Too many gay rights activists (including straight allies) are strident, self-righteous and emotional. In addition, some gay activists invest too much of their identity in their alternative sexuality. A gay person who can vote for George Bush, like these folks interviewed by the gay paper, the Washington Blade, is my idea of open-minded.

Too many gays involved in the polarizing campaign for "gay rights" (and their allies) confuse disapproval of their sexual orientation with hatred and bigotry. They fail to understand that many Americans remain deeply uncomfortable with government "anti-discrimination" sanctions for gays. This results from legitimate moral and religious beliefs opposing homosexuality; and from concerns such sanctions may pave the road for attempts to legalize gay marriage, or compel questionable standards and conduct in public life.

Given the passions surrounding homosexuality, it is not reasonable to expect that public schools in all states will necessarily, and without question, allow gay-friendly curricula. Should it even be the purpose of schools to sanction alternative sexual identities? If gays, why not also transsexuals? It is perfectly sane to argue that these are, or should be, private matters. Unless we decide as a society it is the business of public schools to promote a range of sexual identities. So, a state legislator in Alabama (cue "Dixie," and b-roll of hooded Klansmen) wants books portraying gays in a positive light removed from public schools, and, natch, is labelled a Nazi by an official of the Southern Poverty Law Center. In Washington, State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) apologized after last week comparing discrimination against gays to The Holocaust. The ADL wasn't amused.

Last summer, gay activists mounted a vile "outing" campaign against Capitol Hill staffers who worked for Republicans thought to be favoring a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage - the idea being if you are gay and work for such a legislator, you must, de facto, be a self-loathing traitor to "the cause" - there is only one position that is acceptable. Cooler heads prevailed: the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment failed to make it to a vote because it would have deprived same-sex couples in state-approved civil unions of constitutional protections.

But the political battle over gay rights is multi-faceted, and fluid. Gays looking for positive government sanctions may do best in states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, and now, Connecticut. Florida courts earlier this year ruled against allowing gays to be foster parents. Certain court, election and legislative developments have also been disappointing for gay rights advocates in California, Oregon and Washington.

More news here, in an update from AP.

Connecticut, in a historic step last week, became the first state to approve marriage-like civil unions for same-sex couples without the prodding of a court order. The same day, however, the Texas House voted to bar gays from being foster parents; the next day, the Washington Senate defeated a major gay civil-rights bill. In Alabama, meanwhile, lawmakers considered a bill aimed at keeping books tolerant of homosexuality out of public schools. A despondent lesbian activist, Patricia Todd, told a House committee: “I feel you all hate us.”

Silly woman; I hate that word, "hate." Constituents and legislators can't be browbeaten into blessing homosexuality. Parents can teach tolerance of homosexuality, different religions and races at home. Or at least the last two - the first one is more of a judgement call, like it or not. A crucial distinction in anti-discrimination law must be made between biological attributes such as race, age and physical disability, one the one hand; and sexual minority identity, on the other hand, which is by no means proven to be a matter of genetic predisposition.

Still, some gay activists further argue that because anti-discrimination protections extend to religion (a choice), related laws should also include sexual orientation and identity. This seems to admit that non-heterosexual identity IS, like religion, a choice. Certainly this is the case with tranvestitism, transgenderism, and transsexualism, which are all protected "self images" in the recently-defeated Washington state law, HB 1515.

Yet actual discrimination in housing, public accomodations, education and employment against gays and other sexual minorities is now virtually non-existent in the U.S. Where are the headlines about actual reported monetary settlements for allegations of discrimination against sexual minorities? It's not hapenning on any significant scale. Where are the headlines about actual reported findings of guilt, by a judge or jury, for discrimination against sexual minorities, as opposed to lists of "reported hate crimes" from advocacy groups with axes to grind?

