Is gay rights a civil rights issue? A symposium leaders debate same-sex marriages and gay and lesbian rights

The key word here is civil. A civil union is something that would be defined by the state and should be available to all the citizens of that state, regardless of the definitions of particular religious denominations.

Some people, of course, oppose same-sex unions and homosexuality by quoting isolated verses from the Bible. I know where they are coming from. I was raised in the Catholic Church, but I think it is important to remember that the Bible was also used to defend slavery, wife-beating and the subordination of women. We no longer quote Bible verses to justify slavery and domestic violence, and we need to move to a new relationship and a new understanding with African-Americans who are part of the gay community. We have always had visibly gay and lesbian folks in our community, whether we talked about it or not. We've always had Uncle John and his "friend" and Aunt Sarah and her "friend," and the reality is that the African-American Church, which is by no means monolithic but is certainly a central institution in African-American communities, is home to a lot of gays and lesbians, particularly African-American men. And that is not openly discussed. One of the reasons we have such high numbers in the rate of HIV infections in the Black community is because we won't talk about all of our relationships, not just the ones we think our church will find acceptable.

One final point. If I had my druthers, we would not be involved in this big debate in an election year, because, frankly, I think sometimes that this is a rightwing plot to drive a wedge in the African-American community, so these right-wing so-called Christians can buddy with African-American folks they would not even live next door to, much less support in any meaningful way. We need a real internal dialogue in Black America about this issue. We need to be much more open about the reality that you live next door to some gays and lesbians, that we're in your family, that we're literally everywhere in our community and that we don't really serve anyone, we don't serve any of our overarching goals as a community, to be divisive around this issue. So I hope that we can minimally agree on certain points, including the danger to everyone of an anti-gay constitutional amendment, that would be used to limit rights not to expand and protect rights.