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Friday, June 27, 2008

Civil Rights Vs. Gay Equality

Today, Michelle Obama said this about her husband's administration in relation to equality for gays and lesbians.

"Barack believes that we must fight for the world as it should be, a world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws," she said at a Manhattan fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council.

Michelle Obama also drew a connection between the struggles for gay rights and civil rights.

"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," she said at the event, held days before the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots between gays and New York police, and the city's annual gay pride parade.

"The world as it is should be one that rejects discrimination of all kinds," she said.

Now, since I was born in the Soviet Union and I was abused for it all growing up in America, racism and bigotry are two things that really get under my skin. Still, comparing and equating the civil rights movement with equality for gays and lesbians is a dicey proposition that opens up all sorts of Pandora's boxes.

First, unlike women, African Americans and other minorities, homosexuality is a behavior. If that is protected, then I want protection for being loud, since I have that tendency. When someone says they want behavior to have equal protection, I ask under what circumstances.

The bottom line is that the homosexual lifestyle is inherently unequal. Children cannot be created through homosexual relationships, and this makes them inherently unequal. Generally, when someone says homosexuality equality they mean on marriage. Of course, you can't have equality on two lifestyles that are inherently unequal. Furthermore, if the gay lifestyle is treated equally, then it can also naturally lead to having it given equal treatment in education. It is this sort of political correctness that has spawned an explosion of schools that insist on teaching their students about the gay lifestyle equally.

Equality could also be applied to the workplace, lodging and in school. Laws like ENDA attempt to create such equality.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), is a proposed U.S. federal law that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation

...

While the first bill on the subject of sexual orientation discrimination was introduced in Congress in 1974, the first bill using the current title of "Employment Non-Discrimination Act" was introduced in 1996, failing in the Senate by a 49-50 vote.[1]
The most recent version of the bill, introduced by Representative Frank, no longer includes language regarding protections for transgender people and has been protested by many LGBT rights organizations in the United States, with the exception of the Human Rights Campaign.[2]


Laws like ENDA are, in my opinion, well meaning and compassionate but also misguided. The reality is that sexuality is a private matter. It has no place in the workplace or any other public forum. It is no less appropriate for a heterosexual to flaunt their sexuality than it is for a homosexual to do it. A homosexual only needs protection if they are flaunting their sexuality inappropriately. Thus, protection to homosexuals in the workplace creates protections for publicizing a private act.

On many levels there are parallels between the bigotry that many minorities went through and the bigotry that homosexuals continue to go through. While I am sympathetic to their plight, I don't believe the answer is to legislate equality. Once behavior and especially sexuality is all given equal treatment, then we are ignoring the inherent inequality in the behavior. Furthermore, it opens up a Pandora's box to protect all sorts of behavior.

I think it is a noble goal to have a society where everyone is treated equally, no matter their sexual orientation, however when a politician makes equality of sexuality a platform, I am concerned by what specifically that means.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I understand the argument that homosexuality is a behavior. However, many "behaviors" are protected under the Constitution (such as practicing a religion -- arguably much more of a choice than one's sexual orientation). The point is that when considering whether or not to allow people to openly express their behaviors, we must weigh freedom of choice vs. how much harm that behavior would cause. I would argue that homosexuality causes no more harm than heterosexuality. Some may argue that male homosexual sex has a high rate of spreading HIV. However, many other communities also have high rates of HIV -- such as impoverished African-American communities, and even the whole city of Washington, DC. Should couples in those communities not have the same rights? Some say homosexuality is dangerous because they're teaching it to children, but I learned about A LOT of heterosexual relationships when I was younger and I was personally never traumatized when Cinderella ended up with the Prince, so what's the difference if she ends up with a princess? It's not as if teaching children about the LGBT community automatically means we're teaching them about sex or gay bars or something. All you have to explain is "Some people fall in love with people of the same gender and some people fall in love with people of the opposite gender." How is that harmful to children?!?

Yes, it's true that same-sex couples cannot reproduce, but why does that matter? Many heterosexual couples cannot reproduce, or they simply don't choose to. Should those couples not have the same rights as everyone else?

I'd also like to know what "flaunting" one's sexual orientation means to you? Many of my coworkers talk about their wives or husbands or people they're dating. What if a man happens to mention to another coworker that he and his husband are going away for the weekend? Or what if he wants to put a picture of his husband on his desk and he's subsequently fired for it? Is that right? Should no one talk about their families or put up pictures of their families at all, no matter the gender of their significant other? Shouldn't we have laws protecting people from being fired simply because of the gender of the person they happen to date or live with?

mike volpe said...

I'm not sure how a religion is a state of mind. Homosexuality, last I checked, is not outlawed. Just as you have a right to practice your own religion, you have a right to practice in any form of sexuality. No religion gets a special privilege the way you want homosexuality to get.

I'm not sure what you mean by the same rights. Gay people are alowed to work, to rent, to own, etc. What do you mean the same right?

The only right they aren't allowed is the right to marry but they can't procreate. If you can't have children, then you pervert the point of marriage.

You're out of your mind if you think children should be taught about gay couples. That's absurd and obscene. Children are curious and they ask a lot of questions and they shouldn't be taught sexuality period.

