The Gay Agenda Takes Concrete Form - The Dallas Principles

Written by Arthur S. Leonard Saturday, 23 May 2009 04:48

We face an historic opportunity to obtain full civil rights for LGBT Americans. This is the moment for change. Not delay. Not excuses.

The opponents of LGBT rights commonly harp on a "gay agenda" as something to be feared, as some nefarious scheming by sexual deviates seeking "special rights" of some unspecified sort. As somebody who has been "out" in varying degrees for more than 30 years, I'd seen various manifestos and resolutions and program statements by a variety of gay organizations, but never thought that I was seeing any sort of definitive "gay agenda" that might be adopted as goals by the LGBT rights movement. Now I have.

A bunch of self-identified activists held a meeting in Dallas and have adopted a formal written statement which they call "The Dallas Principles" and which is an attempt to state a concrete gay agenda. For the full text, you can go to http://www.thedallasprinciples.org

Their statement has a prologue that insists that now is the time to move on the attainment of full LGBT civil rights. The prologue is followed by a statement of 8 guiding principles, 7 "full civil rights goals," and a 7 point action plan. In terms of a substantive gay agenda, the "full civil rights goals" are the heart of it, and I'm going to take the liberty of quoting in full here:

1. Dignity and Equality. Every lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender person has inherent dignity and worth, and has the right to live free of discrimination and harassment.

2. Family. Every LGBT person has the right to a family without legal barriers to immigration, civil marriage or raising children.

3. Economic Opportunity. Every LGBT person has the right to economic opportunity free from discrimination in employment, public housing, accommodation, public functions, credit, and federally funded programs and activities.

4. Education. Every LGBT child and youth has the right to an education that is affirming, inclusive and free from bullying.

5. National Security. Every LGBT person should have the opportunity to serve our country openly and equally in our military and foreign service.

6. Crime. Every LGBT person should enjoy life protected against bias crimes.

7. Health Care. Every person should have access to affordable, high quality, and culturally competent health care without discrimination.

I found no grounds for dissent to any of this, and in fact thought a few of the points were a bit on the modest side. (In particular, I would not restrict the goal of achieving non-discrimination in housing to "public housing." Housing discrimination statutes generally extend to all transactions in residential real estate, including leasing apartments from private owners and the purchase of residential property, and I see no reason to restrict that goal to "public housing," which means housing owned or operated under contract to governmental authorities in order to provide housing to the poor.) I would also note that we are at least part of the way there in some jurisdictions towards achieving many of the points on this agenda, but the focus of The Dallas Principles seems to be on the federal level, since they are really a call to the Obama Administration and the Democratic majorities in Congress, and are not focused on the states where, ironically, much of the work remains to be done on some of the most important points.

I have signed on to the statement, and I encourage others to go the website and do the same.

Read the original article in Leonard Link