On Gay Rights

I. RIGHTS IN GENERAL

The United States of America is a nation founded in rights. We have countless systems to protect these rights, including three branches of checked government, the process of reciprocity between a citizen and his government, and the power of the amendment. The most powerful protection of rights we have is Equal Protection Before the Law. Although this is United States Specific, one like it exists in every just society. It does so because without it, there is no equality, and it leads into a state of fascism, oligarchy, and ultimately monarchy or dictatorship. How does a state maintain equality? By treating all of its citizens equally, regardless of trait. This includes physical and mental, those that are genetic and those that we are born with, however apparently disagreeable. This of course means that whether or not homosexuality is genetic or not is irrelevant. It is a trait, or, if you prefer, a preference. It would be the same if the government decreed that if we eat ice cream, it must be vanilla. Whether we are born with a taste for chocolate, or inherit it as we grow, is irrelevant. We have the right to eat whatever ice cream we want, and have no right over any body else’s body. Perhaps this is a trivial example, so here is another: We as a society, including the government, could argue for years whether or not a particular religion, lety’s say Judaism, is true. Whether or not its tenets are correct, it’s commandments moral, its message genuine. However, since this is America, it is irrelevant. If a person chooses to be Jewish, no matter how much we disagree with its authenticity, it remains their choice, and no entity, whether a person or an entire government, can infringe upon that. This of course leads to one of the largest tenets of our nation, encompassing all other freedoms like Speech, Press, Assembly, and all of the Equality amendments. It is, “my rights end where your rights begin.” It is simple, but powerful. I have the right to life, and therefore don’t have the right to murder. I have the right to treat my body however I wish, and therefore don’t have the right to assault or rape anybody. Because of this, the government has no right to silence our speech, or control our thoughts, or force us to do anything. The exception to this rule is when the government needs things from us in order to ultimately protect our rights. For example, the government needs taxes to provide our rights of protection, transportation, etc. and so unless we wish to forfeit those rights, we must give the government what it needs, or else it would be physically impossible to receive our due. This is, however, the only exception. I find it very hard to believe that the government needs only heterosexual men and women in the military, or that a same-sex married couple would topple the rights structure of our country. This being said, I return to my central theme, which is that of personal autonomy: Unless every individual in this country has utter control over his or her own body, rights can never be fully reached.

II. MARRIAGE

This is the topic of the decade: should a man be allowed to marry another man, or a woman to another woman? Even writing that, I shake my head in wonderment, because all other argument aside, my first thought is simply, “why not?” In the end, there is no logical reason why this shouldn’t be. Two consenting adults can have sex… they can sign a legal contract, they can start a joint business. The only reason why the majority of Americans are opposed to the next logical step of the legal union called marriage is because of society and religion.

The majority rules in a democracy. The only problem is that even if the majority of people want a particular president in office, he or she isn’t necessarily elected due to the Electoral College. And, while their constituents elect the congress people of our legislative branch, the uses of political pressure, propaganda, poor voter turnout, and the gerrymander make it highly unjust. The Supreme Court is appointed by the president, and confirmed by the Senate, and so if the majority of the latter agree with the political beliefs of the former (as the situation is know, actually) the supreme court is just an extension of presidential power. As we can see, it is very easy for the majority to become tyrannical in one or more respects, and no matter how just the minority may be, the majority rules. A perfect example of this, and one that is parallel to same sex marriage in almost all respects is segregation. Segregation was a practice used for years in the racist south, and it became ingrained sociologically. Eventually, progress was made on an individual level, which led to a growing minority outrage. Basically, more and more people got angry about segregation, and as this sociological progress continued, it became easier for individual psychological progress in the minds of members of the tyrannical majority (and those few who were apathetically neutral – were not part of the majority or minority), which therefore strengthened the progress on large (sociologically). This continued for years, until finally the first step was taken: legality. We all know of Brown v. Board, and its impact has not been overrated. It still remains, I think, the greatest equalizing court case of the last century. This course of action led to a much more sped up rate of change in the mentality of America towards race. This is due to the large amount of power associated with the federal government, and the respect that moset people have for it. This system of progress – starting with a few individual mentalities, and leading to federal legal action – is the only way positive change is made, except for violent revolution.

The parallels between segregation and gay marriage do not end in their similar modes of progress towards equality. They are alarmingly similar in the nature of the hate that purported these ridiculous ideas of inequality. Both the racist majority and the oppressed minority knew deep down that segregation was unjust, but societal taboos and status quos kept the system in place. By all accounts, progress should have been made in one fell swoop by a constitutional amendment, or a case similar to Brown v. Board years earlier, but as mentioned earlier, the majority rules, and if the majority becomes tyrannical, all well. I will, further along, disprove every conservative argument I have heard against gay marriage. I mean this quite literally, and any person who is not tied down by the status quo or conservative religion should be by all accounts convinced of the unjustness that exists now in our nation. This logic, on its own (unfortunately) is not enough to win the fight for equality. The other half must come from the outrage of the people. This was done throughout the sixties by African-Americans, in the twenties by women’s rights groups, and in the nineties by handicapped people. Most of these followed the typical mode of progression, from psychological progress to sociological progress to legal action. The gay rights movement is different. It started with the media. While sodomy was still illegal in some areas, there were films and shows featuring gay characters. Later, and now, there is music, movies, shows, channels, books, porn, clubs, and neighborhoods all associated with homosexuality. This is not wrong, but it is convoluting the typical progression system. It is doing this because it is injecting the notion of pride, and with it strong stereotype, into the mainstream, when what ti should be promoting is cold logic and freedom. A gay rights parade, no matter how huge and successful, is just that. Pride. Well done, you’ve come out of the closet. It is not enough. In the following paragraphs, I will try to provide tools of logic that, if spread among enough of the populace, will begin the cycle of progression.

