Washington’s Black Community Grapples with Gay Marriage Issue
Tuesday's vote in favor of same-sex marriage at the District council in Washington, D.C., brought up some tensions among members of the local African-American community. Some have less trouble viewing the issue as a civil rights struggle than others, and generational differences appear to have something to do with it.
Tuesday’s vote in favor of same-sex marriage at the District council in Washington, D.C., brought up some tensions among members of the local African-American community. Some have less trouble viewing the issue as a civil rights struggle than others, and generational differences appear to have something to do with it. –KA
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But perhaps the fiercest opposition to the effort to legalize same-sex marriage in the District has come from some members of the generation that led the fight for civil rights nearly half a century ago, many of whom believe that comparing gay rights to the battle blacks waged for equality is misguided, even insulting.
“I reject the notion that gay rights is a civil rights question,” said Rev. Anthony Evans, 50, associate minister of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Northwest and head of the National Black Church Initiative. “The great human rights question is what we’re doing with the poor across the world.”
When Catania introduced the bill, many of his most avid supporters turned out to be the children of those civil rights movement veterans, who see this cause as the natural continuation of their parents’ and grandparents’ struggle.
Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) noted that although he supports same-sex marriage, seeing it as the next chapter in the fight for equality, his mother, a minister, is “totally against it.”
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