Same-sex issues are deeper than marriage
No half steppin‚
By Samantha Robinson
If I were to talk only about the problems I see in the black community, it would be all right, but when I specifically talk about white people and the treatment of blacks, I am a racist.
People, get your minds right.
Whenever I write something, please believe there is no ulterior motive behind the words. Take it for face value. What I write I mean, so you don‚t have to speculate whether or not I was trying to say something covertly.
Anyway, enough about that.
On Feb. 12, the marriage between Phyllis Marin and Del Lyons was solemnized. In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom previously had announced his intentions to open marriage to same-sex couples, making the city and county the first government in the United States to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
What a brave move. This mayor did not care what others thought. He did what he thought was right for the hundreds of couples who have professed their love and wanted to enter a legal union.
News reports have accounted even though he has solemnized the marriages, it does not mean any other city or state will have to acknowledge or honor it.
What is the big deal? If two men or women want to marry and share the rest of their lives together and be able to protect one another with life and health insurance, then the government ˜ people who are trying to force their beliefs on others ˜ does not have the right to tell them their lifestyle is wrong and should not be acknowledged.
While this is a problem, it leads me to a subject that hits home a little harder.
Because people are so against same-sex relationships, it causes people to live their lives as a lie. They do not tell their friends and family who they are and in many cases cause them to live a double life.
This is especially a problem in the black community. Men who are gay but don‚t want everyone to know will live their lives as a "down-low brother." These are men who have girlfriends and wives but also sleep with men. If you ask some of them, they will say they are not gay, only sexual freaks.
This is sometimes their way of justifying their sexual feelings for someone of the same sex. The problem with this is not only are they living a lie but they are also putting the women they sleep with in danger.
During recent years, the number of heterosexual black women with HIV/AIDS has risen. This is because they are sleeping with men who are on the down low ˜ whom they think are only sleeping with them.
According to the Center for Disease Control, in 1999 approximately 1 in 50 black men had HIV/AIDS and 1 in 160 black women. But today, those numbers have changed dramatically.
In 2002 ˜ the latest numbers available ˜ 54 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS were black. When the numbers are broken down by sex, 49 percent of HIV/AIDS cases are black men and 72 percent are women.
Many of the women who have been infected with the disease are heterosexual but have been in relationships with the men who are on the down low.
This problem can and needs to be stopped. If these men did not feel the pressure of hiding their sexuality by being with women, the number of black women with HIV/AIDS would be lower.
It is not enough to accept same-sex marriages legally. People who "gay bash" need to stop being ignorant. And the black men living on the down low need to stop frontin‚ and putting their black sisters‚ lives in danger because they want to fulfill their sexual appetites.
Samantha is a senior in radio-television. No half steppin‚ appears every Monday. These views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.
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