No Longer A Question Of Morality: Gay Rights In The United States

In 1999, the Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America rejected the application of Timothy Curran, who was applying for the position of Assistant Scoutmaster, on the basis that he was of homosexual orientation; Curran sued, but in the end, the courts rejected Curran's claim and sided with the Council ("Curran v. Mount...", 1999). The decision ended up sparking much anger and confusion within the gay and lesbian community, and rightly so. Would the decision have differed had the discrimination been based on a religious issue instead of an orientation-based one? Had Curran been Jewish rather than gay, would the same verdict have been reached? The answer is arguably no; the US Civil Rights Act prevents employers from discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin" ("Civil Rights...", 1964). The question, then, is whether or not lesbians and gay men can be classified into one of those categories. With further research, the answer is obvious; homosexuals are a unique, distinct group of people that do indeed fit into the definition of a "race". Thus - in addition to the basis provided for gay and lesbian rights in the US Constitution - lesbians and gay men are entitled to the rights, freedoms and privileges other races are entitled to, as declared in the Civil Rights Act, the Constitution of the United States, and, by responsibility, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a race as "a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics" ("Merriam-Webster...", 2004). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines a race as "a group of people united and classified together on the basis of common history", and additionally "human beings considered as a group" ("Canadian Oxford...", 2001). Men and women of homosexual orientation can be related to each of these definitions; they are "unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics", they share a common history, and they are indeed, for better or worse, "considered as a group". From this, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion - homosexuals are indeed classifiable as a race of people and are entitled to the rights and freedoms that inherently exist in that classification.

In addition to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are other, even more primary documents that address the issue of racial discrimination. One such document is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Especially useful regarding the subject of discrimination in the workplace, the act states that it is unlawful "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin" ("Civil Rights...", 1964). Indeed, that section of the Civil Rights Act applies to the example used at the beginning of this essay; had Timothy Curran been considered part of a race in his trial, the verdict would evidently have been in his favour ("Curran v. Mount...", 1999). Because homosexuals should be considered a distinct race of people, the verdict in Curran's case was unlawful. Another example of such an apparent violation of the Civil Rights Act occurred in 1994, when Margarethe Cammermeyer was discharged from service in the National Guard based "solely on her statement that she was a lesbian" ("Cammermeyer v. Aspin...", 1994). Racial discrimination in the workplace is illegal, and the act of discharging a person from a government-run service on the grounds that they are a homosexual is in direct violation of the Civil Rights Act. Discrimination against lesbians and gay men should be considered racial discrimination, and thus prejudice against them in the workplace is unlawful.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 2 states that "everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status" ("Universal Declaration...", 1948). The preamble of the Declaration also states that all those who have signed it pledge to "promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance" ("Universal Declaration...", 1948). The conclusion that can be drawn by connecting these two statements is as obvious as it is meaningful; as a nation that has agreed to ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is the responsibility of the United States to secure the recognition of the "inalienable" rights contained within the Declaration. It is thus clearly logical to deduce that, specifically, each distinct race of people is entitled to the rights and freedoms laid out in the Declaration.

In practice, though, the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are often not recognized. Article 16 of the Declaration states that "men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family" ("Universal Declaration...", 1948). Disturbingly, in the United States - a country that has ratified the Declaration - people of gay and lesbian orientation are still not legally sanctioned to marry. Indeed, in the recent Presidential Election, many states voted to ban gay marriage entirely ("11 States nix...", 10/28/2004). This was an event that has sent human rights activists in a spin of confusion; the people of a country that has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are denying the supposedly inalienable rights of a distinct group of citizens that should be considered as a race. In fact, in anticipation of a groundbreaking court decision on the subject in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed and signed by the Clinton administration, a move directly in opposition to the UDHR; it defined a legal marriage as "a legal union of one man and