Civil Rights: Does "Immutable Characteristic" Really Describe Us?
Filed by: Patricia Nell Warren
December 2, 2008 7:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/12/a_better_definition_of_our_civil_right.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2008/12/a_better_definition_of_our_civil_right.php)
The recent fallout over Prop 8 -- questions about whether African Americans voted heavily to ban same-sex marriage -- points up a need to redefine and strengthen the basis of our demand for civil rights. In recent decades, we LGBT people have trended towards comparing our battle to that of African-Americans. Some African-Americans, especially the churchgoing conservatives who don't approve of homosexuality, voice anger over what they see as our attempt to co-opt their struggle and their history of slavery and pain. Yet we can point to our own history of oppression and pain.
What constitutes a "civil right" anyway?
In its time, the 1789 Bill of Rights was urgent and specific about what it wanted -- free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to demand redress, etc. Throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, further amendments to the Constitution detailed further urgent rights -- freedom from slavery, freedom of non-whites and women to vote, etc.