things have changed just over the last few years(peoples' thought processes etc), and comforting to know that they will continue to do so.

[TahitiNut]

9. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend how WHO someone LOVES is any kind of problem.

I don't think there's enough paper in the world to make a list long enough for me to include that at whatever rank it might exist. I can only believe that MORE love and commitment is what we desire in a world where people are killed in the name of greed.

[brer cat]

15. Amen, TahitiNut.

Well put.

[LynzM]

24. Seconding the AMEN.

Absolutely spot-on. How can love be a threat, except to shine a light on what one lacks?

[MADem]

35. It does make you wonder about people's priorities--or at least it does me.

It's not my business what people DO with their "fiddly bits" first off, but I do think that aspect is what gets opponents to same sex marriages all "riled up." And then you have to wonder, why would it bother them? It's not THEIR fiddly bits, after all. What are they projecting, and why?

If two people are happy together, more power to them. There's not enough happiness in this cold, hard world. Let them live their lives like any other adults can.

[femmedem]

10. K&R. n/t

[solara]

11. "Being less than..."

I have never understood how any human being could be considered as "less than".. Less than......what? Same -sex marriage IS a civil rights issue.. The determined effort by self-prescribed morality police to make it seem otherwise is ludicrous. Shame on the psychopathic bigots who continually attempt to validate such irrational anti-human fanatacism through legislation. :grr:

More power to State Rep Estes and all those who are straight up courageous and speak the truth.


INVESTIGATE IMPEACH INDICT IMPRECATE INCARCERATE :banghead:

[juno jones]

12. She is a beautiful woman

and an eloquent voice. I am glad she has overcome so much to become a lawmaker and representative. We need more women like that on the national level as well.

[Berry Cool]

14. Behold, the voice of a woman who "gets it."

And yes, there are some pockets of the African American community that are virulently anti-gay. But they tend to be conservative Christian pockets who believe in the business about homosexuality being an abomination. It's the kind of thing that Ken Blackwell used to push.

But that is not all African Americans, and it is not all Christians, either. Some African Americans are completely able to equate the gay-marriage issue to the interracial-marriage issue. And some Christians don't believe the Bible is anti-gay.

It all depends on the individual.

[mzmolly]

16. Rec #16. I've often said that the LGBT community needs to launch it's own version of the Boston Tea

Party. "No taxation without representation!"

What an interesting post, I had actually forgotten how far we've come and how far we have to "go."

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

22. Insert joke about Indian costumes here.

[Zhade]

27. We prefer "Native American".

Fucking Columbus...

[SalmonChantedEvening]

18. Bless You Carol Estes

That was powerful.

Thank you Will :pals:

[AikidoSoul]

20. Inspiring and beautiful. k & R N/T

[LynzM]

23. Awesome.

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. :)

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

25. Extremely good speech n/t

[ninkasi]

28. That was great...

What a compassionate and wise woman she is. It is about civil rights, of course. It always should have been, and religious prejudices have no place in taking away other people's rights. I couldn't help but notice, in her picture, what a beautiful smile she has.

[Kurovski]

40. K&R. (nt)

[tbyg52]

43. Senfronia Thompson of Texas ROCKS!

On Texas's gay marriage amendment, which, I'm sorry to say, passed in spite of her efforts.

I have been a member of this august body for three decades, and today is one of the all-time low points. We are going in the wrong direction, in the direction of hate and fear and discrimination.

Members, we all know what this is about; this is the politics of divisiveness at its worst, a wedge issue that is meant to divide.

Members, this issue is a distraction from the real things we need to be working on. At the end of this session, this Legislature, this Leadership will not be able to deliver the people of Texas, fundamental and fair answers to the pressing issues of our day.

Let's look at what this amendment does not do: It does not give one Texas citizen meaningful tax relief. It does not reform or fully fund our education system. It does not restore one child to CHIP who was cut from health insurance last session. It does not put one dime into raising Texas' Third World access to health care. It does not do one thing to care for or protect one elderly person or one child in this state. In fact, it does not even do anything to protect one marriage.

Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination. I know something about hate and fear and discrimination. When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about "protecting the institution of marriage" as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd often find the people of my color hanging from a tree. That's what the white folks did back then to "protect marriage." Fifty years ago, white folks thought inter-racial marriages were a "threat to the institution of marriage."

More: http://www.houstondemocrats.com/archives/2005/05/senfronia_thomp.html

[donco6]

44. Very brave of her.

Many African Americans on this very board object to the equating of gay rights to civil rights. But she hit the nail on the head.

[SmokingJacket]

46. Beautiful! An amazing speech. nt

[YankeyMCC]

48. Now there's a clear thinking moral politician nt

[Madspirit]

49. Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King on gay rights:

“All forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere,” the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. told activists gathered for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s annual Creating Change conference.

I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination.

My husband, Martin Luther King Jr., once said, “We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny…an inescapable network of mutuality.… I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.” Therefore, I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.

[Madspirit]

50. K&R...n/t

[Rex]

51. Wow!

Just, wow! :applause:

[MasonJar]

57. Thank you, Rep Estes. for standing tall. And thank you, N.H and Mass.

As a widow with three grown children and no gay tendencies, I applaud the actions of the people of N.H and Mass. I only wish Kentucky would go so far. Someday!

[LeftishBrit]

61. What an inspiring woman!