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Gay Rights

Gay rights

The gay rights movement comprises a collection of loosely aligned civil rights groups, human rights groups, support groups and political activists seeking acceptance, tolerance and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and related causes. Although it is typically referred to as the gay rights movement, members also promote the rights of groups of individuals who do not necessarily identify as being gay - see the article Homosexuality and Transgender. These views are considered controversial by some, and the gay rights movement is opposed by a variety of individuals and groups including some religious and political (traditionally though not exclusively conservative) groups. Despite this controversy, many of these views have been taking up by mainstream professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Medical Association. This is in part due to overwhelming scientific evidence in support of these views. Anti-gay-rights activists (for example, NARTH), however, say that these mainstream institutions have succumbed to political pressure rather than relying on a rational examination of the facts. An example that is often cited is the controversy over the removal of homosexuality from the DSM. In 1973, homosexuality was removed and replaced with "Sexual Orientation Disturbance" in the DSM-II; this was changed to "Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality" in the DSM-III and was removed entirely from the DSM-IV. Although it is difficult to generalize, given the wide range of opinions and beliefs within the gay rights movement, in general most members agree upon the following points:
- in tolerance to all people regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression;
- that all people deserve equal rights and parity in law regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression;
- that homophobia (the irrational fear and/or hatred of homosexuals) as well as transphobia is dangerous, not just to gays and lesbians or transgender people, but to all members of society;
- views that consider homosexuality or gender variance to be negative (i.e. a sin or a perversion) are irrelevant, misguided or even outright malicious;
- that sexual orientation is innate and cannot be consciously changed, referring to homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality equally as unchangeable sexual orientations (although some queer theorists would take issue with certain parts of this argument)
- that gender identity is not a choice;
- that attempts to alter sexual orientation (see ex-gay, reparative therapy and gender identity) can be dangerous, misguided at best;
- that people should be free to express their sexual or gender identity without fear of reprisal and
- that homosexuality does not break down the fibers of the "traditional" family; "homophobia" does.

Gay rights by country

The gay rights movement arose in response to homophobic discrimination and prejudice against homosexuals. One of the first gay rights activists was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who lived in 19th century Germany. Ulrichs actively campaigned for the repeal of German anti-sodomy laws. The first mass gay rights activism movement was centered around Magnus Hirschfeld, Adolf Brand, Gustav Wyneken and Leontine Sagan, in pre-World War II Berlin, Germany. The gay rights movement in Germany was almost completely obliterated or exiled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement (See: Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, Night of the Long Knives, and History of Gays during the Holocaust).

