AP Photo/Gene HerrickJeez, what's the matter with you crankathons these past weeks? If I'm not getting slammed for deigning to author an ironic poll about bisexuality, I'm getting reamed for daring to compare racism and homophobia in the same breath.
Some real nut jobs wrote in, so sanctimoniously, it made me look like Todd Palin, by comparison. And for this hothead, that's saying a lot. The point is, there very much is a parallel. Buying tickets to see blacks perform in hotels (not all that long ago in this country) they were not allowed to stay in is exactly the same thing as laughing at Ellen DeGeneres in whichever state you've got your butt parked in but not inviting her to enjoy the same right to marry as do you.
When my friend, journalist Janet Kinosian, interviewed Martin Luther King's widow, Coretta Scott King, shortly before she died, J.K. asked her not only how would King himself have felt about gay rights and civil rights being on the same level, but how did she feel:
"I don't see how you can separate human rights and the rights of all people, no matter what their sexual orientation is," King reverently said to Kinosian. "They have the same rights as I, and those of us who are privileged need to support [them] because it elevates everybody."
That's all I need to hear.