First appeared in early May 1999 in Bay Windows (Boston) and other gay newspapers.
ANTI-GAY ACTIVISTS have had great success milking the claim that laws prohibiting discrimination against gay people serve to create "special rights." In fact, lately they've made the same charge about granting us the right to marry, to serve in the military, and to adopt children. They even go so far as to claim that repealing the so-called sodomy laws that turn gay lovers into criminals is tantamount to granting us those self-same "special rights."
It seems that, in the lexicon of the bigots, mere equality under the law for lesbians and gays becomes equivalent to granting us an unfair and undeserved privilege (i.e., who do those perverts think they are, expecting to be treated the same as you and me?). Or perhaps it's just that they know if they repeat the "special rights" charge ad nauseam, then like any big lie it will eventually come to be perceived as true.
In fairness, there is a distinction that ought to be recognized between ensuring the government's non-discrimination against gays and lesbians (that is, prohibiting the state from treating sexual orientation as a reason to diminish the legal rights of citizenship), and limiting discrimination in the private sector. Some impressive gay intellects, including writer Andrew Sullivan, believe that the gay/lesbian political movement has put far too much emphasis on passing laws that limit the discretion of private employers and landlords to choose whom they hire or rent to, and not enough on prohibiting discrimination by the state itself. Gay libertarians argue that allowing the government to intrude into private decisions for any reason only serves to diminish everyone's liberty and freedom to associate with whomever they choose, whereas discrimination by the state against a class of citizens is never acceptable, since the government represents all of us, and all of us are taxed to support it. That's a debate that probably should be given more attention, but it's not my focus here.
Instead, I think it's worth noting the specious logic of those conservatives who support the principle that it's okay to prohibit private-sector discrimination against some groups, including those defined by race, nationality, or religious belief, but that extending this protection on the basis of sexual orientation is to uniquely afford us, again, "special rights." The argument usually goes that the reason sexual orientation is different is because it's a "lifestyle choice." As the anti-gay Family Research Council put it in a recent policy statement, "Unlike race, homosexuality is not a manifest characteristic, but a behavior."
Hmmm. Leaving aside the body of evidence indicating, at the very least, some genetic predisposition for being gay, there's a clear logical flaw in this right-wing rhetoric. For while race and nationality are indeed a matter of birth, one's religion needn't be.
David Boaz, author of the book "Libertarianism: A Primer" and a contributor to the Independent Gay Forum, has highlighted the issue of consistency about different protected classes. "Conservatives say gays shouldn't be protected, but blacks should, because being gay is something you choose, unlike your race," he writes. "But their reasoning is doubly wrong in that case: Most of us believe you DON'T choose your sexual orientation; but you DO choose your religion, which category conservatives want to protect." In fact, religious rightists, especially those who are "born again," stress that their brand of faith is something freely chosen. And, of course, many choose to adopt a faith different from their upbringing, while others abandon faith entirely.
Some conservative African-Americans, most notably General Colin Powell, claim that gays don't deserve protections because you can hide your sexual orientation, but not your race. While that's true enough, you can also hide your religious beliefs, yet no "anti gay rights" conservative to date has been willing to abandon hypocrisy and say that civil rights protections also should not extend to religion.
In fact, a growing number of civil rights cases before the federal courts focus on claims of workplace discrimination against fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews. Many of these involve the plaintiffs' claim that requiring them to work on certain religious holidays amounts to discrimination, even though all employees are expected to work on those days (talk about demanding special rights!).
Leaving aside the die-hard "born agains," some who believe that religious belief should be a protected category, but that sexual orientation shouldn't, might argue that you don't really "choose" religious belief, it chooses you. That is, you either are drawn to the doctrines and ritual expressions of a particular sect, or you aren't. But then again, even if you believe that being gay is also a choice (as, in fact, some gay and lesbian radicals proclaim), then how much "choice" do we really have about what we choose? Like religious belief, it either strikes one as right on a deep, subjective level, or it doesn't.
The point of all this is to expose just how idiotic the argument that "gay rights" are somehow of a "special" nature, at least when juxtaposed to civil rights protections based on religion.
Looking back on it, I'm amazed that lesbian and gay activists have spent so much energy trying to convince people that sexual orientation is akin to race, when the religious belief analogy seems so much easier to justify. If the right wing is against "lifestyle choices" receiving anti-discrimination protection, then they should be forced to be consistent, and to surrender the "special rights" granted on the basis of religion.
After all, fair is fair.