2/28/2024 0 Comments Equal right![]() Wade recognized women’s right to reproductive choice. ![]() Baird decision recognized unmarried persons’ right to contraceptives. Virginia decriminalized interracial marriage. Connecticut struck down a state law that prohibited married couples from obtaining contraceptives, citing “zones of privacy.” In 1967, Loving v. The right to privacy, or “the right to be left alone,” is guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. The ACLU believes the Equal Protection Cluase prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation as well. Although the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified at the end of the Civil War, was designed to ensure legal equality for African Americans, Congress wrote it as a general guarantee of equality, and the courts have interpreted the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender, religion and disability. ![]() The struggle for legal equality for LGBT people rests on several fundamental constitutional principles.Įqual protection of the law is guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and reinforced by hundreds of local, state and federal civil rights laws. WHAT IS THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR LGBT EQUALITY? Increasing opposition from a well-organized, well-funded coalition of radical extremists and fundamentalists promises many battles and challenges ahead. Working in close collaboration with the ACLU’s affiliates nationwide, the Project coordinates the most extensive gay rights legal program in the nation. In 1986, after more than two decades of support for lesbian and gay struggles, the American Civil Liberties Union established a national Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. LGBT students and teachers face daily harassment and discrimination in the schools, and LGBT student groups in high schools and colleges still face roadblocks.Violent hate crimes, such as the 1998 murder of Wyoming student Matthew Shepherd, depict a grisly backlash against LGBTs or people perceived to be gay.Although unrelated to an individual’s ability, sexual orientation can still be the basis for employment decisions in both the public and private sectors in most states and municipalities.Sodomy laws, typically used to justify discrimination against gay people, once existed nationwide they are now on the books in only 18 states and Puerto Rico.īut the increased empowerment of LGBT people has brought about even more open and virulent anti-gay hostility:.“Domestic Partnership” programs exist in dozens of municipalities and hundreds of private institutions, including many of the country’s largest corporations and universities.Ten states, the District of Columbia, many municipalities and hundreds of businesses and universities now ban employment discrimination.Using many of the grass-roots and litigation strategies employed by other 20th century activists, gay rights advocates have achieved significant progress: During a typical “raid,” police tried to arrest people for their mere presence at a gay bar, but the patrons of the Stonewall Inn fought back – and the gay rights movement was launched. The modern gay rights movement began dramatically in June 1969 in New York City’s Greenwich Village. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. Supreme Court struck it down in the landmark 1996 Romer v. In 1992 Colorado enacted Amendment 2, which repealed existing state laws and barred future laws protecting lesbians, gay men and bisexuals from discrimination. One state even tried to fence lesbians and gay men out of the process used to pass laws. Mothers and fathers lose child custody simply because they are gay or lesbian, and gay people are denied the right to marry. military – openly discriminates against gays and lesbians. No federal law prevents a person from being fired or refused a job on the basis of sexual orientation. Gay and lesbian people are featured in movies and on television – not as novelty characters, but as full participants in society.ĭespite these advances into the American mainstream, however, LGBT people continue to face real discrimination in all areas of life. Well-known figures are discussing their sexual orientation in public. LGBT people are battling for their civil rights in Congress, in courtrooms and in the streets. The struggle of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people for equal rights has moved to center stage.
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