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The following will help you to overcome some of the arguments used to defeat civil rights policies. Things may have changed since the time this was written, and, most important, you want to tailor your response to your audience.
This was the favorite opposition rallying cry a few years back, and it is still popular. It has frustrated advocates for LGBT equality. Most of the time it has been just a slogan, so it is hard to refute, and it seems to be both effective and resistant to counter slogans.
Part of its apparent effectiveness is that it gets used most by people who are opposed to the policy any way and who want something to justify their position. Don't worry about them; a good response won't help with committed opponents.
With potentially uncommitted members and constituents, a counter slogan may not work well because the vague idea the "no special rights" slogan invokes will probably connect to more background political feelings than similarly vague counter slogans like "equal rights." Dislike of "special interests" runs deep these days, and there is something of a backlash against civil rights laws as "special" laws.
The best strategy may be to show that the slogan isn't really an argument quickly and clearly as often as you can, and stick to your affirmative rallying cries.
The "no special rights" position could mean two things. First, it could be a suggestion that the policy only protects LGBT people. This simply is not so. The policy protects anyone from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. A respected legal expert may be your best back up for this point, although a simply worded policy which you can read out or give to people can be a big help.
Second, it could be a claim that sexual orientation and gender identity are the only characteristics which employers and landlords are legally not allowed to use. Again, this is simply not so. Whenever we find that some personal characteristic other than ability and merit is being used in employment or housing, we pass laws to restore the basic merit system which is supposed to exist. Your best back up here may be your coalition allies -- women's groups and other minority groups. A respected legal expert could help as well.
This last argument is usually the best response to the claim, occasionally made as an explanation of the slogan, that LGBT people should have the same rights as everyone else. The response is the policy does that, by saying that merit, not sexual orientation or gender identity, should be the issue. This works especially well if you've gotten good case stories to show the need for the law.
If the cry appears to be making real headway with the people you care about (the uncommitted) you might want to organize an event using both coalition partners and legal experts to explain the two points affirmatively, and condense what they say into a short flyer. Again, make sure to invoke your affirmative message.
This is the opponents' favorite back up when the "no special rights" argument begins to wither. It has two parts. First, it says, being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered is a choice. Second, it says, civil rights laws only protect against discrimination based on things which are inborn. Both parts are factually wrong.
The risk here is that responding to the first point will lead you into the quagmire of arguing about what makes someone lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (never talk about what causes you or anyone else to be LGBT; talk about what causes anyone to have the sexual orientation or gender identity he or she has).
The truth, at least right now, is that nobody knows why an individual has a particular sexual orientation or gender identity, so there is no way to settle an argument about it. Moreover, many people have very strong emotional commitments to their personal views about the origins of sexual orientation and gender identity. That means if you get into the discussion, it is likely to be long and passionate. That's a problem because discussions about causes miss the real point of what is wrong with the opponents' argument.
Whatever the sources of sexual orientation and gender identity, almost all respected experts and anyone who thinks in terms of his or her own identity agrees that sexual orientation and gender identity are not choices. The emotional and sexual attraction we call sexual orientation is pretty well in place during childhood, and it is difficult, perhaps impossible to change. That's at least as true - maybe more so - for gender identity. You'll need respected psychological authority for this. It should be easy to get because this is the overwhelming view.
This may prompt opponents to respond that if emotional attraction is not a choice, the decision to live in accordance with it is. This leads directly to the second point.
We have an extensive body of civil rights law which protects people from discrimination based on decisions that stem from important parts of who they are. For example, we prohibit discrimination based on religion, and in most states we prohibit discrimination based on marital status, both of which typically involve change and choice. Coalition partners and religious supporters may be the best back up here.
No federal protection against sexual orientation and gender
identity discrimination exists. Only a few states have protection
against sexual orientation discrimination, a handful protect
against gender identity discrimination. If you are not in
one of those states, it should be simple to get a respected
legal source to help you expose this. If you are in a state
which does have an LGBT civil rights law, you most likely
are doing the campaign for one of three reasons:
1. to simply add LGBT people to the existing policy of your institution, which already includes other groups.
2. because your state has a weak law or one that is not comprehensive, and you want protection against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination at the same level of protection that, for example, federal law gives other types of discrimination
3. as a part of a coalition to get a better policy at your institution for many groups. to simply add LGBT people to the existing policy of your institution, which already includes other groups.
The second two reasons answer this argument; you are either trying to get better policy for all, or you are trying to get "parity" for sexual orientation and gender identity. With the first reason, you might say in addition that you want to get the institution itself on record. If the other groups covered by its policy are also covered by state or federal law, duplication should be no objection to adding LGBT people.
If you are proposing a policy for a business, a university, a hospital, etc., you may meet the same objection if the city has a civil rights law covering sexual orientation and gender identity. The answers are the same as well.
This is an old argument that's been having a bit of a renaissance. We don't need these policies, it says, because LGBT people won't be discriminated against if they keep their sexual orientation or gender identity private.
There are two answers to this. First, it's just wrong. Much discrimination is the result of employers and landlords assuming or being told that a person is gay or trans. The best way to show this is with the local stories you get to prove the need. Maybe the better answer is to focus on what it means to keep your sexual orientation or gender identity private. When opponents make this argument, they usually argue that all we need do is refrain from lurid descriptions of bedroom acrobatics while at work.
