This week, our grand old university will be taking the opportunity to prove to itself and the rest of the country what big racists we're not being. The new monument to James Meredith will be unveiled; a lot of long speeches will be given; cake will probably be served.
It's not as if we don't deserve at least some credit. It's not 1962 here anymore, as much as the rest of the world would like to think so. However, as far as we've come, things still aren't equal, and we can't afford to forget that, even while we're celebrating the gains we've made.
I know that the struggle for equality between blacks and whites isn't over yet, but I'm not going to talk about that. I don't pretend to know what it's really like to be black in Oxford, and I'm sure there's someone who can write and has written that article a hundred times better than I can. I'm here to talk about everybody's favorite elephant in the parlor: gay rights.
Really, it's not about whether it's natural or not. Falling back on the biological basis of homosexuality only leads to people painting homosexuals as lesser specimens who can't control their base urges. Murder is natural, but we don't do that. So is walking around topless in public. And hey, cancer and the black plague are natural, too - why don't we just try and cure it? Any idiot can make these arguments, and they often do.
It may seem easier to argue from hard science, but when we give in to this kind of biological reductionism, we open ourselves to all kinds of sophistry.
The point is, biology or not, it's a valid choice that two consenting adults can make without hurting anyone. Sodomy's been legal since Lawrence v. Texas, and society hasn't fallen apart yet. Furthermore, the legalization of gay marriage and adoption has plenty of benefits to society. Why should thousands of children be stuck in the foster care system without hope of ever being adopted when they could be in stable two-parent families?
And no, legalizing gay marriage is not going to lead to legalized polygamy. The reason polygamy is and should be outlawed is that when it's practiced on an institutional level, it leads to rampant statutory rape, forced marriage and incest. We're not likely to legalize any of those things in the next few hundred years because those things are really damaging to our societal setup. Homosexuality? Not so much.
It's asinine to draw really deep comparisons between the African American civil rights movement and the push for gay rights, because the two situations are just so different. However, some things are the same across all struggles of the kind. Any minority movement has to have majority support to make significant gains, barring a full-out revolution. In today's culture, it's easy for white people to support or appear to support equality for blacks. You don't really have to do anything except not act like a giant racist in public.
Obviously, it wasn't always this way. The victims of the civil rights backlash weren't just black, and white activists made significant contributions to the movement.
That was then, and this is now. For white people, the benefits of supporting equality between whites and blacks far outweigh the detractions. Supporting gay rights isn't like that. Anybody can be gay, and it's not a charge you can disprove. Even if you've got two kids and a white picket fence, you're either in denial or just covering it up. You don't have to be gay to experience the discrimination that goes with it.
I know being tarred with the same brush is a scary proposition, but without the support of straight people, the gay rights movement is doomed to fail. If you don't step out and stand up for gay rights, think about who you're failing. You're failing that guy that sits next to you in history, your best friend, your family member, and, if you think you actually believe in equality, you're failing yourself.
