1 Boring Old Man

It seems to me that there’s something unique about the Gay Civil Rights Movement – different from the struggles of Black Americans, Women, etc. No one has suggested along the way that Black Americans become White, or Women become Men. Such a suggestion would be absurd. On the other hand, we’ve heard endlessly that Homosexuals should become heterosexual – that Homosexuals can become heterosexual. That argument has been at the center of the "expert" testimony in a number of cases where Gay rights have made it into the judicial process. So there’s much argument about whether Homosexual is a noun, or whether it’s a choice of some kind or a behavior [usually seen as "sinful"] – an adjective.

ho·mo·sex·u·al [hoh-muh-sek-shoo-uhl]
    –adjective
      1. of, pertaining to, or exhibiting homosexuality.
      2. of, pertaining to, or noting the same sex.
    –noun
      3. a homosexual person.

Homosexuals have had to fight to become a valid "category" of people. Judge Vaughn Walker made that point clearly in his recent decision. He based his argument about rights on whether granting those rights would impinge on the rights of others – and convincingly answered "no." His decision did not hinge on the right "to be" homosexual.

I suppose there’s a simple "straw man" analogy – career criminals. There are plenty of chronic criminals where it would be kind of silly to argue that their criminality is a choice – because it’s the only one they ever make. And while one might argue whether they are born criminals, are criminals because of some misadventure in their development, or they choose criminality, the distinction is immaterial. If they petitioned for "criminal rights," we would laugh at the request. It’s the Vaughn Walker point. It’s not a debate about their "nature." It’s about their impact on the rights of others. In fact we do grant criminals rights – not the right to steal, but the right to be treated fairly in a court of law. The same thing applies to the "rights" of people with severe mental illnesses. You have the right to be as crazy as you want to be, so long as you don’t impinge on the lives of others. And even "not guilty by reason of Insanity" [NGRI] gets you a ticket to another kind of institution.

Rights transcend Category. In our system, rights are not seen as something granted or something earned. They are inalienable, assumed. Rights are, in theory, limited only if they affect others adversely. So slavery, segregation, limiting voting to men, the stuff of our Civil Rights Movements are corrections to anachronisms rather than the addition of something new. Which brings us to the seemingly endless debate about abortion.

While there are obviously other forces fueling the debate over abortion, the crux of the argument hinges of the assertion of opponents that the rights of the conceived child are not being protected – that abortion equates with infanticide. The supporters take the position that abortion is the termination of an unwanted pregnancy. This issue hinges on rights as well, this time the rights of the pregnant woman. There seems to be no middle ground. And opinions seem remarkably stable over time, in the range of 50-50. In this case, independent of which way you look at things, it is framed in terms of someone getting hurt.  As in the case of homosexuality where the conservative argument is, "don’t be homosexual," in the case of abortion, the argument is "don’t get pregnant [have sex] if you don’t want a child." It’s a categorical argument that argues that the solution is to eliminate the categories – homosexuality or unwanted pregnancy [hardly a solution in either case].

All of this is to say that in my humble opinion, the Civil Rights Movement of Homosexuals seems to me to be on track and ultimately destined for success. It’s in the tradition of similar movements in this country. Judge Vaughn Walker’s reasoned decision may, in fact, be a Brown v. Board style benchmark for the future.