Knocking On Freedom's Door

I have a firm, unshakeable belief in equality for all human beings and I can behave in no other way. It is not an option for me.

This is the primary reason I love the United States. From the inception, the concept of "all men are created equal" has been a premise for all we believe in, dating back to the Declaration of Independence. There is no thought more powerful than what is portrayed in those five simple words.

Unfortunately, this country has a history of implementing laws that contradict that thought. It has taken us hundreds of years to bring our laws in line with our founding principles, but we have made huge strides. Each of these strides has not come easily. They have been hard fought and painful. Blood has been shed and lives have been lost.

But we can stand proudly today and say that minorities and females have the exact same legal rights that white males have always had. It makes me beam with pride that this is true.

Lest we get carried away patting ourselves on the back, however, we should note that even today Americans love to pass laws limiting the rights of others. The rights of smokers have been severely curtailed because over the last few decades, smokers have went from being the majority to the minority.

What is the key difference between the rights of minority races and women, and the rights of smokers? The nuance, and unwritten premise, in "all men are created equal" is that it applies to groups whose characteristics were present at birth. It does not apply to characteristics that are chosen by the individual via a conscious choice during their lifetime. As Americans, apparently it is our protected right to discriminate against people for the choices they make.

Which brings me to the last group of people whose rights are still being deprived due to a characteristic that was present at birth: gays and lesbians.

How can I be so sure that being gay is not a choice? There are a few questions I normally ask to prove my point, but I'll save those for when we are face-to-face. Usually, pondering those questions is enough to convince, or at least silence, skeptics. But I'll give you the clincher - the moment when I knew for sure that being gay was not a choice the individual made.

I knew a family with three boys. As young as 3, one of the boys exhibited traits that seems gay. This could probably be traced back even earlier, but I had definitely noticed it by the age of 3. By the age of 4 it was clearly evident that this boy was going to be homosexual. And now, some 20 years later, this has turned out to be true. Both of his brothers, however, are heterosexual even though they grew up in the same household and, therefore, grew up in the same environment. This was not a choice this young boy made - this was something that was inherently in him. It came naturally to him.

We are in the midst of a civil rights movement that, as near as I can tell, will be the last one necessary in the United States. This is the last group of people for which it is currently acceptable to have discriminatory laws enforced.

It flabberghasts me that people would spend so much time and energy denying others equality. What does it matter to them? No one is forcing them into a gay marriage. There can be no other explanation for voting Yes on 8 than out-and-out homophobia. Pure and simple. I personally don't necessarily like see two males hold hands, but I will protect their right to do so - and to marry - with everything I have.

If you voted Yes on 8, then this post has probably not changed your mind, but it really doesn't matter. I spent two days the weekend before the election standing out on corners with a lot of other heterosexuals waving No on 8 signs. You would not believe the positive reactions we were getting. And a large part of that was from people 30 and younger. After that weekend, I am absolutely convinced that those with gay prejudices will slowly but surely dwindle in number as the years roll by. If they just looked back at movements over the last two hundred years, they could save us all a lot of time by realizing they are standing on the wrong side of history.