Posted by
Jason Cunningham on Tuesday, April 07, 2009 7:45:00 PM
Vermont state Rep. William Lippert, a homosexual, after the Vermont Legislature overrode the governor's veto of a same-sex 'marriage' bill: "It's been an incredibly powerful personal journey. I consider it my personal great good fortune to be a member of the Vermont Legislature under the leadership of speakers who have in fact prioritized civil rights for the community of which I'm a part. It touches me deeply."
Mr. Lippert has the right to be a part of any community he chooses, but he's woefully mistaken about what constitutes a civil right.
As I've argued previously, civil rights comprise our political freedoms -- freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to protest, to peaceably assemble, to petition the government. In essence, our civil rights are what protect us citizens from government tyranny. This is what made the black civil-rights movement a civil-rights movement; they had previously been denied the political freedoms due every American, such as the right to vote, and thus had a legitimate civil-rights argument: To deny them, for example, the right to vote was to treat them unequally under the law. This is the true meaning of the phrase "equal treatment under the law."
Homosexuals, on the other hand, are not being denied the right to vote, the right to worship as they please, the right to protest, to petition the government, to peaceably assemble. Relationships, unlike those things I've just mentioned, have nothing to do with protecting citizens from political tyranny. Furthermore, if relationships are classified under the "equal treatment under the law" rubric, then it becomes impossible to objectively draw the line as to which relationships qualify for "equal treatment." What right would any of us have, for example, to deny a 15-year-old the "right" to be with a 21-year-old? Who are any of us to say that such a relationship is not valid? 15-year-olds are people too, right? They have feelings, don't they? Can't they be "in love"?
Civil rights, indeed.