Michelle Obama received loads of praise last month when, at an event for gay Democrats, the potential first lady said, "We are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in the pursuit of a more perfect union."

The "Selma" of which Mrs. Obama spoke refers to a 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, when police beat back civil rights activists trying to march to Montgomery as a protest to a black teenager's shooting. The event immediately became known as Bloody Sunday. The "Stonewall" of which Mrs Obama spoke, of course, refers to the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, widely seen as the launch of the contemporary gay rights movement. With that geographical reference, Obama sought to - and succeeded in - linking the civil and gay rights movements. The crowd - and the press - went wild, but not everyone agrees with Obama's optimism.

Racism and homophobia, some believe, are so completely and utterly different that drawing a comparison between the two amounts to a mortal political sin. That’s a perfectly reasonable argument. Race and sexuality have exceedingly divergent histories in the United States, and thus result in entirely different emotional experiences. White people can't understand anti-black sentiment anymore than straight people can comprehend homophobia.

Black, gay people have felt both, of course, which puts the National Black Justice Coalition in a precarious position.

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The assassination holds an especially gruesome place in the political sphere. A split second can destroy a collective dream, ideology or potential peace.

Killings of this nature are far more significant than a murder - the crime becomes a statement.

Specific assassinations certainly exist in their respective context - Martin Luther King and Franz Ferdinand's shootings took place within widely varied cultural climates, and with arguably different results - but mere mention of the fearsome verb can resonate far and wide.

That's no more true than during the current primary here in the United States, where we seem to have a morbid love affair with assassinations and the myths they birth.

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Martin Luther King died 40 years ago today. That means that when John McCain oppoaws the leader's eponymous national holiday in 1983, Dr. King had been dead for fifteen years. Above you'll see McCain explaining that he simply hadn't yet learned about King and his civil rights work. Now, we understand McCain had been a P.O.W. during that period, but someone must have tipped him off to King's existence.

Those of you who want a detailed account of McCain's King education can thank the Democratic National Committee for this run-down, which includes this informative tidbit about a 1994 Senatorial vote:

McCain Voted To Strip Federal Funding From the MLK Federal Holiday Commission. In 1994, McCain voted to prohibit federal funds for the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. The Commission was established in 1984 "to encourage the observance of King's birthday." According to Al King, head of the California chapter of the commission, the organization "helped keep 'senators' and representatives' feet to the fire to recognize the holiday.

For the record, King had been dead twenty-six years in 1994.

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While we're on the subject of Martin Luther King, we'd like to point you to an article by our old friend, sappho-journo Jasmyne Cannick.

In said article, Cannick uses King's his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail" to scold black leaderes for their Tim Hardaway-related silence.

Cannick insists that black leaders' muteness only proves that they're just as complicit in homophobic oppression as their white predecessors. By eschewing the inflammatory issue, black leaders are derailing King's dream and creating a nightmare for queer blacks.

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We've had a lot of special contributors here at Queerty. Most recently we had Cady Huffman fuming over our comments about her appearance at an HRC dinner. And, of course, who could forget God's Oregon-smiting appearance?

While certainly those both deserved the attention they received, neither compares to our latest guest commenter. Not only did he help change American history, fight the good fight for civil rights and spawn a national holiday, but he's dead! That's right, folks, apparently our coverage of Tim Hardaway has spurred the one and only Martin Luther King Jr. to send a posthumous message.

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