You asked where I lived before moving to America, so I will tell you everything.
I was born and raised in South Africa, and graduated from South Africa's largest English-speaking University (the University of the Witwatersrand) with majors in Psychology and Computer Science. About eight months after graduating, I moved to the USA.
My decision to move to the USA was based on a sense of hopelessness and depression that I associated with South Africa's future. Remember that the mid-1980s (I left the country in 1986) were the height of the apartheid years -- the country was under a permanent "State of Emergency" that had been declared by then-President P.W. Botha (now the most reviled President in South African history). I decided to move to the US because the immigration process was easier than would have been the case had I chosen to move to another country.
I lived in New York City (NYC) for almost 20 years, punctuated by Information Technology projects in Hawaii, New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Illinois. I have seen a lot of the US, and I know the US very well (from the perspective of a person wishing to compare the moral climate of that nation with that of other nations). I repeat – the US is headed full-tilt backwards under a President who is a megalomaniac who would be a king. The US is one of the most homophobic nations in the world, notwithstanding its oft-repeated claims to the effect that it is a bastion of enlightenment. It took a decision handed down by the US Supreme Court in 2003 to decriminalize gay sex in about 14 states that still had laws on their books making it a crime to engage in gay sex (see Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)). In Lawrence, the US Supreme Court explicitly and bluntly reversed an earlier decision (Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986)) upholding state sodomy statutes! When Bowers was handed down in 1986, about half of the 50 states had sodomy prohibitions on their books. Although these prohibitions were very seldom enforced directly, their collateral effects were sweeping, declaring gay people to be unconvicted criminals in those 25 states. During the 17 year period between the handing down of Bowers and the handing down of Lawrence, gay rights activists succeeded in getting state supreme courts to strike down state sodomy statutes on state constitutional grounds in about 12 states (such decisions are immune to review by the US Supreme Court, provided they in no way discuss or place reliance upon US Constitutional issues). Thus, when the US Supreme Court handed down Lawrence, only 14 states still had such statutes on their books. Lawrence was handed down on June 26, 2003, and it has changed the legal landscape quite dramatically. In addition to overruling Bowers, the US Supreme Court took the unusual step of implicitly apologizing to the gay community for what it had done in Bowers. For more on this issue, I refer the reader to http://gayequalityandthelaw.blogspot.com/2007/06/recent-message-on-wwwartsandfaithcom.html for a treatise on US Constitutional law as pertains to this topic. For the purposes of this thread, be assured that the US, despite the US Supreme Court victory of 2003, remains deeply homophobic.
Only one state (Massachusetts) permits gay Americans to marry, and although this is a significant victory, gay marriages entered into in Massachusetts do not enjoy the protection of any of the 1,049 federal benefits that accrue to married couples. However, other states are slowly coming around. Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, Oregon, and Hawaii have all created “civil unions” (Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey) or “domestic partnerships” (Hawaii, Oregon, and California). In these eight states, gay couples can enter into civil unions / domestic partnerships, which recognize all of the substantive guarantees and privileges accorded married people at the state level (about 300 rights in each state) without the name. Efforts to repeal these measures have been unsuccessful, and an Iowa trial court found the Iowa ban on same-sex marriages to be in violation of the Iowa state constitution, resulting in the case being slated for a hearing before the Iowa Supreme Court (which may affirm or reverse the trial court).
As a gay man, I would probably be OK were I to walk through the streets of New York City holding hands with a boyfriend. However, I would probably be violently assaulted were I to walk through the streets of Des Moines, Iowa holding hands with a boyfriend.
It remains legal to fire a person for being gay in about 30 of the 50 states. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended) does not include sexual orientation as a characteristic that may not be taken into consideration by a prospective (or actual) employer, landlord, or provider of public accommodations (e.g. restaurateur, barber, hotelier). About 20 states, responding to this lack of coverage, have reacted by passing statewide statutes that prohibit such discrimination. The result of this is that you may be fired from your job simply for being gay (this has happened to me – not long ago, I was fired from a high-paying position as a computer consultant when the bastards for whom I worked learned that I was gay). The extent of the protection you enjoy from such discrimination is a function of your geographic location. Opponents of adding sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 claim that to do so would be to confer upon gay people “special protections” – to which the US Supreme Court, in a discrimination-related case, made the following observation: “We find nothing special in the protections…[withheld]. These are protections taken for granted by most people either because they already have them or do not need them; these are protections against exclusion from an almost limitless number of transactions and endeavors that constitute ordinary civic life in a free society.” (see Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996)) What these opponents overlook is the fact that the law works both ways in those states that have adopted such measures – a gay employer is barred from firing a straight employee in exactly the same way that a straight employer is barred from firing a gay employee. Also, these opponents have no problems with the existing Civil Rights Act – it is only when the addition of sexual orientation to the protective ambit of this legislation is contemplated that opponents react with cries that such an amendment would violate the US Constitution. In other words, the “I’m all right, Jack” mentality continues to disease the social discourse with respect to this issue.
Relatively few of the 50 states have hate crimes statutes on their books that include hatred of the victim’s sexual orientation as a motivation that, if involved in a decision to assault or kill a gay victim, will result in the charges against the perpetrator being escalated, or will result in the punishment of the perpetrator being enhanced. Again, the few states that do have such statutes on their books have statutes that cut both ways – if I, as an advocate for gay equality, attack a heterosexual icon based on hatred of heterosexuals, I can be subjected to enhanced punishment in those states where sexual orientation is covered by the protective ambit of such statutes.
I compare this status with the status enjoyed by gay people in the UK, where I now live and work. Gay citizens of the UK can marry in all but name – Civil Partnerships include all of the benefits and privileges of heterosexual marriage, right down to the right to immigrate to the UK if the person concerned enters into a Civil Partnership with a UK citizen. Full equality has been realized in all but name, and employment discrimination is strictly prohibited. The law goes even further than US state laws that offer protection to people on the basis of their sexual orientation – whereas US state laws exempt religious organizations such as Catholic adoption agencies from complying with anti-discrimination statutes, the provisions of the UK Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) are far less generous to such religious organizations. Senior clergymen and clergywomen still retain the right to discriminate – however, a Catholic adoption agency in the UK has to consider gay couples as well as heterosexual couples as adoptive parents (all other things being equal) if it wishes to remain in business (several such agencies have closed their doors rather than abide by the new regulations, thus depriving children of loving homes as a direct result of their actions). Here in the UK, in the larger cities where I have lived and worked, sexual orientation simply does not seem to be an issue about which people get riled up. I attribute this in large measure to the (thankful) absence of an organized “evangelical” Christian movement in the UK, and very much hope that these people will never do to UK society what they have managed to do to US society.
Consider other “Western” societies. Gay marriage is available in both name and substance in Canada, South Africa, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Spain. Gay marriage is available in substance but not in name in Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the UK, and several South American nations…
There is no doubt about it – the US is woefully behind the times…
PHILIP CHANDLER
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