The SSM Movement Is Not Comparable to the Civil Rights Movement

I didn't take kindly to being confronted by No on Prop. 8 folk on why Blacks didn't support civil rights for gays. That was their first mistake, this propensity to compare their equality struggle to ours. It's offensive and inappropriate, and here's why:

The civil rights struggle for racial equality was a deeply entrenched race caste system that was deeply rooted in the American psyche and integrated in the public policy agenda (Constitution) from the outset.

From slavery in the 17th, 18th and most of the 19th centuries to de jure and de facto segregation in the 19th and 20th centuries was a cultural impediment rooted in hate solely based on skin color that subjugated and marginalized black people in a very regimented way by the total society (women, children, foreigners, it didn't matter).

Signs were posted, protocols enforced and social (not legal) penalties enforced by the society (and reinforced by the courts). Discrimination could be imposed on sight. Not even the women's movement could be compared to America's race movement because not even women were mistreated, assaulted and killed with the frequency and volatility of the African American and Native American. Women, who were also discriminated on sight, were often turned (told to "go home") and assaulted if they persisted. African Americans were assaulted and killed if they persisted. Even womanists and feminists show a deference to the depth of hate waged against the African American and don't compare their movement to ours.

Not so with Gays and therein lies the problem. Sexuality is a disclosure (right of privacy) that allows people to be with who they please, in enjoyment and cohabitation. It also allows people to weigh their views on relationships against their moral values.

More here.