The article by brownblackandqueer...totally articulates many of the things I have been trying to say about the gay rights movement. Agreed no group should be subject to discrimination but that does not remove the elements of white privilege within the movement itself. Awesome, awesome article!!

"Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?" is perhaps the most astounding article I have read for years. The sheer depth of the level of thinking is hard to render briefly. In summary the article says that, because White people might be able to access gay marriage more easily than Blacks, gay marriage should be denied to everyone!

This makes total sense to me. If there is discrimination against Black people related to a certain issue, the best solution is obviously to perpetuate discrimination against gays.

In fact, the article doesn't go far enough. If Black people face barriers to home ownership, then the solution is to ban gay people from buying houses. Why should they benefit from gay white privilege?

And the beauty of the argument is that it can be applied both ways. If gay people face discrimination around partner health benefits or adoption criteria, we should deny Blacks those rights as well.

Only when we have thoroughly oppressed Blacks and gays will the fight against white privilege be complete.

Vagina Warrior - "In summary the article says that, because White people might be able to access gay marriage more easily than Blacks, gay marriage should be denied to everyone!"

And as usual black people always find something to whine about.

Regardless of race homosexual marriage should be banned all together. I don't care what race you are homosexual marriage is just nasty.

Oh yeah, two people loving each other and wanting to have a state-recognized, committed relationship is sooo nasty.

The T Don Hutto awareness blog is eye-opening. Among the many, many horrific reports:

"Outgoing 9-1-1 calls placed by immigrants detained at T. Don Hutto Residential Facility in Taylor will soon be blocked after Immigration Customs Enforcement changes the phone system in the former prison. The block affects telephones used specifically by immigrants housed in the facility. Also blocked will be all incoming phone calls."

Wow. I have no words. The senseless cruelty of the whole prison industry, the T Don Hutto center especially, is heartbreaking and just so senseless. Thanks for sharing this.

I was very moved by the Kenyon Farrow piece, and had a lot of trouble digesting it; I very much agree that using same-sex marriage (NOT Gay marriage, same-sex marriage; the blithely male-centric language this piece used was a huge frustration to me) as the poster-issue for the queer community needs to be seriously reconsidered and questioned because to me it obscures many of the underlying issues powering people's motivations to get married, namely affordable and accessible health-care, and other institutional benefits of marriage that are actually separate from the religious nature of marriage. As a queer woman who is considering getting married in order to gain access to healthcare, I get really frustrated with the media's non-nuanced coverage and depiction of the issues 'Gay' marriage is motivated by, and the way that the rigid focus on marriage as this be-all, end-all civil right takes focus away from many of those motivating issues, like healthcare, that affect everyone, queer, straight, partnered or single.

I agree that we as a national (and local) queer community have serious, troubling issues with racism (as well as sexism, transphobia, misogyny, religious intolerance, domestic violence, and all sorts of hatred that Farrow doesn't address) that mirrors the power relationships acted out in straight communities through the US; using two upper-class privileged white male partners as the poster children for the 'Gay community' has many of the same issues at play as does using two upper-class white privileged heterosexual partners as the poster children for the average American consumer. Gay marriage does not create gay rights, because marriage does not create equal rights in and of itself.

That said, though I agreed with many of the points Farrow made, I didn't really follow how many of them fit together to make up his argument that Gay marriage is anti-black. I agree with the point he's making, but not how he's choosing to make it, how he frames his argument, how his language for most of the article excludes women, bisexuals, trans-identified people, gender-queer-identified people, those of multi-racial or multi-ethnic heritages, an audience he attempts to speak for without seeming to notice how biased his language and argument is in the first place. I also found it deeply frustrating to see a call for a critique of gay marriage without a critique of calling it 'gay marriage.' Same-sex marriage, people, same-sex marriage.

Personally, I feel that same-sex marriage as the pinnacle of civil rights is ridiculous and deeply flawed, and while I found myself agreeing with many of the points Farrow used to construct his argument, his overall framing of his point was quite off-putting to me. It seemed like to me, in the end, Farrow was attempting to give voice to the painful feeling of having his identity ignored and marginalized by the media's incomplete representation of 'gayness'; unfortunately, in his effort to voice this frustration, he marginalizes many, many other identities and perspectives.

Farrow's article is interesting, but very limited in scope as it is constructed with a man's perspective with a man's privilege. It really only talks to the realities of men, be they gay or black. When he talks about women, it seems to be an afterthought or merely as convenient vehicles to make a point (Rosa Parks, black divas' voices in gay male clubs). And while he may be right about the LGBTQ movement being mainly gay white men, the rest of us, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, and queer (among others) exist, too. I don't appreciate having my reality erased and shoved into gay men's realities.

It'd be nice to see another article on same-sex marriage and race that is more consciously written.