Oct 15, 2007Quickie Link: Keith Boykin Muses about Religion and Gays
By vanrozenheim
(USA) - Keith Boykin criticized Colin Powell and other leaders who have insisted the oppression of Gays and Blacks cannot be equated, referring to a statement Powell made in the early 1990s when he spoke against lifting the ban on Gays in the military. Boykin criticized religious leaders, black and white, who refer to Gay rights as "special rights," saying that freedoms such as the right to marry, travel, visit one's partner in the hospital or be free from workplace discrimination are civil rights. He criticized the notion that a group of people should be expected to prove they have suffered more than another group. "We don't have an intelligent enough discourse to be able to separate the stupidity from reality," he said. "At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which group was most oppressed or which group was first oppressed or whether they're identically oppressed. What matters is that no group should be oppressed."
