Gay Rights and Marriage

The LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community is amongst one of the most vocal activist groups within the United States. After generations of discrimination and prejudice, members of the LGBT community began to receive attention and support for their desires for improved civil rights in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. As a result of decades of persistent activism and a rise in social liberalization in the US, the LGBT community gained increased acceptance as a community and thus improved rights.

 

The culture of social liberalism in the United States is deeply rooted within America’s past. In line with the founding tenets of American liberty, “an overriding emphasis on individualism and rights is the historical and contemporary hallmark of US politics” (Pierceson 34). Despite these underlying principles, however, the granting of civil rights to various underrepresented minority groups has been slow and required great sustained persistence in the face of adversity. Though same-sex relations had been considered taboo in the US since its inception, overt discrimination and prejudice began during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through “purity movements.” Social reformers during this time, “sought to curb sexual vice and moral turpitude by [making impermissible] obscene materials,” including the labeling of same-sex intercourse as perversion (Peters 32). Both the public and medical professionals regarded non-heterosexuality as degenerative towards society. Throughout most of the 20th century, same-sex relations were seen as, “dangerously corrupting [and deviant] to the public” (Peters 40). These social beliefs remained popular within the US for decades, and LGBT members were roundly excluded from society as pariahs.

 

Some of these beliefs began to change beginning in the late-1960s and 1970s. Amidst a culture of social liberalization following the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, gay rights began to become a part of the public discussion. The Stonewall Riots of 1969 provided a watershed moment in the fight for LGBT rights, marking a shift towards increased LGBT activism. Following a police raid on a local gay bar in NYC, local gay activists began protests against unfair treatment from the local government. The message from these people was clear: “urge people to come out of the closet and bring the fight into the public eye” (Peters 127). Stonewall became a rallying cry for LGBT activists, and hundreds of groups began to advocate for radical change to the social structure that excluded them from attaining fair and equal treatment. Though many Americans were supportive of their plight, progress would be slow and difficult.

 

Though members of the LGBT community gained recognition, they were continually treated as second-class citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity. In the 21st century, the debate grew in the US over LGBT rights, and decisions tended to support LGBT people in expanding their rights, such as the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (a ban on open homosexuals from serving in the military) and the Defense of Marriage Act (a ban federal recognition of same-sex marriage). The fundamental right to marriage, however, would be complicated. As anti-gay hostility grew with a federal court system that leaned liberal, decisions were made that would expand jurisprudence to protect sexual minorities. Some states legalized same-sex marriage in the 2000s, but most states would not legalize it until the 2010s when federal courts began to side with homosexual couples and the challenges they face (“The March of Marriage Equality,” 0:00-1:53). After hearing pleas from same-sex couples seeking to have the right to marry, the Supreme Court heard the case Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, and sided with them, legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. As noted in the opinion of the Supreme Court in Obergefell, “Their plea is that they do respect marriage, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.” This watershed decision granted same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry and is the result of a decades-long struggle where those who wanted to be included within society fought to attain those rights and won.

 

LGBT Americans continue to face many obstacles in their pursuit of equal rights today, but their standing in society has dramatically improved over the last several decades due to the persistence of their activism and a government that responded to their plight. Though many Americans continue to express scorn against the LGBT community, their status in society has improved from pariahs to people who are accepted. Over the 20th and 21st centuries, civil rights to oppressed minority groups have been extended as a result of liberal activism and sustained pressure. Within those newly-granted civil rights include the right to same-sex marriage, and to that extent, the tapestry of marriage has grown to accommodate for their progress.

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Works Cited

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Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015)

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Peters, Kathleen. Policing Sexuality: 20th Century United States Immigration

History and Gay Rights Activism. May 2012. Northern Arizona University. Master’s Thesis. ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/docview/1020126624?pq-origsite=primo. Accessed 24 April 2020.

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Pierceson, Jason. Courts, Liberalism, and Rights Gay Law and Politics in the United

States and Canada. Temple University Press, 2005. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/lib/unlv/reader.action?docID=298861.

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 “The March of Marriage Equality.” YouTube, uploaded by Vox, 26 June 2015,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2crZ4_xgKg.

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United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. 744 (2013)