Why the Uned Stat Needs Gay Reparatns Now

Contents:

• GAY REPARATNS ARE PAST DUE
• THE GAY COMMUNY’S OBSSN WH STAT AND LOOKS HAS HUGE MENTAL HEALTH COSTS
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL
• GAY RIGHTS
• LEAVG THE GAY COMMUNY - ONE CHRISTIAN'S EXPERIENCE

GAY REPARATNS ARE PAST DUE

It may seem surprisg to Amerin rears, but one of the most vibrant human rights movements around the world today is “gay reparatns, ” or polici tend to make amends for the legacy of systemic discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn and genr inty. In 2008, the German ernment opened a monument to gay victims of the Holot, an unknown number whom perished Nazi ncentratn mps, many of them victims of gome medil experiments tend to eradite their homosexualy. In still other untri, gay reparatns have centered on a pardon to anyone nvicted unr laws that crimalized same-sex attractn, as the Uned Kgdom, which 2017 issued a posthumo pardon to those nvicted of “gross cency, ” cludg Alan Turg, the mathematician creded wh shorteng the end of World War II; or even fancial pensatn for wag or pensns lost due to havg spent time prison or a mental stutn bee of a homosexual offense, as Spa sce 2009 and Germany sce 2016.

The clost the untry has e to embracg gay reparatns was 2019, when, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rts, the New York Police Department issued a belated apology for the raid that triggered the rebelln. Surely, the absence of gay reparatns—or even a discsn of them— the Uned Stat is not out of a rosy history ee of systemic discrimatn toward the LGBTQ muny, although a valid argument n be ma that this history is not particularly well known, save, perhaps, for “don’t ask, don’t tell.

THE GAY COMMUNY’S OBSSN WH STAT AND LOOKS HAS HUGE MENTAL HEALTH COSTS

Des before “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” om the 1920s through at least the 1960s, there was the policy of “entrapment, ” which volved unrver police officers sendg flirtat signals to other men they prumed to be homosexual the hop of ensnarlg them to illic activy. Acrdg to the historian Eric Cervi’s book The Deviant’s War, War, which is about gay rights pneer Frank Kameny, the 15 years after World War II, “homosexual arrts—cludg those for sodomy, dancg, kissg, or holdg hands—occurred at the rate of one every ten mut, ” for a grand total of 1 ln arrts.

Perhaps as many as 10, 000 people were fired or expelled om their feral jobs durg the 1950s and 1960s bee they were homosexual or spected of beg homosexual based on evince as flimsy as how they drsed, talked, or looked. Supreme Court lg that upheld the state of Geia’s sodomy laws, the urt termed that the Constutn did not protect the rights of gays, lbians, and bisexuals to engage private, nsensual sexual relatns, bee, the jtic nclud, homosexual sex has no nnectn to fay, marriage, abortn, or procreatn. Burger quoted the 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone’s characterizatn of homosexual sex as an “famo crime agast nature, ” worse than rape, and “a crime not f to be named.

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

Acts of state-sponsored anti-gay discrimatn sent an unambiguo msage to ordary Amerins that was acceptable to mean and monize LGBTQ people, and even to engage acts of vlence agast them. The famo and bloody history of societal attacks on the Amerin LGBTQ muny clus sger and spokperson Ana Bryant’s 1977 Save Our Children csa, which picted gay men as pedophil; Evangelist Jerry Falwell’s “claratn of war” on homosexualy, a rhetoril tactic employed durg the 1980s to raise funds for Falwell’s Moral Majory anizatn; and the 2016 attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida. The apology me wh a multiln-dollar payout to pensate victims of the “gay purge, ” those fired om the ary bee of their sexual orientatn, and thorized a memorial to the victims of those persecuted for their sexual orientatn the pal cy of Ottawa.

GAY RIGHTS

An obv factor behd the layed arrival of gay reparatns the Uned Stat is that the subject of reparatns is particularly vexg Amerin society, stemmg om the still-unsettled legacy of slavery and om racism.

Some crics of gay reparatns such as the nservative polil mentator Michael Medved have mataed that gay people are not servg of reparatns bee unlike Black Amerins, gay people are not victims of multigeneratnal damage, meang that whatever ills homophobia may have ed the past, the ills are not the same as those left behd by slavery, as they do not rry over om generatn to generatn.

Medved also pots to the enomic succs of some the Amerin LGBTQ muny (which has generated the mythil notn that LGBTQ Amerins are more affluent than the populatn at large) as a reason for why gay reparatns are rndant.

LEAVG THE GAY COMMUNY - ONE CHRISTIAN'S EXPERIENCE

As argued by a wrer for the right-wg webse RedState, gay reparatns would allow for reparatn claims by the “obe, the disfigured, the disabled, the short, the bald, ” and also by “[m]igrants who weren’t treated kdly when they tried to enter the U. They have also leveraged historil narrativ of homosexual reprsn to fluence public opn and policy toward the LGBTQ muny, such as the opprsn of gays and lbians unr Nazi Germany or unr the homophobic laws of the Francis Fran regime Spa, and shamed public officials for failg to stand up for the human rights of LGBTQ people.

That latter argument me to be known as “the nservative se for gay marriage, ” which ntend that Amerin society, cludg nservativ, should support same-sex marriage bee would bolster tradnal valu. Framg the stggle for same-sex marriage around such most goals as strengtheng homosexual hoeholds wasted a great opportuny to engage society a broad bate about the role of LGBTQ people society. Asi om rtorg digny to the victims of state-sponsored polici of anti-gay discrimatn and vlence, gay reparatns hold the promise of puttg an end to the history of opprsn of LGBTQ people while remdg future generatns of the sacrific and stggl that me before them.