I'm referring to an editorial published in the Baltimore Sun by Thomas Sowell, a senior fellor at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. With that position, it is reasonable to stipulate that he is quite intelligent. That may extend only to book smarts, though. He shows an almost total lack of understanding regarding the issues involving same-sex marriage in this editorial.
Sowell scoffs at the notion that disallowing same-sex marriage is any type of discrimination. He cites this as an example:
"When the law permits automobiles to drive on highways but forbids bicycles from doing the same, that is not discrimination against people. A cyclist who gets off his bicycle and gets into a car can drive on the highway just like anyone else. "
It seems obvious to this learned man that GLBT people enjoy the same right to marry as heterosexual people, they must simply ignore their sexual orientation and marry someone of the opposite sex. See, aren't we lucky that someone explained that so clearly.
Sowell also uses some twisted logic by saying there is no gay marriage to ban because there has never been legal gay marriage.
Is that like saying women were not denied the right to vote because they had never actually had it? That sounds pretty stupid too, doesn;t it?
I'm sure Mr. Sowell knows a lot more than I do, but unfortunately not quite as much as he thinks he does. I hope he sticks to topics on which he acaually does enjoy some perspective in his future columns and doesn't attempt to use his ignorance to restrict the rights of other individuals.
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What's particularly bothersome, is that there is a great deal of homophobia in the black community and one would think that a group that has been historically oppressed and gotten civil rights would be an ally for another minority group who is oppressed and has yet to gain those rights. But, Sowell's got his, and I guess that's what's ultimately important to him!
ReplyDeleteThe hostility many African-Americans have to Gay Rights has everything to do with the evangelical conservative Christian churches most of them were brought up in. In the 1950s and '60s, Liberation Theology was incorporated into the Black religious experience, but unfortunately, not enough of it to erase ingrained Southern White sermonizing about homosexuality. There's also a macho culture within the African-American community that contributes to widespread heterosexism, but the main culprit is definitely the Black church. Religious bigotry is a many-headed beast, and this is just one of the uglier heads. In order to kill this Hydra, we've got to stab it in the heart with frequent denunciation of hateful preachers, unbiased interpretation of Bible scripture, and comprehensive education about who and what Gay people really are. (We'll need to educate ourselves, too.) There is simply no substitute for waging battle inside Christian institutions. Mere political activism won't kill the anti-Gay Hydra. As for Mr. Sowell, he obviously hasn't learned that open expression of bigotry makes a person look ignorant. It sure as Hell goes against his reputation as an intellectual. He's wrong, of course, about there being "no Gay marriage to ban." It's legal in Massachusetts, and hopefully it will stay legal.
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