Ben is Volunteering to Protect Maine Marriage Equality

[justpostit]

get a life and stay away from other people's rights.

[patrickometry]

Light skinned Black people often passed as white during the time of Jim Crow. Jews often passed as Christian during anti-Semitic times. Gay people have long learned to pass as straight in order to avoid the oppression and bigotries of intolerant people. Women have even been known to pass as men in times past to get educated. So, easily, your argument fails. Why? You reveal a deep ignorance of human sexuality and the ways oppressed people find ways to survive amongst people .... like you. :)

[EqualAndFree]

No, I have not heard of any convincing case of someone changing their sexual orientation or their race. I know that in extreme circumstances people will temporarily alter their behavior. People may disguise themselves as another race if their life is in danger. Straight prisoners may temporarily resort to rape of other male prisoners - but they won't call themselves gay or claim to prefer men to women -and they will be very happy to return to their wife when released. Race & sexuality are fixed.

[EqualAndFree]

May justice prevail!

[Derisa22]

hopefully not

[EqualAndFree]

Derisa22 - so you hope that justice does not prevail? Doesn't that sound absurd!

It sounds even more absurd when people realize that you yourself are the beneficiary of previous equality legislation guaranteeing equality and justice for racial minorities. You are now free to marry someone of another race without it being denounced as 'unnatural' and 'an abomination' as it used to be.

As Coretta Scott King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".

[Derisa22]

Homosexuals already have the right to marry. lesbians have the desire to marry a woman but the ability to marry a man. I have the desire to marry a woman and the ability to marry I woman. That means that we are equal in rights. In actuallity, what they are asking for are additional rights. As a gay women, they would be able to marry a man and/or a woman, while I just have my desire to marry a woman. Homosexuality cannot be compared to a natural state of being as black is. You can change from gay

[EqualAndFree]

Black & white people both had the same equal right to marry people of their own race - so there was "equality" back when inter-racial marriage was banned. Or equal repression. You could say the right to marry outside your race was an 'additional right' - and that it was the start of a 'slippery slope', that if people started marrying outside their race they would end up marrying cats and dogs. But you know that the Government has no right to prevent any two consenting adults from marrying.

[EqualAndFree]

Coretta Scott King:

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group"

"I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people"

[Derisa22]

If Coretta Scott King believes in what you are talking about, then she is just as confused as you are. Hold on, she is dead and i truely don't believe that those are her quotes. she wouldn't compare a gay desire to a Black struggle.

[EqualAndFree]

The statements from Coretta Scott King are well documented and were made during public speeches. Her views are shared by many in the civil Rights movement. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the first black Archbishop of South Africa (and Nobel Peace prize winner) said:

"Homophobia is a crime against humanity and every bit as unjust as apartheid"

and

"If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."

[EqualAndFree]

Yes, Coretta Scott King is dead - and because of these famous quotes the Revd Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church turned up to protest at her funeral and to announce that she would burn in hell because she was a "faggot-lover". I don't need to tell you that he derived the phrase "faggot-lover" directly from "******-lover" - which is what I get called when I stand up for YOUR rights.

[Derisa22]

Homophobia is as homosexuality is. Fake and non exisistant in actuallity. Homosexuality is purely a fad that has resurrfaced itself throughout history , just as clothing trends and hairstyles. and as those fads come and go, so will homosexuality. Tell me this my friend: have you ever heard of someone turning black? Hymm, now have you ever heard of someone turnning gay or being turned out....? With that in mind, Why is homosexuality being compared to race then?

[EqualAndFree]

To claim that a gay person could become "ex-gay" is about as convincing as claiming that Michael Jackson could "become white". Do you imagine that with the current level of homophobic hatred in American society that anyone would "choose" to be gay? Would they do it for their career - or to impress their parents - or to improve their status at school - or because they liked to be attacked and spat on? Hardly! It is about as sensible as saying that people "chose" to be black in the age of slavery.

[EqualAndFree]

Coretta Scott King:

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own and I salute their contributions"

"I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation"