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The Mainstreaming of Homosexuality
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11184 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1993 |
5,872 Words |
| Author
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Thomas J. Ward and Frederick A. Swarts
Thomas J. Ward holds a doctorate in philosophy of education
and is executive director of the American Leadership
Conference. Frederick A. Swarts has a doctorate in biology and
education and is the administrative director of the conference. |
The recent fatal beating of a gay U.S. sailor at the hands of his fellow servicemen in Okinawa, Japan, reminds us that homosexuals continue to be the victims of vile expressions of hate and intolerance. Author and gay activist Warren Blumenfeld writes that "sexual minorities--lesbians, gay males, bisexuals, and transgender people--are among the most despised groups in the United States today." Blumenfeld points out that because of paragraph 175 of the German penal code, homosexuals were singled out for abusive treatment in Nazi Germany, with many of them meeting their deaths in Hitler's gas chambers.
Diverse views exist on how to stop unfair treatment and brutality against gays. Some argue that the American constitutional system already provides ample protection; others maintain that it does not.
Over the past three decades, the gay rights movement, with growing mainline media support, has had a major impact upon state and municipal governments throughout the United States. That effort has also grown internationally, even reaching to Moscow, where, until the collapse of communism, the government officially referred to homosexuals as "perverts and deviants."
ENDING DISCRIMINATION
With the election of Bill Clinton, activists throughout the United States heralded the dawning of a new era in gay history. A major shift in White House policy was signaled by Clinton's inchoate effort to end the ban on gays in the military. On the congressional level as well, a growing effort is under way to end the marginalizing of gays. Sen. Edward Kennedy recently committed himself to introducing legislation in the Senate that would expand the Civil Rights Act protections to include people who suffer discrimination because of their sexual orientation.
State and municipal efforts to end discrimination based on sexual orientation have also accelerated. The New York State Assembly has approved legislation aimed at providing civil rights protection to gays. In a highly controversial move, New York City Mayor David Dinkins unsuccessfully attempted to allow gays to march in the city's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade. The Colorado electorate's November 1992 referendum that curtailed gay rights provoked an economic boycott against that state, a move that won significant support from Hollywood celebrities, as well as from corporations and some state and municipal governments.
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