OPINION & EDITORIAL
Gay rights movement to define our generation
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Also by Adam Lichtenheld:
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- Media martyrdom plagues shootings (November 14, 2007)
- Discussing Middle East? Go there first (October 31, 2007)
- 'Awareness' weak on Islamic reality (October 17, 2007)
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by Adam Lichtenheld
Friday, December 7, 2007
It's quite fitting that Sexuality Issues Week follows last Saturday's commemoration of World AIDS Day. Raising awareness of the global pandemic can't help but elicit shameful reminders of the HIV virus' outbreak in this country, and how it was nourished by a potent dose of insidious discrimination.
The systematic indifference of U.S. policymakers during the spread of AIDS in the 1980s was motivated in no small part by the fact that in its infancy, the disease predominately affected gay men. The stigma stuck fast, and before most people even knew the details of HIV, they were aware that it was, according to Jerry Falwell, "killing the right people."
As Mr. Falwell's Moral Majority began its perversion of the Republican Party, central players in the Reagan administration became complicit in society's shunning of homosexuals. Communications Director Pat Buchanan responded to media inquiries by arguing that AIDS was "nature's revenge on gay men."
Although President Reagan was not particularly homophobic himself, his advisers knew that the disease was affecting the very people they had campaigned against to acquire votes from the "New Right." The resulting policy priorities led to enormous setbacks for AIDS research and development. Instead of implementing health plans with comprehensive outreach and education programs, the "powers that be" closed gay bathhouses in San Francisco and prohibited teaching about AIDS if it "promoted homosexual activity." Pleas for increased funding from medical professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health were repeatedly denied. But at least Mr. Reagan adhered to his campaign pledge to downsize government.
Once it was discovered that the "gay plague" was not so gay, a stereotype transformed into a full-blown cultural witch hunt. Now AIDS was not the homo cancer, but homos were definitely responsible for it. Prejudice and intolerance amplified; a few radicals even recommended the option of exterminating gay people. By the time Mr. Reagan finally spoke publicly about AIDS in 1987 — six years after it was first reported — 21,000 Americans had died from the virus. Stigmas attached to the disease finally began to evaporate.
But the ones attached to gays did not. Now, legislative bans "defining" matrimony have institutionalized the same discrimination that made America's response to AIDS an epitomizing moment in the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. Now, newly reinvigorated by these setbacks, the civil rights movement of our generation is in full throttle (pun most definitely intended).
Using rhetoric that likens the current struggle of the LGBT community to the plight of the black community might seem disingenuous, even unjust. Gays and lesbians were never classified as three-fifths of a person under the Constitution or subject to centuries of slavery and decades of segregation, beatings and lynchings. Hiding one's sexuality is a lot easier than hiding one's race.
But there are parallels. Homosexuality was considered a mental disorder until the 1970s, just as blackness was once thought to be a genetic defect. Like same-sex couples, interracial relations used to be seen as unnatural and a small step away from bestiality. Current LGBT leaders are demonized and discarded as "extremist" — the same label that was used to dismiss Martin Luther King Jr. And today's civil unions seem eerily similar to "separate but equal."
The LGBT movement of today is not the civil rights campaign of the 1960s or even the 1890s, before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. But it represents a historical and linear push by the American people to retain full civil equality regardless of their individual characteristics; whether gender, race or sexual orientation. First we had suffrage, then desegregation, and now… marriage?
If the issue was solely about marriage, no one would really care — especially homosexuals. After all, who wants to inherit a tarnished institution that's continuously mocked by adultery, divorce, Las Vegas and Britney Spears (or, dare I say, Rudy Giuliani)? If only it were that simple. If only gay marriage bans did not effectively strip gays and lesbians of more than 1,000 benefits and rights. If only policies were simply policies, and not veneers that render certain people politically inferior and culturally subordinate. If only homosexuality were a "choice" and we could just blame gay people for making foolish decisions that condemn them to second-class citizenship.
Throw out all the distortions of religion, petty politics and warped views of "morality" that surround these debates and it becomes brazenly clear that the LGBT community is fighting for a lifestyle, not an institution. No, it's not about preserving a sacred establishment. No, it's not about polygamy and people wanting to marry their lawn mowers. No, it's not about gender confusion or providing "stability" for children. What these issues boil down to is plain, unadulterated homophobia.
That's not to say that every opponent of gay marriage or gay adoption is a Falwell or a Robertson, or a radical bigot who, as the saying goes, is "insecure with his sexuality." But even seemingly logical arguments are unraveled to reveal one core assumption: being gay is wrong.