The truth is that to keep your sexual orientation "private," you have to keep yourself from ever referring to the persons you spend most of your time with, and you may have to keep from referring to most of the civic and social organizations you belong to. Keeping gender identity private if you are planning on transitioning or changing your expression is just ridiculous.
Ask your board members how well they think they would do trying to get through a week never referring to spouses or partners. Keep a list one week of how many times co-workers refer to them. Ask board members to try it. They'll get it. The point is, we don't force most people to keep aspects of their identity "private." LGBT people shouldn't have to either.
It's unfair, this argument goes, to make us hire, work with, rent to, live near or serve, people who we think are wrong. Often this is put in a religious framework; it is unfair to make people who think being gay or trans is sinful to do these things.
Start by pointing out what the policy does; it doesn't say that people have to change their views, or that they have to ask LGBT people over to dinner. It says LGBT people can't loose their [jobs, homes, etc, whatever is appropriate for your policy] because you disapprove.
Then point out that what would happen if a co-worker's disapproval, even if based on a notion of sin, could be used to take away someone's job. Lots of sincere, mainstream people think all non-Christians are wrong, sinful and condemned. Should you lose your job if you are not a Christian but work next to one who believes that? Both religious and scientifically based ideas about racial, gender and religious superiority are helpful here. Don't forget people who disapprove of dancing. Your religious allies should be helpful here, both on tolerance and on the consequences of the argument.
You can finish this by going back to the policy. Like all civil rights policies, its idea is that in a nation as diverse as ours, in which people need to work to live, a person's job can be made to depend on another person's dislike or disapproval.
Often, this argument begins with the claim that compliance will be expensive. Not true. Since there is virtually nothing business must do except not discriminate, there really are no compliance costs.
The next argument is that business will be forced to hire LGBT people to avoid getting sued. This is an adaptation of a conservative argument used against race and gender discrimination laws. It focuses on that fact that in race and gender lawsuits, you can sometimes use the fact that an employer has, for example, very few women employees in comparison to the number of qualified women in the local work force as evidence suggesting discrimination.
The notion that an employer could face that kind of an argument in a sexual orientation or gender identity case is silly. We typically don't know how many employees are gay or trans, and we don't know how many qualified LGBT people there are in the local work force. But the best answer to this may be simply to point out that in places where there are policies, business don't do this. Check with cities and states that have laws. Try to get business associations in those cities and states to confirm that business have not felt it necessary to hire LGBT people to protect themselves.
Finally, opponents may argue that defending false claims is expensive. Tailor your answer to the policy's enforcement mechanism. If the law is enforced outside of court, it probably isn't expensive any way. If it is enforced through court, you can probably get a civil rights expert to confirm that it is very difficult to get lawyers in these cases, so that most cases which do go to court are not meritless.
This is just wrong. Contact the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association for their statements on this. Try to get a respected local authority to make the point for you. Again, make it affirmatively ("LGBT people are as healthy and well adjusted as any other group in society").
We can forget this one.
Three claims come under this heading.
The first is that gays molest children. This isn't right. Most adults who sexually abuse children are so fixated on them that they don't really have an adult sexual orientation, so they can't really be called "gay" or "straight." It's age, not gender which is important.
The characteristic which does reliably distinguish adults who are child abusers is that most of them are men. But we wouldn't use this to justify discrimination against men. Turn to your local psychological expert if you can, call one of the national psychological or LGBT organizations if you need to.
The next claim is that LGBT people shouldn't be allowed to be role models for children. Sometimes this is offered against the whole law, sometimes as an argument to exempt child care workers or teachers. There is no evidence that children or adults exercise much conscious choice over sexual orientation or gender identity, so the fear that kids will try to be gay or trans to emulate a fine teacher is groundless.
You can use your psychological experts here. Better, if you can get it, is testimony from people who had gay or trans teachers, and from parents of kids who had or have gay or trans teachers.
Finally, the claim is sometimes made that child molesting is a sexual orientation, so that the law protects those who abuse children directly. A clear definition should take care of this.
This is another slogan which takes some unraveling to understand. The claim appears to be either that gay people get AIDS more than others do, or that gay people are transmitting HIV to others who are not gay. The conclusion appears to be that you shouldn't have a policy either because not having one will encourage people not to be gay or to stay away from your town or institution. This argument is so ugly that it will often bring you supporters if it is just left alone.
If you need to respond, get a public health official to tell the board that while gay men in the United States originally were more likely to become infected with HIV, time and the rest of the world have shown us that was chance, not a reflection of some inherent flaw. He or she should also be able to talk about transmission.
Occasionally, you'll get arguments based on those used by the U.S. military at various times, that LGBT people are unreliable under pressure, or that others won't work with them. Most often, these come from fire and police departments.
Meet unreliability with the response to the "sick" argument and the "won't work with" argument with the response to the "It's Unfair to Those Who Disapprove" argument. Often, letters or better yet, testimony from police and fire departments which have openly LGBT members is most powerful here.
People often respond to this by pointing out that state and city agencies which enforce nondiscrimination policies haven't been overwhelmed by sexual orientation and gender identity claims. You many want to check with a few and get supportive letters.
The truth is that if people resist any policy, enforcement will take some resources. If a board thinks a policy is worth having, it ought to be worth enforcing. Endorsers from other minority groups may be the best people to make this point.
>> Next: 4. What's Possible
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