Gay Rights, Atheist Allies and WTF Black Community?

I always thought myself lucky to be born with a natural attraction to the opposite sex. Why do I say lucky? I've watched close friends deal with judgment, harassment, and aggression because of who they are - because they're gay - and I understood after witnessing it that I was lucky to be hetero. I'm sure my parents felt this way growing up in the rural Midwest during desegregation. The fact is - when you feel lucky because of how you were born, there's something bad happening to people who weren't born the same as you.

For a lot of atheists, the issues my friends have dealt with are all too familiar. Now, similarities have previously been drawn between the atheist movement and the gay rights movement and I don't think many people have a problem with this because they are both similar kinds of rejection received typically from religious conservatives (though not always). One could argue that discrimination against gays is worse because homosexuality is not a belief, it's a state of being and I agree with that, but discrimination on any level is unacceptable and so to say 'my suffering is less deserved than your suffering, though neither is acceptable' is moot.

For me, the passion of my support of gay rights is on par with the passion I have in my belief in atheism - I honestly cannot see any reason why gays should not have the same rights as anyone else. I even take offense to giving gays the same exact rights as everyone else but not allowing them to use the word 'marriage'. It's ridiculous, it's troglodytic in philosophy, and it's blatently seperatist. Have we learned nothing?

What really bothers me is when I see black people rallying against gays. Seriously? You don't see ANY connection between what happened to you or your parents, grandparents, etc and what some people are trying to do with gay rights right now? I imagine it must be a poisonous and hateful form of religion that allows these people to diferentiate between what they and their family went through for equal rights and what gays are currently going through regarding rqual rights. Which is a wonderful and specific example of why I think religion is a negative influence on modern society.

What spurnned this little rolling rant? This video taken of a group of teenagers (black) harassing a single gay man as he walked alone down the street. What the hell is wrong with these kids? Does it only take the span of a few decades for people to forget all of the struggle they had to go through before they turn around the inflict the same kind of hateful aggression they once rallied against?