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We discussed briefly today in my new class, Topics in Recent U.S History, gay rights in relationship to military service. One thing that gave me a new perspective on the topic was the historical context on minority groups permission to serve in combat during World War II, when they were previously only allowed to wash dishes, cook meals and clean up after the members of the military. Civil Rights was born, in many ways, out of the attitude that if you fight and die for the country and its causes abroad, you should be granted equality at home as you are on the battlefield. The fear among many liberal politicians reluctant to support President Obama's agenda to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and allow gays to openly serve in the army, is that the post-war attitude will give birth to a movement demanding universal equality at the workplace, in adoption situations and of course, in marriage. This is fascinating to me, as I can imagine one reason gay rights has seemed so dead to so many over the last couple years, is because there is no such motivation to feed off of like there was in the civil rights movement.

As Whoopi Goldberg constantly points out on The View, the gay and civil rights movements began at the same time and worked together in many cities throughout America- particularly San Francisco and New York. Both movements demanded equality and human rights, and both movements achieved massive successes from granting blacks the right to vote to opening the door for openly gay politicians to be elected mayors. Of course, the movements have both changed drastically and are far less active on city streets today than they were 30 or 40 years ago.
Gay rights and civil rights, are essentially incomparable outside of the fact that they are both working to eradicate institutionalized systems of discriminatory policy. This is because gay rights protesters today are not going through what civil rights protesters went through years ago. Take expressions of pride for example- black pride on the streets would lend you to police brutality of immeasurable cruelty in the 1960s, where as gay pride on the streets is loud, proud and colorful- without nearly any interruption or intrusion by state officials. Another reason the gay rights movement is perhaps so dead has nothing to do with direct causes for motivation but the simple sense that there are less openly gay Americans than African-Americans and being gay is something anybody can master hiding, clearly not something a black person demanding equality could ever do when they were being hosed down by police in Birmingham, Alabama