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To Stop Losing the Culture Wars, Learn From Gay Marriage
(jacobin.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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Do you mean that we should simply surrender to the right and let them oppress marginalized groups?
War has been declared, and we can't just plug our ears and pretend it's not happening.
In a word, yes.
MLK's top lieutenant was gay. King never spoke out publicly about gay rights because he knew it would be a giant distraction.
Disgusting take.
Show me a time MLK spoke out about gay rights and I'll delete.
He was a general fighting a war; he knew there were some battles that couldn't be won.
I don’t know anything about that and I’m willing to accept it is true for the sake of discussion. That’s not what I found disgusting.
Well, whatever you do, don't tell me what the problem is, because then it might get fixed.
You’re fine with the oppression of people that aren’t you. Ends justify the means mentality.
By that logic, every abolitionist who didn't pick up a gun in 1820 and start killing slave owners was fine with slavery.
By that logic, every doctor who can't cure every patient is a murderer.
There are things that are possible and things that aren't.
Frederick Douglas worked for Lincoln in 1860, even though there was an abolitionist candidate. Douglas looked at the situation dispassionately and decided that it was better to support the moderate Lincoln, who did not promise to end slavery.
Also, the gay man I mentioned never called King out, because that guy knew you have to pick your battles.
Yeah man they knew to pick their battles in a time where black people were a legally distinct second class. They didn't bring gay issues into it because that wasnt the fight. Black gay men in the 60s were more worried about the fact it was illegal for them to sit at a counter as black people than their individual persecution for being gay. You have no excuse to not care about the persecution of individuals for being gay. Gtfo. This is the fight now, so shut the fuck up.
All your examples are people putting their personal convictions aside for the ultimate good, which you are not doing. People in 1820 who didn't pick up guns WERE okay with slavery.
You're doing the exact opposite of that guy, because you're saying stop fighting for the rights of your own people because my personal feelings about it are more important, you absolute nonce. Way to completely distort and misunderstand your own point.
That is an internet classic.
You are correct that there is very little that MLK had to say about gay rights, however that does not mean that you can take that absence of evidence and ascribe whatever meaning you want to it.
When did MLK state that was his reason for staying silent on gay rights?
If you nothing about the history of the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights, a good place to start is "Before Stonewall."
https://youtu.be/SLwE45vd80A
You're deflecting. When did MLK state that was his reason for remaining silent?
Why do his reasons matter?
He decided that LGBTQIA+ wasn't a priority. Can you prove otherwise?
His reasons matter because you claim to know his reasons:
He was largely silent on LGBTQIA+ matters and so his reasons are unknowable. You cannot take the lack of evidence and ascribe whatever meaning you would like to it. Double so for proving the negative using that lack of evidence.
Have you ever actually spoken to anyone who was alive before the year 2000 AD?
You can actually make reasonable inferences based on what we know of the time.
By your logic, we couldn't know why FDR didn't draft women into the military or why Lincoln didn't have a Native Vice President.
You can not infer someone's motives and opinions whole cloth. Let's use your example:
There is a lot of documentation surrounding that with FDR explicitly making a push to draft women as well he explicitly stated his reasoning why and urges Congress to do so. You can go through the historical record on why it passed the house, why it was restricted to nursing roles etc. Had the war not ended it almost certainly would've been enacted.
FDR did explicitly want to draft women even though it was contrary to public opinion at the time, however the lack of dictatorship powers is why history played out the way it did.
Kind of proving my point there.
FDR had way more power than King, but found his hands tied because of public opinion.
If you'd done any research at all, you'd have known that homophobia in the 1960s was so common that even the barest hint of it in a movie was considered shocking.
And since you have been doing so much reading, let me reverse the question back to you.
Provide me one other reasonable explanation for King not mentioning LGBTQIA+ besides the one I gave.
You are completely missing the point.
You first made an unprovable claim based on pure speculation.
You then made a bogus strawman, again, based entirely on speculation.
I was using that strawman to demonstrate how your personal perspectives on a time do not constitute reality and how you have to do some actual fucking research before you say dumb shit like you keep doing.
I was hoping you'd be semi-competent and be able to find one of, if not the only, times that MLK did speak about LGBTQIA+ issues which was in an advice column written in 1958.
Find it, and tell me what you think.
You know what the funniest thing about you is?
You remind me of the heteronormative historians who will look at a same sex couple who lived together for decades, wrote passionate love letters to each other, and openly walked hand in had through their town, and then the historians will say there is no proof that they were sexually involved.
Believe what you want. I'm not obliged to follow this any further.
With that amount of vitriol I'm guessing you found it! Let's go over our evidence shall we?
Based on that, were I to speculate, it appears to me that MLK was typical of his time and held quite a few homophobic views himself. Not from a place of hate, but from a place of ignorance.
It seems far more likely than "he was an extreme outlier who deeply understood the plight of his queer allies, but alas was forced to make a 4d chess tactical decision to sacrifice them at the altar of public opinion".
However, the main takeaway is that we don't fucking know and attempting to use that uncertainty to justify sacrificing marginalized groups is disgusting.
In my opinion it is important for anyone who stumbles upon your dangerous, shit take to understand the place of ignorance it stems from and hoping that you aren't so far gone that you can realize it too.
So, by your logic, whatever the reason, King was disgusting because he didn't speak out?
And if he isn't disgusting, what's the difference between him and me?
You attempting to use that uncertainty to justify sacrificing marginalized groups is disgusting.
MLK did not say black liberation can only be achieved over queer bodies, you did.
Exactly my point. It's a war and you have to think strategically.
Armies retreat, people get left to die, and that's just the way it is.
If you think you can win a war without taking casualties, you're just silly.
War is hell.
A. You're responding to someone else.
B. Ah yes, the meatgrinder tactic, notable for it's effectiveness when used by the minority group within a conflict. How strategic and clever you are /s
A. Then ignore it if it's not your words.
B. In this discussion, you were being highly amusing by concentrating on a quibble over why MLK did what he did.
You didn't once mention Frederick Douglas, probably because as an ex-slave working for a politician who couldn't promise emancipation he's much closer to the actual meat of the argument.
So, go nuts. Explain why Frederick Douglas was disgusting for helping Lincoln instead of a sure to lose abolition candidate.
I didn't mention Frederick Douglas because I know who I'm replying to and how to stay on topic.
And I know who I am responding to.
It was funny watching you tie yourself in knots, and satisfying to see you admit that you have nothing useful to say.
Now that you've exhausted yourself, I'll leave.
I was kinda hoping you'd find a way to pretend you'd been more oppressed than Douglas, but I guess even you have some selfawareness.