Of course, you don't have to approve of the gay lifestyle to acknowledge that gay marriage bans are blatant forms of institutionalized discrimination and have no place in a free and equal society. This needs to be told to people on both sides of the political aisle. While hypocritical "moralists" continue to hold gays responsible for AIDS and, more recently, the death of U.S. soldiers overseas for invoking "God's wrath," liberals haven't always helped. Many angry Democrats blamed President Bush's re-election on the LGBT citizenry for not "holding off" on civil rights, and none of the blue party's presidential frontrunners supports anything beyond a civil union.
In the future, we'll look back at this period with the same sense of absurdity that dominates our perception of the anti-suffrage and Jim Crow eras. We'll remind ourselves that not a moment is too soon for civil rights, and that all it takes is a little gall. In 1954, the Supreme Court desegregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education knowing full-well that society wasn't ready. A decade later, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act acutely aware that it would cost the Democrats their political strongholds in the southern states.
If only today's leaders would be so bold.
Adam Lichtenheld (alichtenheld@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in political science and African studies.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 1:30am):
well said! good job.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 2:40am):
you're absolutely right, Adam.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 4:55am):
Once again, what rights are being denied gays and lesbians? Show us one example of a right that has been taken away from anyone because of their sexual preference in the last year (or 5 years) that was not a crime.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 7:12am):
if that defines my generation then count me out
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 9:22am):
Who cares? If we didn't have to put up with so much antagonism from gays over our own sexuality, they wouldn't have it so bad. Don't rock the boat you're in.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 10:05am):
The LGBT movement should be supporting the fight against the Moslems, who in addition to not allowing them to marry, would also murder them.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 10:48am):
I could care less about gays. They think all straights are homophobic bigots regardless, so why bother?
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 11:30am):
gay fetuses are protected in maine...
straight ones are aborted nationwide.
i cannot wait until science develops an in-utero 'cure' for homosexuality. it's just like any other predestined malfunction..ie. obesity, drug abuse, adhd, etc.
the true test for an issue's morality is to ask what would happen if everyone did it.
fact is, gays do not deserve SPECIAL rights, they just deserve the rights that everyone else has, which is what they already have...in fact, framing the debate under the name, 'gay rights' implies a misgiving and falsely shapes the debate...shocking for a liberal movement.
i'm all for civil unions to encourage monogamous pairings, gay marriage out of the question.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 11:35am):
How about child custody? How about the rights denied to gays and lesbians regarding wills and trusts? How about gays and lesbians being unable to make medical decisions for an incapacitated partner? Those are all rights that straight couples have through marriage that gay couples are denied.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 11:46am):
4:55- There are a few ways of looking at that question. Obviously, same-sex couples are being denied the rights and privileges that come with a legally recognized marriage, including things like power of attorney over ones partner if they were in the hospital. If you want to look at this questions strictly
constitutionally (as I think you might be doing) be not allowing same-sex marriage, same-sex couples are being denied the rights afforded in the full faith and credit clause because no other state recognizes same-sex marriages from Massachusetts. You can also look at it from a human rights perspective. Homosexuals, because of things like bans on same-sex marriage, are being denied the right to be an equal class of citizenry. This is the fundamental concept behind human rights, that all people are equal.
p.s. Its sexual orientation, not sexual preference. Preference implies that one's sexuality is a choice.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 11:54am):
Adam, you are missing the point. We just don't care. And what the hell are you going to do about it?
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 12:05pm):
Right to be free of discrimination when applying to jobs?
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 12:17pm):
Re: 4:55am:
Ah--tautology, the last argumentative refuge of the idiot. If said right was not legally granted to gays and lesbians, then the exercise of it would be by definition an illegal act, i.e. a crime. It is also interesting that you restrict the criteria for eligibility to rights that have been "taken away"--excluding the far more common concern of rights never granted in the first place. I think you take the appellation "conservative" far too literally. I'm sure the slave would have been happy to note that, in virtue of never having possessed her freedom, it was not a right worth bothering about.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 12:54pm):
love this. have thought it a million times. it was nice to read someone agrees. well written as well, and it took guts.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 2:36pm):
Totally agree.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 3:21pm):
great job adam.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 4:21pm):
In regards to 11:30 am:
"i cannot wait until science develops an in-utero 'cure' for homosexuality. it's just like any other predestined malfunction..ie. obesity, drug abuse, adhd, etc."
If you really do think that homosexuality is a disease, do you treat other diseased people like you do homosexuals? Would you go up to someone with Downes Syndrome and say, "You don't deserve any kind of special treatment. You are immoral because you weren't born as God intended humans to be born." I sure hope that you don't think that way about people you perceive as having a disease.
You said,
"the true test for an issue's morality is to ask what would happen if everyone did it."