I don't think that putting a picture of your wife or talking about your family is flaunting anything. I was referring to graphic language about sexual experiences.

Unknown said...

When I was talking about religion I was replying to this comment:
"First, unlike women, African Americans and other minorities, homosexuality is a behavior. If that is protected, then I want protection for being loud, since I have that tendency. When someone says they want behavior to have equal protection, I ask under what circumstances."
I was discussing under what circumstances behaviors should be protected. I made the argument that, like religion, sexual orientation should be a protected class of society since their behavior is not particularly harmful to society (at least not in my opinion).

No one is asking for homosexuality to have "special privileges." Currently, it's legal to be fired from your job because of your sexual orientation or gender identity. In some states you can be denied housing for your sexual orientation or gender identity and there's nothing you can do about it. Same sex couples are denied a ridiculous amount of rights that opposite sex couples have:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/benefits_denied.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_marriages_in_the_United_States#Rights_and_benefits

However, no matter what religion you are, you and your couple can the same rights as any other religion (as long as you're opposite sex). You have laws protecting you from getting fired or denied housing because of your religion. These are the types of "special rights" LGBT people would like to have.

So do you think heterosexual couples who cannot reproduce or who choose not to reproduce should not be able to get married? If marriage weighs on whether the couple can reproduce, should we be monitoring heterosexual couples who get married to make sure they are procreating?

Why is it okay for children to learn about heterosexual relationships but not homosexual relationships? What's the difference?

When you originally spoke about "flaunting" one's sexual orientation, you were referring to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that is currently in Congress. To quote you:
"Laws like ENDA are, in my opinion, well meaning and compassionate but also misguided. The reality is that sexuality is a private matter. It has no place in the workplace or any other public forum. It is no less appropriate for a heterosexual to flaunt their sexuality than it is for a homosexual to do it. A homosexual only needs protection if they are flaunting their sexuality inappropriately. Thus, protection to homosexuals in the workplace creates protections for publicizing a private act."
But my point was that no one needs to "flaunt" their sexual orientation for coworkers or supervisors to know that someone is gay or straight. People may have pictures of their family around or talk about what they did on the weekend (such as going away with their boyfriend). Through this, a prejudiced boss may learn about an employee's sexual orientation. Then they might fire them because they don't want them in their workplace. Depending on the state, the employee won't be able to do anything about it. That's why we need laws like ENDA -- to prevent instances like that from happening. I agree that no one (gay or straight) should be allowed to graphically describe their sex life in the workplace though.

mike volpe said...

I'm still not sure what you mean by religion getting protection. There was a case where a Muslim wanted to work in one of the fancy clothing stores and they fired her because she wouldn't wear their revealing clothing. I don't think that requires protection.

I don't how anyone would ever prove that someone was fired specifically because they are gay, so your criticism is in theory only. That said, every gay would scream they were fired because they were gay if they received protection.

Kids don't learn about heterosexual relationships, at least they shouldn't, so I don't know what your point is.

No, I don't think that heterosexual couples should be forced to have kids but those are the overwhelming minority of heterosexual marriages. No homosexual marriages lead to kids. There's a huge difference.

Again, you need to give a specific protection that you think that gay couples don't have that heterosexual couples do get.

Unknown said...

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender or national origin. They've tried to add sexual orientation to that list of protected groups since the 70s and it's never passed. So yes, religion does have employment protection that sexual orientation does not have. Ever since they've added employment protection for those protected groups, employees have brought cases against employers they believe fired them on the basis of race, religion, gender or national origin. If the court is convinced (you have to have reasonable evidence, obviously), the employer will have to pay damages to the employee. However, the court may not be convinced. History has shown that large numbers of people from racial and religious minorities or even women didn't come flooding to the courts to scream discrimination when they were fired. Most of the cases need sufficient evidence to even make it to a trial anyway. Those groups are a much larger percentage of the population than LGBT people are, so why would it be any different in there case? Why would "every gay scream they were fired because they were gay if they received protection" when that hasn't happened to oppressed groups who have been protected in the past?

Kids do learn about heterosexual relationships all of the time. To learn about relationships, you don't have to talk about sex. You can talk about it in the sense of two people falling in love, which whether you realize it or not, kids learn about falling in love ALL OF THE TIME. Watch any Disney or child animation movie ever made and you will see two people (always a boy and and a girl) fall in love. As I said in the first post, I haven't seen any kids be traumatized when they saw Cinderella fall in love with the Prince, so what's the difference if she falls in love with a princess?

But can't you also say that there are certain portions of the heterosexual population that most of the time do not produce children, such as older people? The large majority of older couples who do not marry until well past their prime do not have children. Maybe we should make it so that past a certain age, women cannot marry because they probably won't be able to produce children. In fact, older couples usually don't even have children through in vitro fertilization or surrogate mothers (the way many many same sex couples do).

I did give many specific rights that gay couples get and heterosexual couples don't when I posted those two links in my last comment. There's so many rights they don't get that I didn't want to have to retype them out here so I just posted the links. Here:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/benefits_denied.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_marriages_in_the_United_States
Even if you're in a state that has legalized same-sex marriage, you don't get the federal benefits of marriage (such as Social Security benefits) because of the Defense of Marriage Act.