Three decades ago, the news wasn’t filled with headlines that made an issue out of self-identification in matters such as sexual identity or race. In the past five years, that has changed dramatically, and not a day goes by when there isn’t at least one headline relating to one of those two topics.
Being Black in America
To identify as ‘black’ in America today is to instantly place yourself squarely on one side of a polarizing and potentially explosive social, cultural, and political issue. Fifty years ago, being racially identified as black had other connotations in those same areas, but they were not as charged with emotion and opinion as they are today.
Furthermore, to identify as black in America today also presents, to the majority of Americans both ‘black’ and ‘white,’ that you have a diluted sense of self and no true concept of your ethnic roots. This is true whether proponents and opponents want to believe it or not, because a very large percentage of black Americans cannot tell you what part of Africa their ancestors hailed from (or even if they did come from Africa, since a significant number of ‘black’ people came from other places around the globe besides Africa). They cannot provide you with a family tree that extends beyond four or five generations, if that, and usually terminates at the point where their ancestors were enslaved or when the lineage takes them off American soil.
Fifty or so years ago, black Americans who championed their ’cause’ were championing a cause that sought equal rights – voting, marriage, commercial patronage, access to education, and so on. Unfortunately, many of today’s ‘black champions’ seek not to hold on to those basic rights granted to every American citizen but to reach far beyond the scope of ‘rights’ and demand ‘entitlements’ and ‘privilege’ associated with race. They claim blacks are underprivileged because they are black, and that white people are over-privileged because they are white.
Gay and lesbian individuals are now claiming the same thing, and demanding their ‘rights’ in forums that go all the way to the United States Supreme Court. There is a vast difference between ‘rights’ and ‘benefits’ – but our justice system has started an unfortunate trend. The country’s higher courts are now recognizing that ‘special groups’ (despite their lack of ‘specialness’ in that they are no more or less human beings and American citizens than anyone else) should have access to ‘benefits’ as well as ‘rights’ that go beyond what is normally provided to residents and citizens of the United States.
LGBT Equality
Who you choose to have sex with is not an issue that should be played out on the grand stage of an American court room. The concept itself, ‘LGBT equality,’ should be a laughable one, not one that causes employers to cringe because they might be firing an incompetent, useless, under-skilled homosexual who can later sue because he/she claims to have been fired for being homosexual. It should not be one that causes court judges to sweat beneath their stately robes because they have few legal precedents upon which to stand when deciding issues involving gay and lesbian people.
No one should have to censor their speech and thoughts to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of a gay or lesbian person (or any other person). Thoughts and speech aren’t censored to avoid offending millions of people who actually do belong to a federally protected category under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent legislation. We don’t tip-toe around religious topics, heterosexual topics, and other topics in categories to which belong individuals who don’t run to the nearest lawyer every time their delicate little feelings are injured.
Gay and lesbian issues are bedroom issues, not issues that belong in a public forum of any kind. Being a citizen of the most lawsuit-happy country in the world, however, allows homosexuals the opportunity to air their bedroom-based grievances in a public forum.
Further Interference Into Private Citizens’ Private Lives
This should become a problem to the rest of the country when the Supreme Court decides to take decision-making rights away from the individual states – granted to them by the Constitution of the United States – and rule on matters that are completely outside the purview of the Supreme Court. Domestic relations have been left in the hands of the individual states since the formation of this country, but now we have a panel of nine appointed lawyers – not even elected ones – making decisions about our domestic lives. All because a woman with a firm belief in God and the word of the Holy Bible chose to exercise her God-given and constitutionally-protected right to act in accordance with her beliefs.
The Supreme Court decided, among the dissent of several justices, that a woman’s refusal to provide commercial services to a homosexual couple was not a protected ‘right’ because it caused ‘injury’ to the couple. She refused to prepare floral arrangements for their wedding and offered a list of several alternate florists. What injury did this gay couple suffer? Perhaps they suffered from the fact that someone rightly pointed out that God’s infallible word does not make special accommodations for homosexuals and they secretly experienced a moment of fear for their eternal soul – as well they should.
What They Really Want
According to some of the dissenting justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, homosexual couples bringing lawsuits to the highest level of law in the land are not, in fact, seeking equality and equal ‘protection’ of their Constitutionally-protected rights (of which they actually have none). These justices then declared that what homosexuals really want is a ‘right to benefits’ rather than a ‘right of equality.’
In other words, they want to receive special recognition for their partnerships, above and beyond that which is granted to any domestic partnership that is not (and should not be) legally recognized as a valid marriage.
In petitions before various courts of law, homosexual couples have ‘demanded’ that they be granted a host of ‘rights’ such as spousal benefits, parental rights, reproductive rights and claims, employer-provided beneficial perks provided to opposite-sex spouses, and others.
The wave of ‘gay rights’ lawsuits has prompted some courts to force businesses to provide services to homosexuals regardless of the preferences or beliefs of the business owner. This completely shatters the ‘right to refuse service to anyone’ premise upon which a large part of American commerce rests. At this point, no company can refuse service to any person, regardless of the reason, without potentially facing a lawsuit.
It’s going to take a lot more than a new President to ‘make America great again.’
Siouxology 