The Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, a law that prohibits LGBT couples from recognized marriages in California. The premise of its brief – striking similarities between the ban on gay marriage and the former ban on interracial marriage.

While public debate over interracial unions has generally died since Loving v. Virginia, today the opposition to marriage for same-sex couples relies on arguments strikingly similar to those raised in opposition to interracial marriage.Without acknowledging the racial provenance of these discredited arguments, opponents of marriage equality have attacked same-sex couples as a threat to American society, American families and heterosexual marriage, as an affront to the laws of God and nature, and as a menace to their children.

While some debate the merits of linking the Civil Rights movement with LGBT equality progress, its clear that black people can sympathize with a group facing blatant discrimination against basic rights. There are some cultural differences and disagreements that many black folks have with these rights, and with LGBT lifestyle period. Those arguments, however motivated, should take a back seat to the black and white area of blocked civil rights.

Kudos to Howard for taking a progressive and compelling stand in the LGBT marriage discussion. They don’t call it the Mecca for nothing.