You are totally misrepresenting Kant's theories. To formulate the maxim correctly, it would be something like
In romantic matters, I will act in accordance to my natural sexuality.
You most certainly can act according to this maxim and will that this will become a universal law. So, this statement passes the "Kant" rule of morality to which you seemed to refer. Homosexuals can be homosexuals and not violote this.
You might say that homosexuals are mistaken about what their "natural sexuality" is. But this seems to be a very bizarre thing to assert. What would you say if I told you that you were wrong about your favorite color?
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 4:43pm):
Wills and trusts are NOT rights, custody is NOT a right (and by the way, there is not a speck of legislation that states gays and lesbians cannot have custody of a child)! Medical decisions are NOT a right! Perhaps before you start throwing the word around you understand what a right is. Any and all of the things mentioned are not rights. On top of that, there are legal docoments that can be signed that grant all the "rights" you speak of.
Show me one RIGHT that is available to everyone and anyone other than a gay, lesbian, transgender, etc.
I should have the "right" to let the grass in my lawn grow as long as I want without mowing, in many places, I do not. I should have the "right" to open an auto repair shop in my garage, I do not. I should have the "right" to drive 100 mph, I do not. Learn what a right is.
I love my child, should I have the "right" to marry her? I love 20 women, should I have the "right" to marry them all? A court has decided I cannot have custody of my child (these are all examples, not reality), yet I am not gay, how can that be (actually, men are discriminated against by the courts and often award custody to the mother more so than to the father, but it is getting better).
Thanks to all the lawyers, we are becoming a society that believes everything I want is a right and everything you want should be banned if it is not what I want.
pat gozemba (December 7, 2007 @ 6:56pm):
In "Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex Marriages" (Beacon Press, 2007), we recount the history of struggle in MA where we fought for our rights and in our last victory achieved marriage. We worked against what Adam Lichtenheld calls very appropriately the notion that "being gay is wrong." Lichtenheld has gotten it right.
All of the indignities that have been heaped on the LGBT community have as their basis the belief that "being gay is wrong." The first LGBT struggle that I engaged in was the struggle for the civil rights bill that newly elected state representative Barney Frank filed in the MA legislature in 1972. It took us 17 years to finally get that bill passed in 1989. We could be indignant about that long struggle but reality demands that we consider that there are many states that still do not offer protections for LGBT civil rights. LGBT people can still be denied employment and housing simply because they are LGBT. Sobering.
We are fighting for rights that we deserve to be able to exercise. It is so easy for those who have the right of marriage to deny it to others.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 9:34pm):
"Well written?" You've got to be kidding to call this puffery anything but a rehashed condensation of a thousand previously written pulp.
Blatantly wrong is next. The vast majority of homosexuals ARE by choice. You must have overlooked this fact while you were napping in 100 level sociology and social psychology courses--the ones written by PhD's.
And finally, you progressive campus homo lovers better hope that the "gay gene" is never found because "liberal" hetero couples will seek abortions if their "defective" fetuses have that gay gene. That, would force all homos into the pro life camp with the likes of evil conservatives like Falwell, Dobson, and me. Strange bedfellows, eh? No pun intended.
Adam, upon graduation you should seek employment at the Cap Slime, aka TCT. You would fit in with their type of illogical thinking. Tell John Nichols that the
'germantown_kid' referred you.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 10:28pm):
I wonder if the Moslem cab drivers will refuse to carry LGBT, similar to dogs and alcohol?
Anonymous (December 8, 2007 @ 8:05am):
6:56,
I have been denied employment because I am white, I have been denied because I am male, I have been denied because I was not the most qualified. Sorry, life is not fair, it never will be. Everyone has to be a victim, no one wants to brush off failure and go to the next chapter. Instead, they wish to blame everyone else for their failures. We are becoming a nation of victims, seeking the government to hold their hand, kiss their boo boos and make it all better.
I would have some sympathy for this cause if those in the cause did not whine and complain about every little tiny thing blaming it on something that supposedly is not a choice. Sorry to say this, but all your problems are NOT because you are gay, or lesbian, or transgender. Most of them are because YOU WANT to be the poor victim.
By the way, Barney Frank is not what I would call a roll model for the cause. He who had a live in "friend" who was a male prostitute running a prostitution ring out of Barney's house (of course Mr. Frank did not know about such a thing). Had Mr. Frank been straight and living with a female running a prostitutiion ring out of the house, he would no longer be in office. I guess being gay in DC has its benefits.
Anonymous (December 8, 2007 @ 9:28am):
You know what defines our generation? It's how big of pussies we've become.
It's not the greatest generation, it's the pussy-est generation.
