Clarence Page and Gay Rights

I have never liked Clarence Page, he's been too much of a sanctimonious liberal for me the entire duration of my political life, so my disagreement with his editorial in the 08-Dec-2008 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune isn't much of a shock, but it's just amazing how someone becomes so noted for writing virtually nothing. In the editorial Gay pride meets black prejudice Mr. Page opens with the following:


'Gay is the New Black,' declares the Dec 16 issue of The Advocate, a leading gay-oriented magazine. Well, not quite. How about "Gay is the new gray"?... I don't oppose same-sex marriage... But gay rights leaders should think twice before drawing too many compaisons to the right for racial equality. They are tragically correct to point out the murder, beatings, arson and other hate crimes that continue to be perpetrated against homosexuals. But the history and nature of our oppression is so different as to serve to alienate potential allies instead of winning them over.


Luckily I have that issue of The Advocate Mr. Page references. What is interesting is after opening with the above salvo he goes on to show two things. First, at best he skimmed the article, and second, he says nothing at all about why gay rights leaders need to think twice about making the comparison. In fact, as to the depths of his reading the article, when you do examine the contents of Michael Gross' article (titled "Pride and Prejudice", not "Gay is the New Black" which is on the cover of the 16-Dec-2008 issue of The Advocate), you almost get the sense that Mr Page simply lifted what he liked from the article and attacked the title, but the attack he proposed has virtually no substance in his editorial. In fact, had he bothered at all to read for content rather than skim for quotes he would have found Mr. Gross making the following statement:


Too many drew a simple parallel between our struggle and the black civil rights movement... There is someting to this, but it's dangerous territory, and we have to be careful not to lose our bearings here. Gay is the new black in only one meaningful way. At present we are the most socially acceptable targets for the kind of casual hatred that American society once approved for habitual use against black people... The comaprison becomes useful, though, in forcing us to consider the differences, between our civil rights struggle and theirs.


And I am sure that had Mr. Page read the article he would have liked the following penned by Mr. Gross:


Our oppression, by and large, is nowhere near as extreme as blacks' and we insult them when we make facile comparisons between our plights. Gay people have more resources thank blacks had in the 1960s. We are embedded in the power structure of every institution of this society.. Almost all gay people have the choice of passing [for straight]. Very few black people have that option.


* sigh *

Page's simple rendering of the the issue surfaces in his indignation of not only the comparison of gay rights and the Black civil rights movement (which if he had actually read the article he would have seen that was not the intent), but also that pointing out 70% of the black community voted for Proposition 8 which stripped away the right of gays to marry is mean spirited and a "bum rap". Now he does note that Mr. Gross says the same thing (wow, what a guy) but the sad thing is what typically happens when a liberal commentator writes about statistics... they speak about things of which they have no knowledge. In an effort to be politically correct both Mr. Page and Mr. Gross try to dance around the fact that ethincally blacks voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 8. So what if they are only 10% of the voting electorate, if they had voted in the same percentage as Whites or Asians (less than 50% of those blocks voted for for the proposition) Proposition 8 would have failed (after all it passed by a 52/48 vote so if Blacks voted for it less than 50% that two percentage point swing in the overall population would have been enough). Trying to make comparisons with how Mormons or Catholics or Evangelicals voted is a false comparison (especially evangelicals since ethnicity and religion here probably overlaps quite a bit and the percentage fact is focusing on race rather than religion or any other factor).

So the fact remains... 70% of people in the black community voted for Proposition 8. Now the question to ask is "Why?" I am sure that most gays had a false sense of security given the Obama affect as well as the usual support for what is often considered liberal causes (though I think a strong conservative case can be made for gay marriage), I was saying early on not to do this. Most people who have studied sociology know that there does run through the black (and hispanic community)of social conservatism (more aptly called perhaps traditionalism). Both Mr. Page and Mr. Gross point this out and use it to attack the statistic but rather than attacking the statistic with it we need to address this. Rather than dancing around the percentage of blacks voting against gay marriage we need to address their underlying reasons. If we can tie our issue to that of civil rights (and it is because civil rights means "everyone's right" or "the rights of the public"), we have the opportunity to swing the percentage around... and that is what politics has become, a game of percentages.