Julian Bond - Rights Still to be Won

The Miami Herald is carrying a column by Julian Bond - the same Julian Bond from the civil rights push for African Americans - that looks at the state of gay rights in this country more than six (6) years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas. Until that ruling, in thirteen states - Virginia included, of course - gay Americans were subject to arrest and in some cases open to felony charges simply for having same sex physical relationships in their own homes. While the specter of arrest and criminalization under the sodomy laws is gone, in many states - again, Virginia included - LGBT citizens are still second or third class citizens. Why? Religious based discrimination when all of the bullshit excuses are stripped away. That's the true bottom line. In a nation that promises freedom of religion yet continues the penalization of gays and deprivation of legal protections and equality under the civil laws shows that the propaganda of the United States is a fraudulent and that the nation still fails to live up to the promises set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This travesty needs to end NOW and the days of being satisfied with incremental change are gone. Would that Obama and Congressional Democrats had the guts and courage to end religious based discrimination against LGBT Americans. Here are some highlights from Bond's column:

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The civil rights struggle for legal equality in America today is no less necessary, nor worthy, than a similar struggle fought by blacks several decades ago. Now, as then, Americans are denied rights simply because of who they are. When lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans gather in Washington Sunday for the National Equality March, they will invoke the unfulfilled promise in our Constitution that they, too, are due equal protection under the law.

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I will join them in their march because I believe in their equality and believe in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that promises to protect it. I will join them because the humanity of all people is diminished when any class of people is denied privileges granted to others. I will join them because I know that when heterosexuals stand up and call for justice alongside their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters, the sooner justice will come.

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We can no longer pretend that civil rights do not include rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Flimsy justifications for anti-LGBT bias are giving way to evidence that society is strengthened, not weakened, when LGBT people are given equal protection under the law. Where they are free to marry those they love, the sky has not fallen. Where they cannot be denied employment and housing simply because of who they are, the sky has not fallen. Where they serve nobly in the military without the burden of secrecy, the sky has not fallen. Rather, when all people are free to live up to their full potential, all of society benefits. Yet the United States still permits all these forms of discrimination. And this is why we must march.

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My friend Coretta Scott King said in 2000: ``Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender or ethnic discrimination.'' That is why the NAACP resolved several years ago that ``we shall pursue all legal and constitutional means to support non-discriminatory policies and practices against persons based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or cultural background.''

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This weekend, those who believe in the ideals of our Constitution, those who have a dream that we will one day live in a nation where people will be judged not by whom they love but by the content of their character, and those who stand up for their ideals can be proud that they stood up and spoke out for justice.

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Julian Bond is currently a professor of history at the University of Virginia and distinguished professor in residence at American University. He is also board chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.