Gay rights and the civil rights movement

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This has been bothering me for a while, since this whole San Francisco gay marriage fiasco started. I'm certain that there are people who really believe that the gay rights struggle is the same as the civil rights struggle of blacks in the 1950s and 1960s. This article articulates some of the issues with that view, Rosa Parks -- not by Debra J. Saunders.
IT'S FUNNY that, in a city that prides itself on its nonconformity, so many people make the exact same argument exactly the same way. To wit, after I write that Mayor Gavin Newsom was wrong to flout state law by authorizing same-sex marriages, a legion of readers write comparing gay and lesbian newlyweds with civil-rights legend Rosa Parks. To say that Newsom should have more respect for the law, they argue, is like saying Rosa Parks should not have engaged in her landmark act of "civil disobedience."

I think the term Delusions of Grandeur fits here.

How can anyone compare Parks' experience with that of San Francisco's same-sex newlyweds? They don't face arrest. They won't be jailed. They won't be fined. City Hall is sponsoring the ceremonies. Why, the City Hall cafe sold splits of Champagne so there would be bubbly at last weekend's weddings. Civil disobedience? Hardly.

Parks stood up against a powerful government. The mayor is the powerful government. He could have searched for a way to challenge state marriage law without violating it. But this stunt curried more favor.

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