Gergory Freeman: Amendment Coalition's Petition Aims Beyond Homosexuals. P-D 7/24/1994

Headline: AMENDMENT COALITION'S PETITION AIMS BEYOND HOMOSEXUALS
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun., July 24, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 4B, Edition: FIVE STAR

WE CAN ALL breathe a collective sigh of relief - at least temporarily - now that the Amendment Coalition has failed to submit the 121,000 signatures needed to place an anti-gay initiative on the ballot.
The goal of this group was to allow voters to decide whether the rights of gays should continue to be protected under the Missouri Constitution. Among the changes the Amendment Coalition's initiatives would have made were the removal of protections that homosexuals have in three Missouri cities - St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia. Those cities have laws protecting homosexuals and others from discrimination in housing, employment and other areas.
The initiative would have nullified those ordinances and banned the enactment of similar ones. Those measures are designed to protect women, minority groups and members of religious groups from discrimination. They are not, as the Amendment Coalition would have had many believe, "gay rights" measures.

Those seeking signatures for the Amendment Coalition's petition suggested that the ordinances on the books were "pro-gay, anti-family" measures. They sought signatures by saying that gays in those cities were being given "special rights" and that this "menace" could creep and become statewide if Missourians didn't stop it now.
Of course, the entire notion is ridiculous. The ordinances on the books - general civil rights measures - do not offer gays or lesbians special rights. What they do offer is equal protection under the law.
Unlike some of the scare stories that circulated, such ordinances say nothing about affirmative action quotas for gays. They do not require businesses to hire a certain percentages of gays. They do say that a business can't fire an employee solely because of his or her sexual orientation, or race, or sex. That's a big difference.

I'm one who doesn't particularly care what people do in their bedrooms. I have no prurient interest in their sexual practices. And I can see no practical reason for discriminating against people for that purpose.
That is, in fact, what the measure pushed by the Amendment Coaltion would have done - legalized discrimination based on what some radical, right-wing individuals had arbitrarily decided was right and wrong in people's bedrooms.

Maybe Missourians - and perhaps Americans in general - are waking up to the rhetoric of the radicals. Groups that hoped to pass anti-homosexual initiatives in 10 states this year fell short of their goals. They gathered only enough signatures to get measures on the ballot in two states, Idaho and Oregon.

It should trouble us all when anyone's rights are threatened. The sexual orientation of gays and lesbians has never been the majority, nor will it ever be.
But should the rights of people be taken away because they are not in the majority?
That's the real question we face when we consider proposals such as that of the Amendment Coalition. Who are we to decide that others don't deserve basic rights? How do we decide which people get freedoms and which people don't?

We should be careful - and hesitant - to limit the freedoms of anyone in this country. If we take away the freedoms of gays and lesbians now, who knows whose freedoms will follow? Smokers? Or perhaps Catholics will be the next target. Or women. Or blacks. Or people who part their hair on the left side.
It could go on and on. Should the rights of these people go on the ballot for others to decide, perhaps based on how they're feeling on election day? One should think long and hard before saying yes to that one. Once Pandora's box is opened, it's hard - if not impossible - to close.

The radicals lost this attempt to persecute a group of people. But they'll be back.
While they sought signatures for their petitions, they used terms like "traditional values."
But whose traditions? And whose values?

Those who don't want to see guaranteed freedoms chiseled away bit by bit will keep their guard up and remain prepared for another attack on people's rights.
"None of us is free until all of us are free, " the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said.
If we're concerned about maintaining the freedoms that we all enjoy, we should be wary of those who feel it's OK to strip a few of them away from people they don't necessarily like.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back