Hate By Any Other Name. By Eric Smith

Every person of color who is anti gay needs to understand that their homophobic intolerance is the moral equivalent of the Confederate flag as it relates to people of color for at the heart of both is a blanket condemnation of people not because of what they've done but because of who they are and over that which they have no control. The same Bible used by those who are anti gay to say that homosexuality is immoral and runs counter to the Will & the Word of the Almighty is the same Bible that was used to justify the enslavement of people of color and to say that we are less than human and considered immoral & dirty in the eyes of the Almighty.

There is no separating of the two. Hate is hate. Intolerance is intolerance and as such racism, sexism, and homophobia are all cut from the same cloth of bigotry, intolerance, and hatred. One cannot say that they are not one and be any of the other two for if you are one of them you are all of them. If you are a racist you are no different than a person who is sexist and homophobic. If you are a sexist you are no different than someone who is racist & is homophobic, and if you are homophobic then you are no different than someone who is racist or sexist.

You are either none of these things or you are all of them for each is built upon the same foundation of intolerance & built of the exact same stuff; only the outward appearance of each edifice is different. In every other respect they are identical.

So if you are a person of color who is anti gay or sexist, keep your objections to the Confederate flag & to racism to yourself for you have forfeited your right to proclaim them to be objectionable. If you are a woman who is racist & homophobic, then don't complain about your potential loss of your reproductive rights and your inability to earn equal pay for equal work for if as a woman you are racist & homophobic you have forfeited your right to complain about the ill treatment you receive because you are a woman, and if you as a gay person are racist & sexist, then do not complain about those who would deny you the right to marry the person of your choice because you are gay because by being a racist or a sexist you regard those of a different race & gender as not being fully human, and as such you lose your right to complain about those who treat you as being less than a full human being because you are gay.

What it all comes down to is this; our right to expect to be treated justly is predicated on our willingness to do justice by others. It is grounded on the simple rule that if we are to expect just treatment from others that we must first be willing to treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated; to either practice what we preach or stop preaching what we don't practice. It is all as simple as that.