The Fight for EqualityJoin now to read essay The Fight for EqualityThe Fight for EqualityHomosexuality has existed throughout history. This topic became ever so popular in the twentieth century. Homosexuals are currently the largest group of Americans that federal protection has not been extended too. Gay people can hide, but in hiding they are compromising their freedom. Everyone should have the right to marry, have children, and to hold any occupation that they choose regardless of their sexual orientation.
Discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or nationality is outlawed by Congress but sexual orientation is not on the list. In some cities and states, gay activist groups are trying to get anti-discrimination laws passed. But conservatives are fighting those laws and proposing ordinances of their own which would prevent sexual orientation from being included. States such as Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Wisconsin outlaw discrimination on the basis of homosexuality. Sodomy, solicitation, and loitering are the three major areas where police justify their attention towards gays and lesbians. Sodomy is the main area of focus. In twenty-three states, sodomy statutes criminalize certain sexual practices that both homosexuals and heterosexuals engage in. In the 1996 decision in Bowers v. Hardwich the Supreme Court decided that these laws are valid when applied to homosexuals but not to heterosexuals.
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•In 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court was considering a case involving a gay couple who objected to the gay marriage legal recognition of heterosexuals, it found that the plaintiffs had a substantial civil right to oppose the marriage and that they were “constituted to be protected under a constitutional right…to be treated with respect for their religious beliefs.” But the justices also determined they were unconstitutional because the right to marriage could not be denied to same-sex couples to “cause irreparable, emotional distress or pain.”
In 2007, in an opinion written by the two justices writing for a majority of the Court, the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights v. Texas found the State of Texas’ Equal Protection statutes violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment by failing to include an “opinion on the constitutionality” of those statutes. The Justice Department’s staff argued that “the Equal Protection statute was one of the most comprehensive and consistent provisions to be invoked by the federal government since the Civil War” and that the Texas law had been in existence since the Civil War.” The Court denied that argument on its own, writing:
The Justice Department’s use of the term ‘homosexual’ is an unusual term nonetheless, in the extreme sense which suggests that it might have been used by the federal government to distinguish one category of people from other categories. Its use is well settled, and its constitutionality is sufficiently established by law to warrant its use—as is demonstrated in the majority Court’s ruling upholding the constitutional basis for its construction in Texas v. Flores: in its reasoning, it is at odds with the constitutional guarantee that the due process of the law shall not be violated.
•In 2003, in a separate case involving a married couple, the Court found Texas’ equal protection law violated that constitutional right and that the State of Texas violated that right in the same way every other State. The case involved a couple who had lived together in Houston for about four years and whose marriage was recognized as homosexual. In 2003, the Court found these same laws violating the freedom of the individual and that the Texas law violated the United States Constitution, but it concluded that the state’s law that discriminates against two groups based on their different sexual orientations did not violate that liberty. The Court reasoned that by making the same claim of discrimination based on his or her sexual orientation (that is, one group was more likely to be arrested and tried for discrimination based on their sexuality), the couple had “reasonableness to believe that the discriminatory treatment of gay and lesbian people was reasonable.”
•In 2015, in a case involving a California couple challenging the constitutionality of a law enacted in 2005 by a same-sex couple, the Fourth Circuit upheld two of the state’s laws that made it unlawful for a county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Court ruled that the California State Supreme Court’s finding that the law violated the state Constitution did not alter the district court decision that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The Fourth Circuit also found that the four-week hearing process was a process of establishing state-established policy which was based on facts which had long been known in some jurisdictions . The Fourth Circuit rejected the arguments of the party arguing on the ground that it was not based on facts which had been known in other jurisdictions and relied on the decision of the court to require a more than one-third of the decisions made by the state court during that case.
•In 2014, the Supreme Court struck down state law which required the state police to take a written oath to support equal protection rights for same-sex couples and required that same-sex couples have their marriage licenses destroyed. One of the justices who
Employment discrimination laws seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. There is also a growing body of law preventing or occasionally justifying employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since homosexuals cannot get married, domestic-partner benefits are the only benefits that they are capable of getting. Having these domestic-partner benefits means that the partners of gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees would receive the same benefits from the company that are given to the married spouses of heterosexual employees. A number of companies have decided to extend benefits only to gay and lesbian employees who can not legally marry. Domestic partner compensations cover a broad range of benefits from medical and dental insurance and can be more difficult to provide, especially when the company is insured by an outside vendor. Some benefits such as bereavement and family leave which do not require any outside negotiation with insurance vendors can be executed right away.
To be eligible for domestic-partner benefits from their company must sign an affidavit saying that they are in a committed relationship. Although most vocal opposition to domestic partnerships is aimed at gay couples, giving them benefits does not undermine marriage. Rather, it solves the injustice that homosexuals cannot marry the people with whom they share their lives, and it creates financial incentives for stable relationships.
A patriotic American who happens to be lesbian or gay can only serve in the military by hiding the existence of