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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Reparations for gay Americans As recently as a generation ago, marriage equality and full civil rights for gays and lesbians seemed like a remote and quixotic hope. Today, while setbacks such as California’s Proposition 8 and the continued scourge of the Defense of Marriage Act serve as reminders that more struggle remains ahead, shifting attitudes—especially among younger Americans—make full homosexual citizenship look, increasingly, like an historical inevitability. Victory may require five or maybe 20 years. Yet I have no doubt that “don’t ask, don’t tell” and same-sex adoption bans will be as unspeakable and inexplicable to my grandchildren as counting a slave as three-fifths of a human being. What is not so clear to me is whether homosexuals will be adequately compensated for their mistreatment. So while I recognize that other battles remain, I think the time has arrived to place economic reparations for gay and lesbian Americans on the political agenda. Reparations serve two distinct purposes. One is monetary restitution—such as the compensation that Bismarck exacted from France after the Franco-Prussian War or that the Allies demanded of Weimar Germany following World War I. Payments to Jewish Holocaust survivors and victims of the Japanese-American internment recognize the specific economic losses suffered by these individuals, but also the intangible harms done by uprooting and imprisoning innocent people. Supporters of reparations for the descendants of African-American slaves often cite the labor rendered by their ancestors as justification for present-day compensation. While the financial losses suffered by gay and lesbian Americans as a result of state-sanctioned discrimination may prove challenging to quantify, they are real. If you cannot serve in the military because of your sexual orientation, you also cannot qualify for the educational and economic benefits that such service guarantees. If you cannot marry your partner, you cannot take advantage of the numerous tax benefits that matrimony affords. Calculating the lost wages and benefits of workers terminated solely because of their sexual orientation may prove impossible, but countless men and women have suffered this fate without recourse. Placing a price tag on this hardship will be no easy feat. That is no excuse for not attempting to do so. A second purpose of reparations is to express moral opprobrium. Paying gays and lesbians a sum even far less than their economic losses might help atone for the dreams destroyed by criminal sodomy convictions and the suffering endured by those who lived in the shadows to stay clear of the penal code. A monthly check will never be enough to make up for the helplessness of being denied access to a partner’s hospital bed. For couples separated by deportation orders--because only marriage conveys citizenship and federal law does not permit gays to marry--all the funds in the national treasury could not make full amends. Yet the admission of collective culpability behind such payments might offer a first step toward reconciliation. The only danger in such a proposal is the possibility that a minority of unscrupulous straight people might claim homosexuality in an effort to defraud taxpayers. My instincts tell me that this fear is unfounded. In the first place, we are still at least half a social revolution away from the day when the sort of American who would cheat his gay and lesbian peers, possesses enough confidence in his own sexuality to impersonate a homosexual. Moreover, I am confident that the government could establish an effective system to screen for straight impostors. What an amusing turn of events it would be if the techniques our society once used to ferret out gays and lesbians were someday turned upon straight men and women pretending to be gays and lesbians. Some ironies are priceless. I imagine that critics of reparations will dismiss this proposal as far-fetched. Maybe so. But equality for gays and lesbians also seemed far fetched 20 years ago. Of course, even I recognize that these payments should not last forever. When there are no gays and lesbians remaining who have known the insult of second-class citizenship, that will be the appropriate time to stop the checks.
Poster Comment: Reparations for all!
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#7. To: mirage (#0)
To the contrary, I think there are millions of mostly successful homosexual impersonators in this country. ;)
But of course. Now, I'm thinking that if this passes, then the homosexual community needs to pay reparations to the Mormons and Catholics they have villified in the wake of Prop 8 down in Kalifornistan. Of course, the real solution is to get Government out of the marriage business, but that thought never enters into these pinheads' brains.
Tell me about it. LOL.
Heh. Amazing how the simple things escape the totalitarians.
I'm thinking what I need to do is find me a "boyfriend" just in case the morons in D.C. decide to make some cash payout. C'mon, lying about sodomy under oath? It's not like anyone's honor is at stake in such an enterprise. LOL.
LOL indeed. That was funny.
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