1. Gay marriage violates tradition.
This is a true statement. If the United States were to legalize gay marriage, it would be following only the traditions established by a handful of other societies, and violating many years of others. Now, it should be noted that the vast majority of people who use this argument are using it as a euphemism for “God hates fags”. Be that as it may, I will combat it at face value. Traditions are worthless, except in they’re emotional and aesthetic value. A Christmas tree is a just a tree that is attached a significance, but the tree still remains a tree, and it is not elevated among anything else. The concept or meaning it represents may have meaning, but it is nothing. Therefore, we should give no importance to traditions of any kind. I am not opposed to traditions, because, as I say, they are meaningless. Most of the time they hurt no one, so what is the problem? However, when collective tradition, i.e. the status quo, commits an act or several acts of injustice, it becomes hazardous, and should be progressed to a just state. Our own United States constitution, which is the longest lasting American tradition there is, has been expanded and changed twenty seven times so as to expand rights to all Americans. This nation was founded by killing Native Americans, and on the backs of African slaves. Women were degraded o the point of subhuman, and less then a hundred years ago, they were not seen fit to vote. Twenty years ago, handicapped people could be discriminated against because of their disability, and it wasn’t until the Supreme Court decision in 1990 that forbade that particular American tradition. So, what is different about this? Nothing, obviously. This use of attractive language: tradition, family values, sanctity – is a thinly veiled attempt at keeping gays as second class citizens, and it is working.
2. God made marriage between a man and a woman.
Which God? I wasn’t aware Brahman or any of its reincarnations was opposed to gay marriage. Did Allah make any official stand? Even the Christian God never said anything iron clad. The various passages cited so much by various fundamentalists are isolated and brief. In fact, they are just as isolated and brief as the ones proclaiming the morality of killing witches, owning slaves, degrading women, justified divorce (Apparently, it is justified if one of your wives displeases you three times), and blood falling from the sky as Gabriel blows his horn signifying the end of the world. I don’t think I’m being too liberal when I say that the Bible is not all literal. Again, these passages are used in an attempt to convert conservative or even moderate America to their side. This is of course working, because if you are afraid you’ll go to hell if you vote Democrat, you’re going to do what you think you have to. This is the culture of fear that is most certainly not supposed to be in any religion, but which conservative homophobic America has welded onto its social membrane for the sole purpose of keeping homosexuals down. There is a separation of Church and State. This is not because gays and liberals want to keep God out of anything, or the lack of God in anything. It is so everybody can do what they want to. You have the right to be a Christian. Therefore, you do not have the right to discriminate against anybody else based on their religion. Just because a politician or a Supreme Court Justice is Christian and against gay marriage does not mean that he or she should vote that way. When you begin employment as a part of the government, you automatically receive a new religion: rights’ theory. A new Bible: The constitution. And a new higher power: Justice. If you want to go home and pray and go to church and sing hymns, that is your right. And you don’t have to become an atheist when you enter office. But you do need to put your new religion first: that is a hard thing to do, and not every person is cut out for it. But if you cannot put the rights of every person in this country before your own personal beliefs and prejudices, then you have no part in American government.
3. Marriage’s purpose is to procreate, and without that, filial society falls apart.
Gay marriage being legalized will not prohibit straight people from getting married or procreating, and so I don’t understand this claim. Besides, who are you to determine what marriage’s purpose is? Two heterosexual people don’t have to have babies if they don’t want to, and some are physically unable to procreate. They can still get married if they want to. This is just proof of a deep hypocrisy in our government now, and one that is not going to stop soon, because like the segregation in the 60s, Americans now refuse to looks deeper then their own shallow prejudices. Plus, children raised by gay couples are no worse off then with straight couples. To say that a child needs a man and a woman raising him or her is ridiculous, simply because it has no validity to back it up. If there is a higher rate iof depression or angst, or if children get picked on because of their parents, then that is neither the child’s nor his parents fault. That is societal influences, that will never go away unless something is done about it, namely by legalizing both gay marriage and gay adoption everywhere. There are straight parents who treat their children much worse then some gay parents, and vice versa. The point is it doesn’t matter. People who have been raised by gay parents do exist, and look, society is still intact. Honestly, it makes me laugh to think of what conservatives think will happen if gay marriage and gay adoption were legalized: I picture buildings falling, and a troop of drag queens painting the White House rainbow colors. It is ridiculous. Those that say that marriage is a religious and not a legal institution, violate not only the separation of church and state (which is bad enough), but also their own logic. If marriage is a religious institution, why are they seeking a ban of gay marriage through our federal institutions?
4. Gay marriage will lead to a slippery slope of polygamy and marriage to animals
This is the one that seems to have found a good foothold in conservative doctrine. The common belief is that given the nature of our sinful and promiscuous nation, once gays can get married, various polygamous and animal-marriage groups will lobby, demanding their rights. This is a possibility, and I won’t argue that there are people who believe they should be able to get married to animals or to two people at the same time. The problem is, conservatives assume that gay people want to get married, but without any justification. The entire reason gay marriage is not just a whim, not just some silly liberal agenda, is that it is governed by rights’ theory. There are very concrete reasons why the government should not be allowed to tell people what they can and cannot do in their personal lives, primarily because it leads to a fascist totalitarian state. This same rights’ theory, which I already mentioned should be the one and only thing acting as a guide for our government, does not apply to either polygamy or animal marriage. Why? Polygamy is the marriage of one person, usually a man, to two or more women. This should not be legalized, because it is physically impossible to treat all of your spouses equally, and thus it violates the nature of the marriage vow, a legal verbal contract that binds you to your spouse. It does not fit with rights’ theory, because this state of inequality leads to degradation, however slight, of one or more spouses, and this is unjust to all of the partners in the marriage. As for animals, they are not capable of making the marriage vow. They are not capable of participating mentally in any aspect of marriage. To allow marriage to an animal is to legalize a form of rape. It is for this same reason why it is illegal to marry a child. All of these violate rights’ theory. However, a marriage between two consenting adults does not violate anything legal, and should therefore be allowed.




