Talk about
SPECIAL
rights?
Those who
have
accused gays of wanting special rights want hefty ones for themselves
and they're willing to pass a Constitutional Amendment to get
them—and
to shut out gays and lesbians in the bargain.
| When people
hold to
the belief that marriage should only be for one man and one woman and
that the primary purpose of marriage is for procreation, they are
setting themselves apart and putting themselves into a protected class
of citizen—and claiming for themselves a hefty "special
right." These
same people also want "family" to be limited to those who spawn
offspring within religious and state-sanctioned marriage. For the
purpose of this discussion "marriage" will be used interchangeably for
both religious and state-sanctioned unions between two individuals,
regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity; and
"family" will be single-parents or two-parents and children households
or committed partner households, without regard to gender. I could
accede to the insistence of some glbt spokespersons to limit this
discussion to "domestic partnerships" so as not to excite or offend
those who believe marriage is the last bastion of the religious,
heterosexual community—but I'm not going to, because the
focus is on
"special rights" that many among the heterosexual population want for
themselves to the exclusion of gays and lesbians. Special Rights and the Gay Agenda  Right wing religious
and conservative politicians have accused gays of wanting what they
call "special" rights, and they go further in trying to deny these
special rights to gays by claiming that it is all part of a "gay
agenda." Up until the discussion turned to legalizing gay marriage,
most of the special rights heterosexuals accused gays of wanting was
protection against hate crimes, job loss, and housing discrimination.
They argued that all crimes are "hate" crimes so that no one needed
special protection. For the same reason, they were against employment
and housing protection for gays, many times also arguing that such
protections at the same time denied the rights of business and property
owners to operate their businesses as they wanted—or more
truthfully to
deny housing to those whom they did not want to rent to, regardless of
whether the would-be tenant was able to meet the rental payments and in
all ordinary areas qualified, so that only some ethnic or sexual
orientation phobia of the landlord would have disqualified them.Hate crimes legislation, job and housing protection—and now marriage between members of the same sex—are supposedly part of what heterosexuals have successfully created and marketed as the "gay agenda." They would have everyone believe that gays are a monolithic group in lock-step with one another who are set to steamroll through all of the United States to do many evil things to society. They would have us believe that gays also want their children for sexual purposes, that gays want to teach homosexuality in the public schools, to recruit people into a lifestyle that includes public nudity, public sexual intercourse, and to destroy the family. Last time I looked, such heterosexuals had done the job of fracturing family and ruining marriage all by themselves.  They even passed themselves a "Defense of Marriage" act—and did anyone notice that many of the legislators passing this act were adulterers? Can you say Newt? That there is no such gay agenda is beside the point for the religious fundamentalists and their political counterparts. That there is no such gay agenda is also a point lost on all those whom these mouthpieces have persuaded. Ordinary people have been convinced that there is much to fear in loosening the strangle hold the laws have had on gays since at least the middle of the 19th century—codified laws that is like those anti-sodomy laws that have just been done away with. What Gays Want If there were an agenda that gays had crafted over coffee at Starbucks, it would be to have the same protections and privileges that everyone else enjoys. The salient point about "rights" and "protections" is that gays just want to be treated equally with heterosexuals in all matters. So in a nutshell, if a heterosexual can join the military to serve his/her country, so should a gay person be able to. If a heterosexual can marry an individual whom he or she loves, so should a gay person have the same right. If a heterosexual can teach in public schools without fear of losing his or her job solely on the basis of sexual orientation, so should a gay person. If a heterosexual can apply for and get a job based upon his or her qualifications, so should a gay person. If a heterosexual can raise a child with a mate and have the sanctions of laws, income tax relief, and the support when necessary of the government, so should gays have the same sanctions, tax relief, and support as a family. If a heterosexual has the right of inheritance from the death of a spouse, so should a gay person. If a heterosexual has the right to make important decisions for a spouse in a hospital, so should a gay person have the same right. Yet by excluding gays from the entire field of marriage—and all that such a relationship entails—heterosexuals are saying that they alone should have this right. So let's admit what hasn't been said, heretofore. Heterosexuals want hefty "special" rights, and they stand knee deep in this desire, much more firmly than gays do. But… Lately, it comes down to whether there should be some special privileges and rights that only male and female heterosexuals should have to the exclusion of gays. They want to be the only ones who have families, the only ones who can get married (whether it is in a church or a civil ceremony); and they want to build into the Constitution, itself, such exclusive rights. The way they want to do that is to deny those same rights to gays. Except for alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, which was quickly repealed, the Constitution has never been used to deny anyone rights. Heterosexuals contradict themselves, however, even in enumerating this right of marriage by arguing that it is primarily for procreation. They would not think to deny a man and a woman this right to marry, even if the man and woman were not planning to have children. They would not demand that an infertile male-female couple be denied the right of marriage. Yet they would for gay people. So any argument that "marriage" is for procreation is spurious and what ought to be codified in the Constitution is a requirement that two heterosexual people who get married must have children within nine months and if they don't they should have their civil licenses revoked. Please note the tongue in cheek, here. The Arguments Against Gay Marriage Heterosexuals argue that by allowing gay people to marry (let alone raise children), the institution of marriage will be destroyed. Perhaps I am so gay I can't see how my being married to a life-long mate would in any way hurt the married heterosexual couple next door. In fact, I do have a heterosexual couple next door. They have three children. I have babysat for them. The children call me uncle. And for all intents and purposes, I am their uncle, since my "husband" (if we could marry) is the brother of the husband next door and is the children's blood uncle. We have lived next door to one another for almost a decade. As far as I can tell, all the troubles the family next door have are the usual ones: bills, not enough time to do everything they need to do, settling arguments among the children, taking the children to the doctor, getting them off to school, buying clothing and food. So, if my life-partner and I were suddenly able to legally marry, what would change? What would it hurt the couple next door? Despite the protestations to the contrary, nothing my partner and I do as a married couple can hurt the heterosexual couple next door. Families who are hurt, however, are the gay ones with children. The children aren't considered part of a family unit by heterosexuals, nor legally considered a family. The child might be the legal child of one of the spouses, but not the other. That means that if the child is hospitalized and the legal parent is not present for some reason the would-be parent cannot make necessary decisions, cannot really even be allowed into the emergency room, let's say. And when the legal parent dies, the child becomes an orphan and possibly the ward of the state, or the unwanted burden of a blood relative, while the child's would-be parent is powerless to intervene. So heterosexuals would have us accept their privileged and special rights of parenthood based solely upon the criterion that they are heterosexual—one man and one woman—while two men or two women with children should not have the same rights and responsibilities over children who happen to be in such a "family." I'm afraid the list of disparity between the special rights heterosexuals want and those same rights they wish to deny gays goes on and on. Gays on the other hand who are urging that these same rights be recognized for them have no interest, whatsoever, in denying any rights to anybody. So, talk about "special" rights? It's the heterosexuals who demand them, not gay people. —Ronald L. Donaghe,
Las Cruces, NM, September 2003 |
More than
anyone
else, this religious fundamentalist blames gays for much more than just
the destruction of "family values," he even blamed gays for 9/11. Can
you say Teletubby?