A_Wanderer said:
1) Gays can be fired from their job for being gay in many states, yes.
Now are there unfair dismissal laws or laws against discrimination on the basis of sexuality in these states? Avenues of appeal, possibilities of lawsuits.
No. It is not a federally-protected class from discrimination, so they are fair game in states that do not have laws on this.
2) Some colleges have expelled homosexuals, and public high schools have done the same.
I think that some colleges can and would do that, but public high schools are government institutions, are there not strong provisions against discrimation there?
Again, with no federal protections--and every attempt has been thwarted by the Republican-controlled Congress over the last 11 years--schools are often given a free ride to be discriminatory and insulting.
3) There is no mechanism for uniting bi-national same-sex couples in the U.S. Period.
Do they recognise de-facto heterosexual relationships and allow provisions for immigration on that basis?
There's a difference. Heterosexuals can get married. Homosexuals, since federal law prohibits recognition of gay relationships, have no avenue for sponsoring their partners; and federal law determines immigration policy. So even if you got married in Massachusetts--the one state where full-blown gay marriage is legal--it would not be recognized by the federal government.
4) The freedom to marry is a freedom of expression.
It is also a legal recognition of a relationship that has ramifications, it can be a religious practice (but that is quite inconcequential since if gay marriage was recognised then churches would still have the right not to perform ceremonies).
It would only be a religious practice if government did not assign so many civil rights and protections to marriage. As it is, you don't need religion to get married. And the bastion of never-ending hypocrisy, the Catholic Church, doesn't even recognize any marriage that isn't performed in their church. So, in their eyes, "married" heterosexual Protestants are all living in sin. As such, there is precedent that civil marriage and religious marriage are, indeed, two separate entities even if they are called the same name.
They might as well be part of the government, considering how much influence the Bush Administration gives them.
But they are not part of government, they are lobby groups and public figureheads, in the electoral cycle they can loose influence if the political climate changes.
If blacks had to wait for the South to change, they'd still be slaves. Instead, they had the luxury of the North defeating them in the Civil War with readmission into the union tied to ratifying two amendments that ensured the end of slavery and equality for blacks. I wish similar blackmail could be used today to force gay rights and equality. We only live once, after all.
The lack of civil protections and laws that discourage stable relationships are certainly the main two. How can they be alleviated? Actually enforcing the equal protection clause of the Constitution, and realizing that all these anti-homosexual laws in this country are a violation of that, just as segregation laws targeted towards racial minorities were a violation of that clause too.
I agree on this point, I disagree in principle with "gay rights" as a form of special protections and entitlements but establishing a consistent enforcement that recognises relationships regardless of sexuality is a better way to go.
If we're going to talk "consistent enforcement," laws already exist giving heterosexuals as many rights as they could ever want. The same do not exist for homosexuals, so if we are going to talk about "equality," then let's do it. The thing is, those who whine about "special rights" are nothing but virulent homophobes anyway.
Melon