Ex-Gay Watch reader Rev. D.L. Foster appeared on
CWFA radio, discussing his life and his concern that the
push for civil rights for gays demeans African-Americans.
Foster and the CWFA host differentiate between civil rights
based on race and orientation by noting that
orientation is sometimes fluid but race is not.
In 1970, though, Roger Mills and Berta Johnson sought a
simple marriage license but had to take their request to a
federal judge before a Mississippi county circuit clerk
would comply. Mills was white and Johnson was
African-American. They later received hate mail urging
them to abort their daughter, calling her “an abomination
against God.”
Today the same daughter, now living in Georgia, is
fighting for the same sort of sanction her parents finally
won, so that her spouse of 5 years might have health
insurance.
Roger and Berta chose each other even though, in the
technical sense, they had the option of choosing to love
someone from their own race and follow social convention
of their time. Their daughter Demetria is no different in
choosing her partner Sylvie.
The lives of Roger and Berta, Demetria and Sylvie, suggest
that fluidity of choice in a partner — across racial,
gender, religious, disability or any other lines — should be
irrelevant.
Equality under the law is just that. To deny it based on unpopular choices, such as interracial marriage, is to undermine it for all.
(SB)