III. SEX

Sexual freedom is something that is perhaps even more hot button then marriage itself. Up until the sixties and the Stonewall riots, sex and everything leading up to it was illegal. Police could actually burst into a private residence, and arrest two men for kissing, or holding hands. Gay erotica was banned from theatres and book stores. Up until about five years ago, sodomy was in question of being illegal. Some people were actually in favor of allowing our government to control what we did in our own bedrooms. What’s next? Controlling what we do in any room? In public? What we think? They talk about gay rights being a slippery slope to the Apocalypse, and yet they seem to want to accelerate us closer to a society governed by the imaginations of Orwell and Kafka. If we do not have full rights over our bodies, then nothing else matters. The government is not a parent that can assert its authority over us any time it wants. A government’s purpose is to protect the rights of its citizens. This extends to military defense, providing of health care and Social Security, and criminal justice. Anything the government does that does not protect our rights is unjust, and should be stopped immediately. This extends to unjust wars (the destruction of life for no reason) and unjust laws. The second that a law is passed that violates our right to life, liberty, or property; it needs to be struck down. The fact that the government feels that it has the right to tell us who we can and cannot have sex with, is to me even more heinous then the marriage question. There are people who are opposed to gay marriage, but who are good people. On the other hand, I have nothing but disdain and scorn for those who are so close minded and arrogant as to believe that they have rights over other’s bodies. To not allow two consenting adults to have sexual relations is the same as forcing sexual relations upon another, and that is rape. This is the bottom line. Any argument to the opposite of this is assuredly based in religion, and since I have covered most of those arguments above, I will not be redundant.

IV. GAYS IN THE MILITARY

The so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that Clinton created as a quick fix to a problem that never is going to go away, and which is still used by our military today, is much more hostile then the name implies. Countless gay ex soldiers reported sexual harassment, and degrading treatment from both peers and superiors, even though they didn’t even come out of the closet. I shudder to think of the treatment of soldiers who are out of the closet. As the military rape scandals increase in frequency and intensity, now should be a good time to address this issue.
The last time I checked, it was conservatives who espoused support of our troops, and who say that any form of war protest is a slap in the face to our soldiers. Yet it is they who think that being gay is somehow a negation of all the good soldiers do. As the quagmire in Iraq thickens, as the hunt for Osama bin Laden drags on, and as our shores remain unprotected for longer and longer, I would think that the military would be happy for any soldier brave enough to risk death and injury, not to mention psychological damage, for a cause that is ambiguous to say the least. And yet openly gay people are not allowed. What reason is given? The only one I’ve heard with any credibility whatsoever is that there is a lack of privacy in the military, and so to have gay people in it would be…what exactly? Awkward? Gross? However true this may be, I would think that some things are more important, such as, I don’t know, winning the war(s). The military is a relatively self enclosed system, with its own rules and regulations, and with its own prejudices. It is no secret that it is a largely male, macho, conservative place, and it is so large and powerful, one gay soldier is not going to make a difference. It will take government action, and a lot of open media coverage, to change anything, and as long as homophobia and socio/religious prejudice govern our country, the discrimination of gay soldiers will continue, and the military will continue to deny itself of a big portion of potential soldiers.