Black Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights

Abstract

This chapter argues that the pro-gay rights employment of, and the responses of black anti-racists to, race/sexual orientation analogies marginalized black gays and lesbians. The invisibility of black gays and lesbians in both gay rights and black anti-racist discourses about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, raises serious questions about the legitimacy of civil rights agendas that fail to address intragroup differences. The notion that blacks are not like gays takes several rhetorical forms in black anti-racist discourse. During the Don't Ask, Don't Tell controversy, gay rights proponents sought to legitimize a sexual identity anti-discrimination norm by analogizing to historical race discrimination. Specifically, gay activists compared the military's discriminatory practices against gays and lesbians to the military's historical discriminatory practices against blacks. The more sophisticated, though not unproblematic, anti-racist argument that gays are not like blacks is reflected in black civil rights participation in the public debates concerning the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.