What you will find are some reports of claimed workplace discrimination against transvestites and transexuals - who indeed may continue to face legitmate blowback in the workplace, and with regard to public restrooms. Should not an employer be able to decline to hire a transsexual for a receptionist position, or as a restaurant host? And the sexual minority rights movement risks self-parody, with the recent campaign for gender-neutral bathrooms for the transgendered and transsexuals, by an organization with the acronym PISSR. Courts in New York so far are not sympathetic to biological males using the ladies room, as it happens.

I also have a problem, as do many others, with putting an individual's choice to be a transvestite or transexual on the same ground as practicing a religion. Perhaps that equation of sameness, articulated in the comment string to this recent post of mine on HB 1515 at Sound Politics, is part of the problem. Sexuality - wonderful though it is - has become part of the religious cannon of public, political self-expression under the Blue America values scheme. This can occur only in a society obsessed with self-expression and self-validation, with complicity of the media, state legislatures and courts. Resistance should be expected. As for the violent hate crimes that can be perpetrated by pinheaded brutes against gays and transexuals, the best defense is probably a legal firearm.

The MSM continue to get it wrong on anti-discrimination measures for sexual minorities. This New York Times story (via cnet) closes with a quote from an anonymous Microsoft employee who conflates the company's decision last week to not support the Washington state bill protecting sexual minorities from "discrimination," with actually condoning discrimination.

Revealingly however, Christian conservative Microsoft employees and a pastor at a church some of them attend, objected to the company taking a stance on the legislation, which would have extended anti-discrimination protection to anyone who had a sexual self-image which differed from their biological sex. In other words, if I feel like a woman today, or this month or this year, I can use the ladies room in the library even though i'm biologically male, and if you give me flack, that's discrimination.

Gay rights advocates should seek a better understanding of the conservative Christian viewpoint against any government sanctioning of sexual minority rights. Here is a good place for the gay rights "thought police" to start; an op-ed in the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, by attorney Stephen C. Whiting of the Christian Civic League, stating opposition to a proposed Maine gay rights bill.

Reasonable people can have a civilized discussion over whether those who disapprove of homosexuality SHOULD reconsider their opposition to gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws for sexual minorities. But labelling such opponents as bigots, "homophobes," "Nazis," or practitioners of "hate speech," only increases the polarization.

Personally, I am friendly with a number of gay people, and have never believed it was my place to tell them whether I approved or not of their sexual orientation. But free speech entails that opponents of homosexuality should be free to state their views - so long as they are civil. Earlier this year, I warned conservatives against getting all het up over talk about a possible gay business district in Spokane, something that the free market, not morality-driven politics, will determine.

In addition, I am neutral on gay marriage. I AM for duking it out, state-by-state, in the legislature and courts, with no name-calling. If it comes to the point that the states which have passed constitutional amendments or other measures banning gay marriage (now 16), are STILL being challenged in state courts, I will reserve the right to conclude that a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage but protecting civil unions could deserve a vote in Congress. As last year, when the flawed Federal Marriage Amendment failed to reach a vote, two-thirds supermajority approval would be required in both chambers, and then, three-quarters of state legislatures would have to approve it for national enactment (a very, very tall order).

But as now, when gay marriage or sexual minority rights legislation come before state governments, the electorate, or the courts; no constituent is without a voice, nor should they be. It is instructive to recall that 38 U.S. states adopted their own "Defense Of Marriage Act" bills (marriage=a man, a woman, and that's it), after the U.S. Congress and then-President Bill Clinton paved the way for state decision-making. In Washington state, gay marriage activists are seeking to overturn our state DOMA law, in the State Supreme Court. If that effort is successful, a movement will develop to push for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and because of Washington's stringent requirements (a two-thirds vote of the legislature, followed by a public vote), pressure could mount for a wide Republican majority in both chambers. Suburban districts might well swing the GOP's way far more than in recent years.

States will continue to decide these matters on thier own, which is exactly right.

Let's make sure that in the larger, ongoing debate, attempts to marginalize cultural conservatives cease. Just like gay rights and gay marriage activists, they are not going away any time soon.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at April 25, 2005 10:38 AM

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