For decades, gays have been fighting for equal rights with the same, ineffective strategy. Our approach – called “incrementalism” by many – has gotten us exactly where we are today: waging the same battles we’ve been struggling with since the 1960s. Recently, repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and enactment of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act have all made headlines. As they have for many years. Gays and their supporters have all championed these acts as the way to protect and provide equality for our nation’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community.
There is another way to win equal rights for gays: expand the federal Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, outlawed racial segregation, and prohibited discrimination by federal agencies. Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to “on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin,” if written properly, could render unconstitutional “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the Defense of Marriage Act, and would expand protections for gays promised by the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
What the gay and lesbian community needs, and deserves, is an omnibus GLBT civil rights package, to make unconstitutional acts of discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity. Make it unconstitutional to fire someone in public service – like the armed forces – or in the private sector, simply for being gay. Make it unconstitutional to deny marriage licenses to same sex couples. Make it known the full weight of the law will be used against anyone who commits a crime against anyone else, just for being gay.
This is not a new idea. Civil liberties champions and gay rights activists, like David Mixner, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Jeffrey Campagna, have previously proposed these solutions. But neither the mainstream media nor mainstream GLBT advocacy groups have given this option much attention.
Gay rights aren’t “special rights,” they are civil rights, no less vital to our society than the rights conveyed to African Americans and women by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Forty-five years later, the gay and lesbian community is still waiting. We have the most progressive president in history, and the greatest Democratic majority in Congress in thirty years. The time to provide full equality for all GLBT Americans is now.