When the United Nations Human Rights Commission meets next year in Geneva it is expected that it will take up the issue of gay and lesbian rights. Last year a resolution was introduced to the commission that would make abuse on the basis of sexual orientation a human rights violation. That is the resolution the commission will take up when it meets. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is excited. They called it "a historic opportunity to advance (homosexual) issues in a international human-rights law." It is indeed a historic occasion. Never before in human history has the argument been put forth that being able to consummate your desire for a person with whom you share genitalia without abuse or condemnation is a human right.
Despite the frequent use of the term on the part its supporters, the gay rights movement is not about love. The right to love whomever you want has never really been an issue. Indeed, to frame the issue in terms of love is a red herring. Some of the greatest literature in Western history has involved deep and enduring love between people of the same gender. What is, and always has been the issue, is the right to have sex with whomever you want, and, more recently, the right to marry whomever you want. It is the sexual component that has historically engendered the animosity directed toward homosexuals. It is the the social, legal, and religious challenges posed by an increasingly public and defiant homosexuality that lay behind much of the present day animosity.
Homosexuals have made great progress in the U.S. over the years. They are now able to express their love and desires openly, and legally, throughout the U.S. with little or no fear of legal retribution. They openly hold prominent positions in communities and in statehouses and Congress. They serve on boards of directors. They lead churches. They are frequently celebrated in the media and in Hollywood. In short, they are everywhere and do everything. The last lines of resistance, adoption and marriage, are rapidly being breached. Total victory is at hand. While pockets of resistance still exist and skirmishes still occur, they are no real threat to gays. Where disapproval of homosexuality appears it is quickly challenged, pilloried, and mocked. Hollywood is captured. State Houses have fallen. Washington is under siege. Gay rights in the U.S. are here to stay.
With victory in the U.S. largely achieved, homosexuals, along with their advocates and supporters, are taking their show on the road. Their objective is nothing less than global recognition of the rights they have demanded and obtained in the U.S. They want the world to catch up. Homosexuals and their supporters want to "connect the full range of human rights to sexual orientation, and to condemn the discrimination on its basis" said Paula Ettelbrick of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. They want to make the pursuit and satisfaction of one's sexual desire for a person of the same gender a human right.
If the U.N. sees fit to make abuse based on sexual orientation a violation of a human right it will have acquiesced to a back handed attempt to establish sexual orientation as a human right. You cannot violate a right that does not exist. Sexual orientation will have taken a seat beside speech, liberty, and religion in the pantheon of human rights. If adopted the resolution will be yet another cudgel in the hands of the enlightened with which to to beat a backward and ignorant world.
Homosexuals are a group unlike any other the U.N. has been asked to confer human rights upon. Homosexuality cuts across every religious, racial, and ethnic demographic and encompasses both genders. The only thing that distinguishes homosexuals as group is their singular desire to have sex with people of the same gender as themselves. It is the right to consummate that desire without judgement or consequence that the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission wants to establish. One should be warned that there are many peculiar romantic and sexual desires. Quite a few them are found to be objectionable by the majority of people on this planet. If the pursuit and satisfaction of romantic and sexual desire is deemed a basic human right the future will be a bumpy one.
There are 193 nations in the U.N. Many do not tolerate homosexuality. Most do not embrace it. According to gay and lesbian activists, that needs to be changed. A good first step to bringing about that change will be to have the U.N. pass a resolution. It does not matter in the least that the rights of homosexuals can only be established if the right of people to organize their communities and maintain their customs, religious beliefs, and traditions is eclipsed. That is not an issue to those trying to perfect the world. For them culture, religion, and tradition are not bulwarks, they are obstacles.
