Friday, April 16, 2010

Special Rights and the "Gay Agenda"

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gay-couples-hospitals16-2010apr16,0,1699384.story?track=rss

When anti-gay groups talk about civil rights for LGBT people it is usually in the context of fear-mongering. “They’re after special rights!” “It’s the gay agenda!”

Today the special right LGBT people got granted today is having visitation rights for our partners, a right that married heterosexual people don’t even have to think about.

While this right is a huge milestone for queers, it also helps other people who don’t have legal partnerships. What benefits the LGBT community also helps to extend equality for all.

That’s why the concept of a “gay agenda” (those are scare quotes btw) is so obnoxious to me. The only special rights requested are to be free from discrimination and obvious hatred, the rest of the rights asked for are to ensure that we are treated like human beings in all spheres of life.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for expressing in such a beautiful way that we all are human beings first and just also happen to be queer, too...bonus!!! No agenda...just trying to live here on planet earth with all the other human beings. This is a happy day, indeed, for everyone!!!

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  2. It's kind of like the affirmative action 'white' people had for 400 years...

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