The Gay Agenda is Equality - Nothing More and Nothing Less

Reprinted with permission from Jimboland Jots - the world from a freethinker, gay, green, radical, and American progressive worldview.

There it is, in all its glory: the new President-elect Obama’s and Vice President-elect Biden’s agenda for implementing civil rights at change.gov. Here are the salient points relevant to us gay folks:

• Expand Hate Crimes Statutes
• Fight Workplace Discrimination
• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples
• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
• Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell
• Expand Adoption Rights
• Promote AIDS Prevention
• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS

This is a great starter agenda, President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden. How about full civil marriage rights for all gay adults? After all, separate is not equal! Didn’t the Loving decision in the late 1950s finally resolve that? Mildred Loving, in a statement from 2007 on the 40th anniversary of the landmark American decision of Loving v. Virginia, declared

I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

An army of lovers cannot be defeated. Let us keep on loving each other and working out of that love to build a truly inclusive America. It is time for gays and lesbians and our allies to rise up and demand full civil rights.

The gay agenda is equality, nothing more and nothing less.

We will not go back into the closets of religious and political repression.

We will not go back into heterosexist roles.

We will not go back to the days when a gay man or a lesbian psychologically straight-jacketed themselves in an act of identity foreclosure because of fear of discovery.

We’re here, we’re queer, so get used to it!