A Sophomore Notre Dame } Gay Rights A Priority for Young Voters
Alex Coccia
At the beginning of the New Year, I argued that President Obama needed to promote his track record on supporting gay rights and make it a clear and prominent component of his presidential campaign. I also argued that such a commitment to gay rights would move the United States on the path to practicing acceptance over mere tolerance.
Hillary Clinton promised such a commitment in a speech to the United Nations, claiming that gay rights and human rights are one and the same. With the amount of hate being spewed from various conservative pockets towards gays, which creates a profound impact on gay youth especially, gay rights are most certainly due. But why should gay rights be a prominent election issue, especially one which the youth, who are voting for only the first or second time, should focus on? I will briefly mention four reasons.
In order to appreciate the importance of gay rights as a primary election issue, we must parse “gay rights” to ask what the fulfillment of gay rights means for the country, and, conversely, how suppression of such rights impacts the country.
Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights. When articulated by Secretary Clinton, this was not some off-the-cuff remark. Nor was it a phrasing only meant to inhabit sound-bites. It was a firm and monumental commitment in front of the world’s leaders, explicating what gay rights advocates have been proclaiming for many years. A country’s commitment to gay rights reflects its commitment to human rights – its commitment to denizens over dogma.
Therefore, in the presidential race, the candidates’ commitments to gay rights reflect their commitments to human rights. With homosexual activity still illegal in many countries and punishable by death in some, the United States has the responsibility, as an influential world power, to display its commitment to gay rights in the effort of furthering human rights world-wide.
Secretary Clinton has also noted that the promotion and protection of human rights has been and will continue to be a component of U.S. foreign policy. Additionally, the issue of human rights is the thread that connects all other election issues. Certainly some election issues may be matters of convenience, others matters of necessity, but, without a fundamental respect for human dignity and the protection of this dignity in the form of legalized rights, neither matters of convenience nor necessity should have any legitimate standing in the eyes of the American public.
The suppression of the rights of gay people contributes to other discriminatory practices that are likewise becoming extremely unacceptable for today’s youth. This is an extension of the previous point. Repression of gay rights, which undoubtedly is rooted in a form of homophobia, whether suppressed or voiced, can also have detrimental effects on strides in other social issues this country faces. As I argued in January, societies whose policies hypocritically endorse homophobia, overtly practice discrimination towards gays, or even reserve the right to discriminate against gays are also very likely to have an increase in other social ills such as misogyny. Oftentimes, homophobia and misogyny are linked. In the broader perspective, full recognition of gay rights is a step forward for full gender equality.
Gay-rights is a highly personal issue. The issue of gay rights does not just affect 5-10% of the country’s population. The fact that President Obama’s stance on marriage equality has changed through an evolution of the issue in the context of his faith demonstrates how personal it is. Obama’s conversion is not the first, and it will certainly not be the last. Gay people are no longer considered (and rightly so!) as the “others” – a group whose personal lives we do not know, making it easier to condemn them. No, gay people are family members, friends, coworkers, politicians, even conservative Republicans. Most importantly, however, gay people are human beings – who have the capacity to love, and whose dignity must be protected.
More and more Americans, when thinking critically about gay rights, are no longer asking themselves seemingly hypothetical questions. They are placing themselves in their uncle’s shoes, or their neighbor’s situation, and, like President Obama, coming to the conclusion exemplified by the Golden Rule.
All of this boils down to the view that many youth espouse: that gay rights simply should not be an issue. What is there to debate? To discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. Reserving the right to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. For all of the rhetoric that is tossed around regarding gay rights and the moral decline of the nation, there is a realization, especially by young voters, that such hurtful monologues are a distraction from the real issues. Instead, they have become part of a set of distractions in a cultural war that is divided more along generational lines than partisan lines.
Reuters reports that even Young Republicans are questioning the legitimacy of Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate because of his opposition (perhaps less fierce than his fellow Republican candidate counterparts) to same-sex marriage and his generally staunch social conservatism. In this case, it is no wonder that despite dropping some of the youth support he had for the 2008 election, President Obama continually has higher youth support than support from the overall population. For many youth, there is a cognitive dissonance between them and those who claim that equal rights for gays contributes to the moral decline of the country.
Instead, youth rightfully say that the moral decline of the country is found in policies that are discriminatory. Poverty, foreclosures, attacks on healthcare, poor education, and a sentiment that no longer are we our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers – these are the issues that should be at the forefront of the election. But the fact remains that this is not the world in which we live. Gay rights is still an issue, and we should continue to treat it as such. One form of inequality and discrimination translates to another. Until the largest hurdles in the path for equal rights are overcome, there can be no equality in other areas of the political arena.
This fall, gay rights should be a priority as young voters enter the ballot booth. In word and action, support for and protection of gay rights has been and will continue to be the position of President Obama. But the youth vote cannot simply be an endorsement. It must also be pressure to do more, for there is much more to be done.
Alex Coccia is a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame and is majoring in Africana Studies and Peace Studies.
Comments