He observes, quite accurately, that:
A culture that once preached individuality and personal freedom has become conformist and hectoring, its self-appointed queer commissars constantly policing the language and bringing pressure to bear on those who run afoul of their ever-evolving standards.
And, tellingly:
When I asked the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s leading gay-rights group, for statistics on the number of LGBTQ people annually denied employment, housing, or service at a hotel or restaurant due to their sexuality or gender identity, the group was unable to provide me with any. Most social movements are able to identify the extent of the problems they seek to address.
6 Comments for “No Longer About Legal Equality”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The Struggle for Gay Rights is Over
Kirchick might want to talk to the Log Cabin Republicans. We have come a long way in my lifetime (when I came of age in 1965, not one single state had decriminalized sodomy, for example) but the struggle for legal equality is by no means over, and probably won’t be for another decade or more.
posted by Jim Michaud on
Actually, Illinois decriminalized sodomy in 1961. So there was one state to do so by 1965.
posted by Jorge on
For shame!
To somewhat paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, the Log Cabin Republicans would rather the gays be more oppressed as long as we were more equal.
“That is a liberal policy!” 😀
What we need is peace and prosperity for all people to lift up the LGBT population. A living wage, free elections, free health care regardless of legal or citizenship status, paid family leave, protect students from crushing student debt, an international standard of human rights that includes all LGBT people, a rising tide to lift all boats.
“Once they start to talk about the gap they’d rather the gap were [small] down here…” So long as the equality gap is smaller, the LCR would rather have the gays more oppressed. You do not create prosperity and opportunity that way, you do not create a free democracy that way.
In all seriousness, I have long detected a bit of hypocrisy in my Log Cabin nobility. Prosperity for all over equality for all is acceptable most of the time, when the subject is most conservative social, economic, and foreign policy ideas and liberal gay rights ideas. But get to the liberal non-LGBT policy, or let any liberal LGBT policy actually pass, and suddenly equality is more important than prosperity. It’s the LCR’s main weakness, they too often split their Republican and LGBT identities off from each other separately.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Actually, Illinois decriminalized sodomy in 1961. So there was one state to do so by 1965.”
You’re right. And I should have remembered that because Illinois, where I went to law school, was the first state in which I lived where my sexual acts weren’t criminal. I remember learning that and thinking about it at the time during a course in criminal law. studying the ALI’s Model Penal Code, which Illinois adopted in 1961, effective on January 1, 1962.
The next state to decriminalize sodomy was (of course) Massachusetts, which acted a decade later, in 1971. Then other states followed, little by slowly, until only about fifteen or so were left when Lawrence was handed down in 2003.
For those interested, here’s a map showing the years in which sodomy was decriminalized in the various states.
posted by mike king & David Bauler on
The LGBT rights movement continues on. Suggesting otherwise is just silly.
posted by JohnInCA on
Conservative gays are free to stop working towards equality whenever they want. I’m sure everyone else will notice.