I contrast this with much more common statements by proponents of the right to refuse to serve customers based on sexual orientation. They believe homosexuality is wrong and that they have the right to refuse to endorse it through their businesses activities. I would respect their case more if they embraced their deeper humanity and recognized that it is wrong to humiliate and marginalize queer people, while taking a strict libertarian position regarding the store owner's rights.
Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States describes the long lead up to the era of increased acceptance and legal rights for queer people in America. Explicit records of homosexual activity in the US prior to 1900 are mainly regarding its criminal prosecution. Other than than, the author can only speculate about who was queer through reading between the lines, decoding, and academic theorizing. It wasn't until 1950 that Harry Hay, an early LGBT activist, had a then radical thought:
"...[We] believe homosexuals can lead well-adjusted, wholesome, and socially productive lives once ignorance and prejudice against them is successfully combated, and once homosexuals feel they have a dignified and useful role to play in society."During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, religious-political leaders were claiming the disease was god's punishment for homosexuality. Society's response to the health crisis was agonizingly slow, while our least brothers suffered and died.
Just a few years ago, the results of an online search for "gay middle schooler" would include many tragic stories of suicide. Today, I find support programs for that age group. But progress toward acceptance and rights for queer people had been very slow before the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2004 set in motion a domino effect of states legalizing gay marriage. Even now, I worry that such rights could be lost anytime.
