"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Libertarian Ideal of Gay Rights

Andrew Sullivan does a riff on this piece by Matthew Yglesias at Cato Unbound. The particular area of "enlargement" is this paragraph:

Similarly, the gay rights movement does indeed want gay couples to be unmolested in their private conduct. But their demands go far beyond that. They want to regulate who you may employ, who you may rent a house to, etc., etc., etc. — not merely a state that refrains from discriminating, but a state that takes the lead in fighting discrimination.

Sullivan says this:

That's a fair assessment even now of the main agenda of gay rights groups. It's not, however, my own agenda. Nor is it that of many gay libertarian/conservatives. . . . Virtually Normal tried to grapple with this. I argued specifically against the liberal recipes for gay equality: against hate crime laws and even against employment discrimination laws. I argued that a conservative position on gay rights would leave private discrimination and prejudice alone and change only the government's stance so that all citizens are treated equally by the state, even if they are subject to discrimination by private entities.

First, I'm not at all convinced that Yglesias' take is fair. At the best, it's got a lot of spin. I don't know of any group that wants the government to regulate who may be employed or otherwise partake of a public accommodation. What the "liberal" position is and always has been is that those who offer services or other accommodations to the public at large must offer them equitably. Particularly in the areas of housing and employment, public policy since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been that prejudice must be irrelevant in evaluting candidates. To call it "regulating who may be hired" is misrepresentation, nothing more, nothing less. Sullivan thinks that's fair.

I think it's instructive that Sullivan divorces the gay equality issue from other groups who have faced discrimination and doesn't address, for example, the application of hate crimes laws to crimes motivated by racial prejudice or religious bigotry. I can't imagine why, except that there's a blind spot here. (Nor, as it happens, does Sullivan acknowledge Yglesias' next paragraph, in which he states categorically that he favors exactly what he's described, however inaccurately.)

The problem with Sullivan's stance in favor of private bias is simply that he applies it to areas where it is not appropriate. What he's saying, in effect, is that not only is it OK to badmouth me in your home and demonize me from the pulpit, but it's also acceptable to use your personal bigotry to deny me a livelihood and a place to live. This is not only grossly disingenuous, but more than a little misleading. Maybe lowered expectations are OK if you're summering on the Cape and wintering wherever you damned well please, but some of us live and work in places like Sandusky and Omaha and don't have the means to escape that environment. And, if Brutuses like Sullivan had had their way, we wouldn't even be assured of the means to live. Military service and the right to marry are certainly the fashionable causes right now, but HRC is right on one point: they have to take second place to basics.

The irony is that in this post Sullivan illustrates almost too aptly the kind of self-satisfied apathy on the part of gay men, particularly the circuit queen stereotype, that gay activists have railed again since day one. It also veers dangerously close to the "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude of too many anti-gay black leaders.

Conclusion number 1: libertarianism, at least as espoused by Andrew Sullivan, is a morally impoverished system and best consigned to the dustbin of history.

Conclusion number 2: I think the beagles are doing the blog these days.

2 comments:

refinish69 said...

I agree with you. The ones who do not care and see no need for Equal Rights for All People are still feeling either guilty or want to be back in the closet.

Hunter said...

I don't think they want to be back in the closet -- they just don't want to be bothered by anything serious. I strongly suspect that these were the guys who were partying while the rest of us were volunteering for Stop AIDS. As long as they had their condoms, everything was cool.