Page 171 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Citizenship 157

elsewhere, including France and Portugal, couples who are united in a
“ civil partnership ” have the same rights as married couples, but there is
no religious component to the ceremony. Another continuing injustice is
employment rights. In Britain and elsewhere, there are no laws protecting
against discrimination for sexual orientation. This leaves gay people open

to hiring and firing discrimination, harassment or unequal pay, and dis-
missal for reasons of sexual orientation. In the US, this issue came to the
fore in the 1990s with the question of whether gay men and lesbians
should be allowed to serve in the armed forces. The highly unsatisfactory
solution of “ don ’ t ask, don ’ t tell, ” while admitting that there are gays and
lesbians in the military, gives them no legal rights should they ever pub-
licly affirm their sexuality. Finally, among the most serious cases of the

continuing exclusion of gay men from civil rights is the harassment by the
police to which they are subject, and the failure of the police to protect
them from harassment and violence by other men. There are laws, for
example, to which only gay men are subject, although they are supposed
to be applicable to all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation. Only gay
men, for example, are prosecuted for sodomy, as an “ indecent act. ”
Andrew Sullivan (1995) neatly summarizes arguments for equal citizen-
ship rights for lesbians and gay men. It would mean, he argues, quite
simply extending the same civil rights to homosexuals as those enjoyed
by other citizens:

an end to all proactive discrimination by the state against homosexuals.
That means an end to sodomy laws that apply only to homosexuals; a
recourse to the courts if there is not equal protection of heterosexuals and
homosexuals in law enforcement; an equal legal age of consent to sexual
activity for heterosexuals and homosexuals, where such regulations apply;
inclusion of the facts about homosexuality in the curriculum of every
government - funded school … ; recourse to the courts if any government
body or agency can be proven to be engaged in discrimination against
homosexual employees; equal opportunity and inclusion in the military;
and legal homosexual marriage and divorce. (Sullivan, 1995 : 171 – 2)

It is probable that no gay activist would disagree with such a list of rights.
However, there is considerable debate about the compatibility of cam-
paigning for citizenship rights with other, potentially more radical, aims
to which the gay and lesbian movement might, and arguably should,
aspire. Again, as in the case of the women ’ s movement, the question turns
on the issue of essentialism.
The problem is that in order to gain citizenship rights, gays and lesbians
have, quite reasonably, adopted the strategy of describing themselves as