Changes

The '''gay rights''' movement wants to elevate [[homosexuality]] to the same level of respectability as normal conjugal love. It seeks to remove the stigma of [[sexual perversion]] from homosexuality by pretending

The '''gay rights''' movement seeks to elevate [[homosexuality]] to the same level of social and political respectability as normal conjugal love. It seeks to remove the stigma of [[sexual perversion]] from homosexuality by arguing that either,  

that people are born "that way",

# Homosexuality is an immutable trait, and discriminating against immutable traits is wrong (cf. race discrimination), or,

that there are no Biblical injunctions against it,  

# Homosexuality, if not immutable, is highly correlated with personality, and discriminating against such deeply rooted notions of self is wrong, as well (cf. religious intolerance).

that it's normal because animals do it,  

The movement does not seek to convince others that homosexuality is ''right'': rather, it seeks to convince the public that it is not ''wrong'' enough to regulate, criminalize, or stigmatize.

and

that the only reason some people might oppose it is out of irrational fear or hatred.

Gay rights activists are supremely intolerant. From the pie-throwing incident (throwing a pie in the face of female family values crusader [[Anita Bryant]], to "hate crimes" legislation, to the United Nations [[CEDAW]] treaty, they have done everything they can to force people to accept their ideology. Ironically, they do this in the name of "[[tolerance]]" (see [[Sensitivity training]]).

Courts, including the Supreme Court, have accepted either one or both of these rationales.  In ''[[Romer v. Evans]]'', the Court found that discriminating against homosexuals could only be explained by a rational of animus laid bare, which was not enough even to allow state condemnation of homosexuality under the [[rational basis review]] test.  ''Romer'', then, protects the status of homosexuality from undue discrimination that occurs without a rational basis.<ref>Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620</ref> 

 

Homosexual conduct was formerly illegal in many states.<ref>See generally ''Bowers v. Hardwick'', 478 U.S. 186</ref>  In the last decade of the twentieth century, although these laws existed, they were rarely (if ever) enforced.<ref>''Lawrence v. Texas,'' 539 U.S. 558, Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the Opinion of the Court, found this in his historical analysis.</ref>  Without disclosing whether it saw homosexuality as a status protected from discrimination at as high of a level as gender and race, the Court struck down bans on homosexual conduct, framing it as an expansion of its privacy jurisprudence.<ref>''Lawrence v. Texas'', 539 U.S. 558</ref> 

 

The status of homosexuality before the law, then, is in some degree of flux.  While bare discrimination against homosexual status is facially unconstitutional lacking a rational basis, and while preventing homosexual conduct is similarly unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has held in these landmark cases that the state may discriminate against homosexuals to preserve an "institution that the law protects" - namely, [[marriage]].<ref>''Lawrence v. Texas''; Kennedy & O'Connor both reached this conclusion explicitly.</ref>  As such, the standard to be applied in deciding if discrimination against homosexuals is wrong is somewhere in between [[rational basis review]] and [[strict scrutiny review]].  Justice [[Antonin Scalia]] thinks that this uncertainty will surely be resolved in the favor of gay rights, and he warns that such a legal erosion will result in the downfall of the law's moral authority.<ref>''Lawrence v. Texas'', Scalia, J., dissenting.</ref>

 

 

# A gay rights perspective, the Human Rights Campaign, www.hrc.org