Anonymous (December 8, 2007 @ 1:54pm):
9:34 - where the FUCK did you get that information? The APA itself says homosexuality is not a choice! YOU were the one napping in your courses!
The 'gay gene' is more than one gene, and I doubt many liberal folks would abort a gay fetus just because it was gay. If I had a child - not that I ever plan to, necessarily, but if I did - I would not give a shit about its sexuality. Honestly.
Support your claims with actual information, and keep your laws out of my damn uterus, you pro-life shithead (and I'd bet you're probably a Christofascist too).
Anonymous (December 8, 2007 @ 5:07pm):
9:28
I would have worded it differently, but I could not agree more. Quit calling us names, I am offended and wish to make a lawyer rich. You denied your generation of the right not to be offended...
Anonymous (December 8, 2007 @ 9:47pm):
Gays in Iran have more worries than marriage.
19 year-old Makwan Moloudzadeh was hung on Wednesday for having gay relations when he was 13.
The 19 year-old was pardoned by an Iranian judge in November but the regime hung him anyway.
Prior to his execution, Makwan engaged in a hunger strike of ten days to protest the physical and psychological torture he'd been subjected to while in custody to make him confess...
As punishment for his hunger strike, Makwan - after having had his head completely shaved, a grave insult in Iranian culture - was paraded by police through the streets of his home town of Paveh on the back of a donkey, as police permitted passersby to hurl insults and invective at him and pelt him with stones, eggs, and other objects.
Anonymous (December 9, 2007 @ 10:14am):
9:47
ah yes, and it is always instructive to compare our laws to the Iranian gold standard of governance.
Anonymous (December 9, 2007 @ 2:33pm):
If gays are so persecuted, why do they go out on the street and act like assholes? They act like that even when nobody's paying any attention to them. I ride the #2 Metro bus from the west transfer point five nights a week and there's this gay guy on the bus who yells and uses profanity. After awhile we just wish the driver would pull over and throw him off.
Of course if he threw him off the bus, the poor little gay boy would file a lawsuit. Oh well, that's gays for ya.
Anonymous (December 9, 2007 @ 8:32pm):
Just pointing out that Bush isn't the only one who should be worried about Iran's mullahs getting a nuclear bomb.
Shawn Snyder (December 10, 2007 @ 9:16pm):
you have a lot to learn about your own argument...so far all of it is bunk.
you cannot equate race to sexual "orientation." race, sex, religion, nationality, and ethnicity are all directly stated, NOT sexual orientation. those are all biological, while homosexuality is not. It is a freedom, like smoking, growning a beard, getting fat, and deciding which pants to wear. don't even talk about marriage, because that is a Christianity institution and Christianity bans homosexual acts. call it civil union. it is a choice and here's why:
even a gay man's sperm instinctively swim toward female eggs and impregnate them, without conscious effort from either person. So you are born with straight instincts. You choose to act straight or gay, but your instincts are straight.
Read the constitution once before claiming anything. Homosexuals have equal rights, they are asking for special treatment. Everyone has equal rights (in US) and if they say they don't, they are delerious.
Anonymous (December 11, 2007 @ 5:58am):
A shame that HIV/Aids is still mentioned as the "gay cancer." OutWithCancer, http://www.outwithcancer.com , an LGBT cancer project help LGBT people diagnosed with cancer define themselves independent of the HIV/aids construct...not an easy task
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 9:16pm):
5:58am:
Your idiocy amazes me. Marriage is a CHRISTIAN institution? Well, I guess those ancient Egyptians and Greeks somehow got ahold of Christianity a coupla thousand years before Jesus was born then. I mean, unless you're saying that NONE of the marriages/unions formed before 001 AD are valid. And did you say that religion was biological? GIVE ME A BREAK!
Let's suspend reality for a minute and say that orientation was INDEED a choice. What makes such a choice different from, say, a choice of religion then? Even if we're treating homosexuality as a personal choice, HOW can you justify banning same-sex marriage? Why not ban Hindu marriages? That's a CHOICE, isn't it? It differs from the Christian definition of marriage, doesn't it? GOD isn't the one uniting the Hindu bride and groom, is he? If you're going to ban gay marriage because of your Christian beliefs, then at least quit being a hypocrite about Muslim marriages, and Native American marriages, etc....
Fucktard.
Anonymous (March 26, 2008 @ 7:51pm):
This was an extremely poorly written argument. Homosexuality is clearly a choice -- no gene has EVER been discovered to cause it. It's a higher level behavioral function. Homosexuals engage in much riskier sexual behavior and have far more sexual partners than their hetero counterparts.
Do your research buddy, and then come back and write a half-way decent and somewhat factual piece once you learn the truth.
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