Who is the most important minority group? Who deserves the most attention? What minority group has been impacted the most negatively in American Politics? Do minority groups get along with other minority groups? These seem like silly question to ask!
Friday the House of Representatives in Maryland failed to approve a gay marriage bill that appeared to be all but a done deal a few weeks ago. The bill cleared the more conservative Senate and the Governor said, “Bring it to my desk and I’ll sign it.” And then the bottom fell out in the Maryland House.
Why? This shocked me. Apparently the reason the bill failed is that Democrats, yes Democrats, changed their minds in the last minutes and the Speaker of the House decided to send it back to committee effectively postponing the vote until next year. I was outraged! How could a Democrat do this!!!
Who were these Democrats? I wanted blood! Turns out they were African American Democrats that said they had an overwhelming response from their constituents to kill this bill! This blows my mind! How could the African American population in these Representatives districts support inequality? If any group should understand the equality struggle surely it would be them, wouldn’t it?
I wasn’t aware of this disconnect between the LGTB community and the African American community until I had a conversation with a friend about a month ago. He said he grew up in a town down south with a very vocal black population that frequently spoke out against the entire LGTB community.
While I was lobbying the Wyoming Legislature an African American lady testified at the same committee meetings I would testify at. She always told the legislators black civil rights were off limits as far as the marriage equality debate was concerned. She said she couldn’t help the color of her skin, and that she was born that way. She would also go on to talk about how her people had been beaten and kidnapped. She said gay people make a choice to be gay and if they want to get married they need to stop choosing to be gay and enter into a heterosexual relationship and then they could get married! I was actually approached multiple times and told about “conversion” programs that helped us gays turn away from our evil homosexual ways.
I don’t expect the entire African American population to be waving a rainbow flag at the next gay pride rally coming down mainstreet. And I don’t expect the entire LGTB population to be at the next Martin Luther King Jr. Rally. But I do think we should all be standing together for equality in all aspects of society not just when it suits our particular situation.
I hope I live to see the day where people are not viewed as black, white, brown, straight, gay, bi, or anything else that puts labels on people. I hope we are all viewed as human beings one day.
Jeran
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