Life After Lawrence

By Keith Boykin, in sexuality
Monday, August 11 2003, 8:20AM

On September 17, 1998, Roger Nance called police in Houston, Texas to report an armed gunman was "going crazy" in his apartment building. Harris County sheriff's deputies rushed to 794 Normandy Street to respond. They entered an eighth-floor apartment through its unlocked door. There was no gunman there, but the police did find a middle-aged white man and a younger black man engaged in consensual sexual activity.

John Lawrence, 55, and Tyron Garner, 31, were arrested and convicted of "deviate sexual intercourse." After a five-year court battle, on June 26 the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas reversed their convictions and struck down state sodomy laws nationwide. Since that day in June, conservative values have been on a collision course with changing times.

With the sodomy laws out of the way, activists began planning for gay marriage and preparing to sue the military to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Soon afterward, news of a major expansion of the Harvey Milk School, New York City"s gay high school, made tabloid headlines, television's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" drew the largest ratings in the history of the Bravo channel, and the first ever gay TV dating show premiered. Meanwhile, the Canadian government moved toward legalizing same-sex marriage and a gay bishop was approved in the Episcopal Church.

Isn't progress wonderful? Not for everyone.

While the white gay establishment is energized, black gays and lesbians aren't exactly racing to the chapel. In the past three months, a 15-year-old black lesbian was murdered in Newark, a New York City Councilmember was killed by a black gay man, and The New York Times Magazine published a dramatic cover story on the "double lives" of black men "on the down low."

For black gays and lesbians, life after Lawrence looks pretty much like life before Lawrence. There's still no light at the end of the tunnel. While mainstream gay activists plot their next move, some black gay scholars who gathered at a research summit sponsored by Brooklyn's People of Color in Crisis and the New York State Black Gay Network last week questioned the relevance of the gay agenda.

The problem is not that black gays and lesbians disapprove of same-sex marriage or any other issue on the gay agenda. The problem is that those issues seldom top the list of priorities for the black LGBT community. Many black gays and lesbians are just as concerned about AIDS, healthcare, affirmative action, racial profiling, and unemployment as they are about civil unions.

The black LGBT folks I've talked to do not feel as empowered by the progress of recent months as their white counterparts do. They know that blacks are rarely represented in the visible images of the LGBT community, and when we are represented we are often depicted negatively or unsympathetically.

To understand the problem, Professor Kim Pearson at the College of New Jersey, recently compared the coverage by major media following the May 11 murder of Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old black lesbian, in Newark, New Jersey and the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. She found 507 news stories about Shepard in the two months after his death but only 11 stories about Gunn in the same time period after her death. The disparity in news coverage sends a subtle message that black lesbian and gay lives aren't that important.

It's not just about numbers; it's also about accuracy. The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Daily News were quick to disclose juicy details of Othniel Askew's "gay lifestyle" in the days after he murdered Brooklyn Councilmember James Davis. But just one week later, there was no coverage of the city's Black Gay Pride weekend. Askew's homosexuality was certainly worthy of news coverage, but so too were the Black Pride activities.

During Black Pride, Def Jam founder Russell Simmons and rap music legend Rev. Run came out to support a black LGBT youth summit, and more than 100 black LGBT scholars and advocates took part in a research summit. The same weekend that The New York Times Magazine ran a flashy cover story on black men having sex with each other on the down low, thousands of black gays and lesbians showed up in the open on Saturday at Fort Greene Park and thousands more braved the rain and wind on Sunday at Jacob Riis Beach.

Which reality is true? They both are. Many blacks are deep in the closet, but many others are out and open. Some don't identify as "gay," but don't live in the closet either. We need not censor the news coverage of any of these realities, but we should show more than one side.

Unfortunately, the recent media obsession with gay issues comes just as black gays and lesbians are least prepared to be involved, and last week's black gay research summit underscored the racial differences in the community. While the rest of the gay community was debating the anti-gay statements by the pope and the president, black gay researchers were still struggling with AIDS. Infection rates remain high among African Americans even as white America has moved on from AIDS.

When non-AIDS issues come up, there's no one to speak for black gays and lesbians, and the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, the only national black LGBT organization, will soon be closing its doors for good.

Meanwhile, a whole new generation of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth is growing up faster than any generation before it. From Christopher Street to the Hudson River piers, they seem to be coming out younger and younger. Perhaps they don?t need the validation of Lawrence v. Texas to demand their rights. What Lawrence means depends largely on what they make of it and how they use it or don't use it to win their rights.

Writing for the majority in the Lawrence case, Justice Anthony Kennedy reminded us that "times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

Kennedy's majority opinion put the responsibility squarely back on us.

This article was originally published in Gay City News on Friday, August 8, 2003.

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