ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Homosexual activists currently pushing for “gay marriage” argue they are only seeking “equal” treatment under the law. But regardless of what some think about gay “marriage,” the charge of “inequality” against homosexuals is a difficult case to make.
Usually our nation’s courts have stepped in when evidence indicates broad prejudices have been committed against a minority group. These relate to unequal access to education, housing, job promotion or earning a fair wage. But by just about any standard of measurement you care to use, homosexuals fail to meet the test of persecuted minority.
As a group, their earnings outpace the national average, they have a higher percentage of disposable income and they exert remarkable influence over the political process, especially considering their numbers. And they travel recreationally more than most Americans. Most major corporations have quickly capitulated when homosexuals come looking for benefits. In addition, homosexuals are celebrated on television and in film and are rarely portrayed in a negative light in the news media.
Many African Americans are offended that homosexual activists are drawing parallels between their current agenda and civil rights struggles of the past. The Rev. Richard Richardson, director of the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston, recently summed it up this way:
“The institution of slavery was about oppression of an entire people,” Richardson said. “The institution of segregation was about discrimination. The institution of Jim Crow laws, including laws against interracial marriage, was about discrimination. The traditional institution of marriage is not discrimination.”
I don’t agree with Jesse Jackson on very many things, but he was right on target in a recent speech at Harvard where he pointed out that, in contrast to African Americans, homosexuals were never considered “property” or less than fully human under the law, and they’ve always had the right to vote.
In fact, people who practice homosexuality have always been viewed equally under the law. But equal isn’t enough to satisfy their ultimate desire, which is not equality, but special treatment. And, unfortunately, the law seems only too anxious to grant that.
The recent spate of illegal “gay marriages” around the nation illustrates how our legal system grants homosexual activists special treatment. City officials in California, Oregon, New York, New Mexico and elsewhere have knowingly and intentionally broken the law by granting the licenses. To the relief of most Americans, courts have finally stepped in to halt these proceedings, but the truth is, most of the lawbreaking officials were allowed to carry on for days or even weeks without any court action against them.
In contrast, when an Alabama judge refused to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the lobby of his courthouse, federal courts immediately stepped in, and he was charged with ethics violations and removed from office.
Mark Early, Virginia’s former attorney general, recently pointed out that when his state passed a law restricting partial-birth abortions, a judge placed an injunction on the law almost before the ink was even dry and the same happened in many other states.
Mounting evidence suggests that some of our courts are fully enforcing certain laws and only winking at others.
Where will this special treatment lead? If we look to Canada, our neighbor to the north who led us down the aisle to homosexual “marriage,” freedom of speech is the next target. Canada’s House of Commons passed Bill C-250 last fall, which adds homosexuals to the list of those protected from “hate” speech. (The bill has not yet been voted on by the Senate). Sweden already has a similar law. And just how is “hate speech” defined?
In June 2001 the Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry ordered one of its residents to pay a $4,500 fine for running an ad in a local newspaper which referred to verses from the Bible that condemn homosexual practices. The verses weren’t even quoted.
Some Americans may be nodding their approval of homosexual “marriage” in order to avoid conflict on what they consider an innocuous issue, but, rest assured, homosexual activists have no plans to curtail their agenda if they gain marriage rights.
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Robert E. (Bob) Reccord is present of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
