Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Homophobia: pretending that something applies only to gays

I had forgotten about this. Well, I'd never actually seen this video clip, but I recall Alan Keyes claiming that allowing gays to marry and have children would lead to incest because said children wouldn't know who their siblings are. Which is a perfect example of the above mock-definition.

Anyways, hearing about this "argument" again just put me in mind of this:
It becomes necessary, at this point, to protect your daughter from your own history in the field of race relations. She must never learn that you have been a firm believer in segregation in the streets and integration between the sheets, because your arguments in favor of racial purity might become suspect. The late William E. B. Du Bois once expressed it thus:

The rape which you gentlemen have inflicted on helpless black women in defiance of your own laws is written on the foreheads of two million mulattoes, and written in ineffable blood.


It would be interesting to know what your daughter would think if she realized that a few of the black boys toward whom she now throws flirtatious glances are actually her blood brothers. Here is where I join you in fearing interracial marriage. Such a marriage might be incestuous. Wouldn't you agree?

This was written mostly tongue-in-cheek, I think, as an open letter to all white people who fear that their daughters might marry a Negro, providing them with "tips" on how to avoid such a catastrophe. Published in Clotye Larsson, ed., Marriage Across the Color Line, p. 37.

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