Mike Huckabee Says Gays 'Haven't Suffered Enough' to Ask for Civil Rights
Friday 21st November 2008
Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas and Republican presidential hopeful, has shocked and angered the gay community when he said that homosexuals hadn’t suffered enough to seek equal rights.
Huckabee was on daytime chat show The View when he began to discuss the recent election, and how it was a positive step for the country to look past race and elect Obama. He then went on to discuss civil rights, which was when he suggested that gays had not endured enough physical violence to justify “real” civil rights complaints.
He told The View hosts: "People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want, but that’s not really the issue...But when we're talking about a redefinition of an institution, that's different than individual civil rights. It's a different set of rights.”
Co-host Joy Behar countered: "Segregation was an institution too, in a way. It was right there on the books."
Huckabee responded: "But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma Bridge."
Behar noted that gay bashing does indeed exist. One only has to think of Wyoming and Matthew Shepard to be reminded that violence against gays most certainly does exist whether Mr. Huckabee thinks so or not.
Many people have been eager to separate the struggle for gay rights from the African-American struggle for civil rights in America. PageOneQ reported on the Washington Times’ Tara Wall, who argued: "Black civil and religious leaders--rightfully--have expressed outrage at the gay community's co-opting 'civil rights' to include gay sex. Blacks were stoned, hung, and dragged for their constitutional right to 'sit at the table.' Whites--gay or not--already had a seat at that table. There is no comparison."
To claim that homosexuals should not be able to use the phrase civil rights in their efforts to claim basic civil rights, such as employment without discrimination, the freedom to marry who they choose, and inheritance rights for those they love, is inexplicable. While gays may not be attacked in the streets by dogs when they protest, the fact that African-Americans faced greater violence does not mean that gays do not deserve the civil rights for which they protest. Barack Obama is comfortable using the phrase civil rights to discuss gay rights (see his Obama-Biden civil rights plan at Change.gov), so why are other people so dead set against it?
Would Martin Luther King, were he alive today, claim that gays do not deserve equality and rail against the use of the phrase civil rights in reference to gay equality? Would he be happy to see that federal laws means that someone who attacks an African-American because of their race is charged with a hate crime, but someone who attacks a gay man because of his sexuality is not? Would he cheer at the idea that minority races are protected from discrimination in employment, but homosexuals are not covered by national discrimination law?
I find it hard to believe that Dr. King be proud that, in Mr. Huckabee’s home state, thousands of children will bounce around foster care homes for years because the gay couples who wanted to care for and raise them have been legally banned from adopting children in the state. Discrimination shouldn't be acceptable just because the victims are only beaten and killed occasionally. And those like Tara White who argue that giving every man and woman equal rights cheapen the accomplishments of those who fought for equality in the 50s and 60s are clearly off. One would think that those who had experienced the heavy hand of inequality would be quick to fight against it for all their fellow man.
It’s true that the gay rights movement has no Selma, Alabama, no Bull Connor figure who will sic dogs on lesbians marching against Proposition 8 or turn the fire hoses on men who don’t want to be able to be fired just because of who they love. That doesn't make their stuggle any less worthy. If being violently attacked is the only way to achieve anything resembling equality, then I know a good number of gay men and women who will line up for beatings if it means they can one day marry.
Huckabee and White’s comments show a shameful prejudice that is unfortunately all too common today. The idea that gays and lesbians’ struggle is not a “real” civil rights issue will ensure that homosexuals are denied their civil rights for years to come.
Huckabee was on daytime chat show The View when he began to discuss the recent election, and how it was a positive step for the country to look past race and elect Obama. He then went on to discuss civil rights, which was when he suggested that gays had not endured enough physical violence to justify “real” civil rights complaints.
He told The View hosts: "People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want, but that’s not really the issue...But when we're talking about a redefinition of an institution, that's different than individual civil rights. It's a different set of rights.”
Co-host Joy Behar countered: "Segregation was an institution too, in a way. It was right there on the books."
Huckabee responded: "But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma Bridge."
Behar noted that gay bashing does indeed exist. One only has to think of Wyoming and Matthew Shepard to be reminded that violence against gays most certainly does exist whether Mr. Huckabee thinks so or not.
Many people have been eager to separate the struggle for gay rights from the African-American struggle for civil rights in America. PageOneQ reported on the Washington Times’ Tara Wall, who argued: "Black civil and religious leaders--rightfully--have expressed outrage at the gay community's co-opting 'civil rights' to include gay sex. Blacks were stoned, hung, and dragged for their constitutional right to 'sit at the table.' Whites--gay or not--already had a seat at that table. There is no comparison."
To claim that homosexuals should not be able to use the phrase civil rights in their efforts to claim basic civil rights, such as employment without discrimination, the freedom to marry who they choose, and inheritance rights for those they love, is inexplicable. While gays may not be attacked in the streets by dogs when they protest, the fact that African-Americans faced greater violence does not mean that gays do not deserve the civil rights for which they protest. Barack Obama is comfortable using the phrase civil rights to discuss gay rights (see his Obama-Biden civil rights plan at Change.gov), so why are other people so dead set against it?
Would Martin Luther King, were he alive today, claim that gays do not deserve equality and rail against the use of the phrase civil rights in reference to gay equality? Would he be happy to see that federal laws means that someone who attacks an African-American because of their race is charged with a hate crime, but someone who attacks a gay man because of his sexuality is not? Would he cheer at the idea that minority races are protected from discrimination in employment, but homosexuals are not covered by national discrimination law?
I find it hard to believe that Dr. King be proud that, in Mr. Huckabee’s home state, thousands of children will bounce around foster care homes for years because the gay couples who wanted to care for and raise them have been legally banned from adopting children in the state. Discrimination shouldn't be acceptable just because the victims are only beaten and killed occasionally. And those like Tara White who argue that giving every man and woman equal rights cheapen the accomplishments of those who fought for equality in the 50s and 60s are clearly off. One would think that those who had experienced the heavy hand of inequality would be quick to fight against it for all their fellow man.
It’s true that the gay rights movement has no Selma, Alabama, no Bull Connor figure who will sic dogs on lesbians marching against Proposition 8 or turn the fire hoses on men who don’t want to be able to be fired just because of who they love. That doesn't make their stuggle any less worthy. If being violently attacked is the only way to achieve anything resembling equality, then I know a good number of gay men and women who will line up for beatings if it means they can one day marry.
Huckabee and White’s comments show a shameful prejudice that is unfortunately all too common today. The idea that gays and lesbians’ struggle is not a “real” civil rights issue will ensure that homosexuals are denied their civil rights for years to come.
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