To the Editor:
It strikes me as absurd that an African Amercian who is obviously aware of the struggle his people have faced can belittle another group and their struggle for acceptance ("Gays and the Civil Rights Movement," Jan. 18, The Dartmouth). It is disturbing that Amiri Barksdale uses the same argument to legitimize attacks on homosexuals that Zhirinovsky uses to justify anti-Semitism in Russia: "[they] are wholly responsible." There are certainly legitimate complaints that can be raised against the gay rights movement, but being a direct cause of homophobia and violence against gays is hardly one of them. Even if homosexuality was a choice, which Barksdale seems to believe, that is hardly grounds for institutionalized discrimination. As everyone who has read the Constitution knows, the first thing tacked on to the end was the guarantee to make another choice - that of religion.
Barksdale tries to explain the dissimilarities between the gay and civil rights movements by saying "[the civil rights movement] was based on a need to be recognized as human beings and a need to be protected by the law after centuries of physical abuse and oppression - in short, the need for humanity." This is exactly what the gay rights movement is trying to acheive. He claims that homosexuality is "not meant to be." Why would so many people choose to be queer? The benefits are few. Who would choose potential ostracization from their family, church and peers, violence against them, a high risk for AIDS and discrimination without legal recourse?
The columnist took one of the credos of the civil rights movement - equality in the eyes of the law - in vain, in the same paper that memorialized its slain leader.
BRIAN DOLAN '97
