Gay Rights Are Civil Rights, Too

I have come to the realization that the struggle for gay civil rights in this country is analogous to the past generations struggles with the racial aspect of civil rights in almost every way. The same arguments are made again and again, the same false fears are instilled in the people, and politicians are still grappling with the difficulties that come with pandering to bigoted and resistant constituents while still upholding the "self-evident truths" written 200 some-odd years ago. If I were my parents age, I would be proud to say that I had put my best efforts into the fight for equal rights in the 1950s and 60s. Honestly, I'd feel a bit smug about the fact that I had been on the good side in that fight. Equal rights have come and our country is better off for it. True equality may not exist yet, and it's difficult to argue that it ever will, but at least our government has done it's part in granting official rights and recognitions to every group, regardless of race, gender, creed or sexual orientation. Or maybe just the first three. Yeah, sexual orientation is still an issue, eh?

Why the foot-dragging, government? We've almost, almost got all the civil rights covered. Why stop now?

Some history: The push for equal civil rights for racial minorities was due do a strong push by the federal government. Truman issued an executive order in 1948 requiring the desegregation of the military. It took three years for this to come into effect, but it lead the way for school desegregation and the fall of the concept of "separate but equal". Many southern states fought back - Arkansas called out the National Guard to block black students, and Alabama governor George Wallace blocked the doors at the University of Alabama to keep out two black students. Blocked the doors, personally, that is. JFK had to order the National Guard to remove the Governor! We can see that a motivated federal government can quickly erase institutional discrimination even in the face of disgusting, outright racism and bigotry.
More specifically, the concept of anti-miscegenation laws (laws prohibiting whites from marrying non-whites) persisted until 1967! Your parents or grandparents could have been arrested in a roughly a third of the states just for being in an interracial marriage! It seems crazy now, right? Well, the Supreme Court (federal...) ruled those restrictions as unconstitutional in the Loving v. Virginia case.
We've flipped that concept today. The states are spearheading the "new" civil rights movement.
Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington D.C. now allow same-sex marriage. The federal government has stayed out of the issue, considering marriage laws to be under the jurisdiction of the states. But, it has set the example with the discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the military. The federal government has put full equality in jeopardy with this military rule. Recently, a district court judge in California ruled DADT to be unconstitutional, but the Department of Justice is asking for an extension to allow the military to operate under DADT.

The military is the first place the federal government can (and eventually, will) take a stand on gay rights and equality. I think the results of a change in the military's policy on LGBT service will have a profound effect on this country and it's policies, and I only hope that it happens sooner than later.

Creationsim Is Not A Scientific Theory

I hear this argument over and over again and it really, truly makes me crazy: "Evolution is a theory" - I.E., all the geneticists and biologists and paleontologists are just making a glorified guess. This is a general misunderstanding about the difference between a theory you or I or anyone might make, and a true scientific theory. Here is a non-scientific theory: "Hmmm, my leftover ham sandwich is missing. I'll bet it was Jon, he loves ham sandwiches." This is what is known as a hypotheses, just an attempt to explain a situation or phenomenon. In the scientific method, however, this is just the first step. Then you take that hypotheses, and put it through tests and experiments. And here's what makes it true science - you don't just have the person who made the hypotheses test it, you let everyone test it with the intention of disproving it. This is what makes it science, and by that I mean that it is the closest to the absolute truth we can attain at a given time. This is also what disqualifies any type of creationism-based curriculum from being taught in classrooms. Besides the fact that it does indeed push a religious agenda, it is not science. There is no possible way to test out the hypotheses that god created this earth and everything on it.

And on to the last point before we get into the politics and legal side of the argument, the true function of evolution has been shown over and over again. Everything we eat, from hybrid tomato plants to domesticated cattle, has been cultivated through the mechanisms that led life to evolve. Evolution is something we see around us in action every day, not just an unproven theory.


The Establishment clause and Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment state very clearly that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...", almost precisely what you have written that it does not say. We can argue that because Congress passes laws and bills and budgets that fund schools, the Government would be promoting a particular religious doctrine through the educational system. Even without the "Seperation of Church and State" line in the Constitution (Which, by the way, was penned by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a group of Baptists to relieve a concern that the government would become overly involved in their religion), the Constitution clearly states that this sort of teaching in a government funded school is absolutely unconstitutional.

As an earlier comment mentioned, there is no way to remove religious overtones from creation-based teaching. And as a quick side note, our country was not built on religious principles, as you wrote. That is exactly why the guys that built the country threw in those two clauses in the very First Amendment.