In 1968, the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut found a fundamental right of privacy in the married sexual union. A setback occurred in 1975, when a federal three-judge panel upheld the Virginia sodomy law. In Dow v. Commonwealth s Attorney. The arguments were four in number: (1) a secular argument grounded in the Judeo-Christian religious beliefs about same-sex conduct as a sin, (2) a historical argument that since such laws had been on the books for a long time, they were , by their very longevity, valid, (3) an argument that same sex conduct undermined the American family and that gay Americans were no portion of marriage, home or family life and (4) a circular argument that since the Virginia legislature had long criminalized such conduct.
In 1985, gay legal activists seeking to overturn sodomy laws believed they had the perfect case to take the Supreme Court. In Georgia, Michael Hardwick was arrested in his own bedroom within a private home while having sex with another adult male. The decision of the Supreme Court in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick stunned both gay and nongay legal activists. The court in upholding Georgia s right to criminalize adult, consensual, private sex between two persons of the same gender, selectively ignored prior privacy precedent. Opinion polls in the 1980 s showed that most Americans believed all Americans had a fundamental right of privacy for adult, consensual sex.
The one legal issue that presses on the daily existence of almost all gay citizens is employment discrimination. Gay employees wonder whether, in order to pursue a career and a stable livelihood, they must be closeted and live in a constant fear of being fount out. (Gonsiorek & Weinrich. 1991. Pg-88). A small number of cities and counties in the United States have unemployment laws that protect employees on the basis of their sexual orientation. However, by far the majority of these statutes apply to public not private employers.
Protecting one s self from the homophobic actions of employers is still difficult, especially in private employment. However, for both the state and local government employees, prospects of a harassment free and firing free workplace are much better than 10 years ago. A federal bill adding sexual orientation to the list of federally protected categories of Title VII has perennially languished in the House and Senate since its first introduction in 1981.
In 1944, as the war was ending and the need for unlimited manpower no longer existed, the U.S. military instituted formal rules prohibiting gay men and women from serving their country. Some military personnel were excluded or removed under these regulations with dishonorable discharges and often harsh interrogations. Most gay military cases prior to the 1970 s concerned persons caught in the midst of the forbidden act. In 1976 Leonard Matlovich, a decorated Vietnam war hero and airman, directly challenged the system by announcing his sexual orientation to the Secretary of the Air Force, his military unit. He was immediately dishonorably discharged.
Gay military personnel have constantly challenged the military regulations in American courts. The case closest to success was Watkins v. United States, in which a three-judged panel of the 9th Circuit held, two to one, that the military regulations were unconstitutional because gays and lesbians constituted a suspect class .
Congressional inquiry has revealed that weeding gay personnel out of the military costs the American taxpayers $23 million a year. (Gonsiorek & Weinrich. 1991. Pg-87)
In Boutilier v. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1967, the Supreme Court upheld a prohibition against gay and lesbian immigration because the immigration law forbade the entrance of psychopathic personalities . Gay men and women, according to the Court, fell under that diagnosis. In 1979, the Public Health Service, through the Surgeon General of the United States, announced that public health doctors would no longer certify gay people as psychopathic personalities because new studies clearly indicated that a same-gender sexual orientation was not a diagnosable mental illness. Following this policy Immigration and Naturalization Service said that without such certification, gay and lesbian immigration had to be admitted.
In 1990, by the passage of a new federal immigration law that removed the prohibition of gay and lesbians immigration based on sexual orientation, resolved the immigration issue.
Christian Churches have always been identified with a conservative, family-based morality inimical to sexual permissiveness in general and to homosexuality in particular. Homosexuality as being a sin remains the orthodox view of all the major Christian sects.
Christian writers these days are tending to adopt softer and more fashionable attitudes towards homosexuals, tempering their rejection with expressions of concern and sympathy.
An unusually sympathetic view from a Roman Catholic source has appeared in a pamphlet on the pastoral care of homosexuals by Michael Hollings (1972). Nowhere does he deny the sinfulness of homosexuality. He tries to use neutral language, although in doing so he knows he may incur the censure of clergy of theologians who would prefer to see an outright statement on sin . He pleads for an understanding of homosexuals, and a recognition of their human needs. He asks the question whether the Church has any advice to offer other than total abstention. (West. 1977. Pg-311)
In secular law there can be no such thing as a marriage except between a man and a woman. No institutional church in England recognizes or solemnises homosexual marriages. In California Troy Perry (1972) pastor of Pentecostal Church, who was dismissed on account of homosexuality, set up a church of his own where homosexual members would be welcome and where he could celebrate homosexual marriages.
In the early days of the movement for social justice for homosexuals the reformers were glad of any support they could win from the established churches. Backing from the Moral Welfare Council of the Church of England helped in the formulation and eventual implementation of the Wolfenden decriminalization proposals. In the United States, the tireless efforts of the Rev. Alfred Gross, executive director of the G.W. Henry Foundation gave a respectable, religious backing to pleas for law reform and for a better deal for sexual variants.
Homosexuals ceased to present themselves as sinners, begging for tolerance and forgiveness from more virtuous Christians. Standing proud, and asserting their moral right to live as they please, they decisively rejected as stupid and outmoded the so-called natural law that condemned them.
It may be argued that homosexuals didn t exist until about 150 years ago. Homosexuality certainly did, as our historical survey showed, but individuals who fell in love with members of their own sex weren t thought to be a particular kind of person. Often, the gender of one s sexual partners was less important than attributes like their age and social status. One the other hand, some societies, such as many in pre-Columbian America, recognized a separate class of persons whose gender and sexual orientation was different and afforded them a special status. In times and cultures in which individual behavior was highly regulated in deference to group solidarity, such as among the Isrealites, reproductive sexuality was the mandate and any other form of sexual expression forbidden and punished.
The study of the forces of stigma and bigotry shows us that unfamiliar to dangerous is a step easily taken among humans. Homosexuals in Western society have been identified with others considered dangerous persons since the late Middle Ages: sinners, infidels, foreign enemies, the mentally ill, criminals.
For several hundreds of years, the institutions of the majority considered homosexuality something a person did and called it sodomy, buggery or a crime against nature. During the nineteenth century, a shift occurred, and a few individuals began to talk about homosexuality as something a person was.
In the late twentieth century, the sciences of biology have again begun to consider the phenomenon of homosexuality and to apply techniques and develop theories to understand it. In measuring the size of certain brain structures, performance on psychological tests, and the structure of chromosomes, differences are found between homosexual and heterosexual individuals- differences, not abnormalities.
Homosexuality is a natural, normal sexuality for some people. Fear of homosexuals has been exploited by the misguided in the pursuit of wealth, power , revenge, political influence, and cultural control.
It is possible that prejudice against homosexuals will one day be as unacceptable in our society as prejudice against ethnic or religious minorities. For a hundred years of so, homosexuals have struggled against forces that would oppress and persecute them. Some of them were given a pink triangle to wear and were murdered for their protest. Many more now proudly put on a pink triangle and march down Main Street to celebrate who they are. They march for acceptance and freedom and call on their family and friends to join them.
Works Cited
1) West, D.J.. Homosexuality re-examined. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1977
2) Gonsiorek, John & Weinrich, James. Homosexuality. U.S.A: Sage Publications, 1991
3) Nungesser, Lon G. Homosexual Acts, Actors, and Identities. New York: Praegar Publishers,
1983.
4) Spencer, Colin. Homosexuality in History. U.S.A: Harcourt Brace & Company,
1995.