Why Gay Rights Are Civil Rights

We continue to hear Christofascists and black pastors who cling to a religious dogma instilled in their ancestors by white slave owners whine that gay rights are not civil rights.  The latter group at times seem to want to have a monopoly on being oppressed and subject to discrimination and like their Christofascist overlords cannot admit that just maybe the Bible - or at least the few favored passages of the hate merchants - is wrong about homosexuality and that being gay, like being black, is not something one chooses. Being subjected to state sponsored discrimination and subject to being fired for who you are is indeed all about civil rights as was discussed at Civil Rights Summit this week in Austin, Texas.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the summit and the case for why gay rights are civil rights:

The two attorneys who argued for the repeal of Proposition 8 in front of the Supreme Court last June -- Theodore B. Olson and David Boies -- opened up this week's Civil Rights Summit in Austin with a discussion about gay rights as a civil rights issue.

[B]oth Olson, a conservative, and Boies, definitely not a conservative, believe that there is no legal argument to support denying LGBT couples the right to marry.

"Part of being good lawyer is guessing arguments of the other side," Boies said. "I'm usually pretty good at that. The other side doesn't have any good arguments. They have a bumper sticker that says marriage is between a man and a woman."

His statement is backed up by the legal reasoning of the more than 30 federal judges who have considered this issue since California's Proposition 8 -- which banned same-sex marriage in that state -- was struck down last June.

"Every single one of them," Boies said, "all ruled the same way. All ruled that marriage is a constitutional right. That's extraordinary."

The two also discussed how quickly public opinion has shifted on the matter.   . . . . Up until Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, it was illegal to engage in "homosexual behavior" in Texas.

When Olson and Boies began working on the Prop. 8 case in March 2009, a majority of the country opposed same-sex marriage -- by a margin of 17 percent. When they won the case in June, a majority of the public approved of same-sex marriage, shifting upward by a margin of 25 percent. Now, five years later, about 10 percent or 11 percent more of the public supports same-sex marriage than opposes it.

 

Olson and Boies are targeting Virginia as their next fight for expanding same-sex marriage rights. Not only does Virginia's constitutional ban have some of the strongest-worded limitations on same-sex marriage, the state also provides an important symbolic background because of the 1967 case on interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia. As Olson reminded the audience, President Obama's parents would have been guilty of a felony if they had tried to move to Virginia and get married before the landmark Supreme Court case.

Olson, who has lived in the state since the 1980s, listed the names of the founding fathers who had lived in Virginia. Boies said he and Olson wanted to "implement the principles the founding fathers articulated in Virginia."  They will argue the case Bostic v. Schaefer at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond on May 13.

As for the future of same-sex marriage, Boies said he was quite sure this would be a settled issue in 10 years, given that people under age 30 show broad support for gay rights and that state legislatures are coming onboard. But he conceded that this issue was far from being won across the globe. He compared the current battle over gay rights to the civil rights era of the mid-20th century.

Boies and Olson also explained their legal reasoning for supporting same-sex marriage. Olson spoke of the conservative values inherent in expanding marriage, while Boies cited the discrimination involved in denying equal rights to a subsection of the population. Both said that, at heart, same-sex marriage is about the 14th Amendment, just like the Civil Rights Act was: Equal protection under the law and due process mean that you can't deny gay couples from having relationships open to the rest of the public. They also added the First Amendment to the mix, which forbids people from imposing their protected religious beliefs on others. 

When all is said and done, what anti-gay laws  are really all about is the attempt by Christofascists to impose their religious beliefs on all.  They whine about religious freedom, but they want it only for themselves.  Their attitude is to hell with the rights of everyone else.  In the last analysis, they are very selfish people who hold the rights of others in open contempt.