Monique Ruffin in The Huffington Post:

The civil rights issue of our time is gay marriage, and the key players in our country's most significant civil rights movement are on the wrong side of it. The black church has taken on a new role: oppressor.

... Today, I am still shocked by the response of some of my black Christian friends to the plight of gay people in our nation. "I just don't agree that gay people can compare their struggles to ours," they bemoan. This is followed by the list of injustices blacks have experienced: the middle passage, slavery, lynching, rapes, and deaths. "Gay people haven't suffered nearly as much as blacks," they say. "Being black is not a choice," they add. "As if being gay is," I respond. I don't support the comparison. For me, the sufferings of a person or a group of people at the hands of other humans are frightening and heartbreaking. Instinctually, I feel that if any group can be oppressed, then I can be oppressed.

... Gay is the new black, sadly, because many blacks haven't been willing to embrace their own practices, secrets, fear, and shame about homosexuality. Many blacks have not been able to reconcile their real-life experience with their faith, and until they do this, they are oppressed people who are also practicing the oppression of others.