United Kingdom

In the early 1950s the police were actively enforcing the laws affecting homosexual men (some say this was a result of CIA pressure following the Burgess–Maclean spy scandal). This led to a number of high-profile arrests and trials. In particular, in 1953, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood were arrested and charged with having committed specific acts of indecency with Edward McNally and John Reynolds; they were also accused of conspiring with Edward Montagu (the 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu) to commit these offences. The Director of Public Prosecutions gave his assurance that Reynolds and McNally would not be prosecuted in any circumstances. The trial of Edward Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood began on 15 March 1954 in the hall of Winchester Castle. All three defendants were convicted. The Sunday Times published an article entitled "Law and Hypocrisy" on 28 March 1954 that dealt with this trial and its outcome. Soon after, on 10 April 1954, the New Statesman printed an article called "The Police and the Montagu Case". A month after the Montagu trial the Home Secretary agreed to appoint a committee to examine and report on the law covering homosexual offences. The official announcement in the House of Commons was made on 18 April 1954 by Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth. In August 1954, the Home Office appointed a departmental committee of 15 men and women "to consider… the law and practice relating to homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of such offences by the courts." The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was published on 3 September 1957 and recommended that "homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence", finding that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." In October 1957 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, spoke in support of the Wolfenden Report, saying that "There is a sacred realm of privacy… into which the law, generally speaking, must not intrude. This is a principle of the utmost importance for the preservation of human freedom, self-respect, and responsibility." The first parliamentary debate on the Wolfenden Report was initiated on 4 December 1957 by Frank Pakenham. Of the seventeen peers who spoke in the debate, eight broadly supported the recommendations in the Wolfenden Report. The Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, speaking for the government, doubted that there would be much public support for implementing the recommendations and stated that further research was required. In 1958 the Home Office asked sociologist Richard Hauser to survey homosexuality in Great Britain. One suggestion that arose from Hauser's work was that "the poor quality of the normal relationships between men and women in… society is responsible for much avoidable homosexuality". The Homosexual Law Reform Society was founded on 12 May 1958, mainly to campaign for the implementation of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations. In 1965, in the House of Lords, Lord Arran proposed the decriminalization of homosexual acts. In 1966, Humphry Berkeley MP proposed the same in the House of Commons; he ascribed his defeat in the 1966 general election to the unpopularity of this action. However, in the new Parliament, the maverick Labour MP Leo Abse took up the issue and used his mastery of Parliamentary tactics to ensure that the Bill progressed. After almost 10 years of intense campaigning, the Sexual Offences Bill was put before parliament in 1967 in order to implement some of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations. Lord Arran, a sponsor of the Bill, made the following remarks at the third reading in the Lords: :Because, of the Bill now to be enacted, perhaps a million human beings will be able to live in greater peace. I find this an awesome and marvellous thing. The late Oscar Wilde, on his release from Reading Gaol, wrote to a friend: :::"Yes, we shall win in the end; but the road will be long and red with monstrous martyrdoms." :My Lords, Mr. Wilde was right: the road has been long and the martyrdoms many, monstrous and bloody. Today, please God! sees the end of that road. I ask one thing and I ask it earnestly. I ask those who have, as it were, been in bondage and for whom the prison doors are now open to show their thanks by comporting themselves quietly and with dignity. This is no occasion for jubilation; certainly not for celebration. Any form of ostentatious behaviour; now or in the future any form of public flaunting, would be utterly distasteful and would, I believe, make the sponsors of the Bill regret that they have done what they have done. Homosexuals must continue to remember that while there may be nothing bad in being a homosexual, there is certainly nothing good. Lest the opponents of the Bill think that a new freedom, a new privileged class, has been created, let me remind them that no amount of legislation will prevent homosexuals from being the subject of dislike and derision, or at best of pity. We shall always, I fear, resent the odd man out. That is their burden for all time, and they must shoulder it like men - for men they are. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed, decriminalizing certain homosexual activities between adults but established a higher age of consent for homosexuals (21 at the time) and "in private" was interpreted strictly by the courts, being taken to exclude acts taking place in a room in a hotel, for example, and in private homes where a third person was present — even where that person was in a different room. Campaigning was therefore continued by organizations such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Gay Liberation Front with the aim of attaining full equality. In 1973, Lord Arran got a bill to protect badgers enacted. It is said that his patience was tried by the experience; he allegedly remarked to a colleague, "There weren't so many supporting my Badgers' Bill as my Buggers' Bill!" to which another noble lord replied, "No! but then there aren't any badgers in the House of Lords, are there?" In 1979, the Home Office Policy Advisory Committee's Working Party report Age of Consent in relation to Sexual Offences recommended that the age of consent for homosexual offences should be 18. In February 1994 Conservative MP Edwina Currie tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill to equalise the age of consent at 16. Many Labour MPs supported the amendment, including Tony Blair, who said: :"People are entitled to think that homosexuality is wrong, but they are not entitled to use the criminal law to force that view upon others. :"A society that has learned, over time, racial and sexual equality can surely come to terms with equality of sexuality." Edwina Currie's amendment was defeated by 307 votes to 280. Those who voted for it included John Smith and Neil Kinnock, Paddy Ashdown and William Hague. Those voting against include David Blunkett and Ann Taylor. This vote was followed immediately by one on Sir Anthony Durant's amendment to lower the age of consent to 18. This was passed by 427 votes to 162, and supporters included Michael Howard and John Major. It was opposed by such MPs as John Redwood, Chris Patten, Michael Heseltine and John Gummer. An amendment tabled by Simon Hughes which was intended to equalise the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals at 17 was not voted upon. The Bill as a whole was given a second reading in the Lords by 290 votes to 247. Lord Longford then sought to reintroduce 21 as the minimum age in the Lords, but this was defeated by 176 votes to 113. An amendment by the deputy Labour leader in the House of Lords, Lord MacIntosh of Haringey, that would have equalised the age of consent at 16, was rejected by 245 votes to 71. In its decision of 1 July 1997 in the case of Sutherland v. the United Kingdom, the European Commission of Human Rights found that Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights were violated by a discriminatory age of consent, on the ground that there was no objective and reasonable justification for maintaining a higher minimum age for male homosexual acts. On 13 October 1997 the Government submitted to the European Court of Human Rights that it would in the summer of 1998 propose a Bill to Parliament for a reduction of the age of consent for homosexual acts from 18 to 16. In June 1998, the Crime and Disorder Bill was put before Parliament. Ann Keen proposed amendments that would lower the age of consent to 16. The House of Commons accepted these provisions with a majority of 207, but they were rejected by the House of Lords with a majority of 168. Subsequently, a Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill was introduced on 16 December 1998 and, again, the equalisation of the age of consent was endorsed on 25 January 1999 by the House of Commons, but was rejected on 14 April 1999 by the House of Lords. Those campaigning against the amendment said they were simply acting to protect children. Baroness Young, the leader of the campaign against the amendment, said "Homosexual practices carry great health risks to young people." The government reintroduced the Bill in 1999 and threatened to use the Parliament Act to enact it regardless of the opinion of the Lords. The Lords rejected the bill again in November 2000. The Speaker of the House of Commons invoked the Parliament Act on Thursday 30 November 2000; the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 received Royal Assent a few hours later. An important step towards same-sex marriage was taken on the 18 November 2004, when the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was enacted, letting same-sex couples enter into a civil union with all the rights of full marriage. The first civil union was announced in The Times in early 2005 and will take place in Edinburgh, Scotland on 20th December 2005.

United States

In the United States, the first gay rights movement was the Chicago Society for Human Rights in 1924. The movement was influenced by the German gay rights movement, and was shut down by the local police within a few months. After the Second World War there were initial steps toward a gay rights movement with the formation of the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis and ONE, Inc. and the publications of Phil Andros in the years immediately following World War II. Also during this time frame Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was published by Alfred Kinsey, a work which was one of the first to look scientifically at the subject of sexuality. Kinsey's incredible assertion, backed by a great deal of research, that approximately 10% of the male population (and about half that number among females) had, or would have, at least one overt homosexual experience during the course of their lifetime, was a dramatic departure from the prevailing beliefs of the time. Before its publication, homosexuality was not a topic of discussion, generally, but afterwards it began to appear even in mainstream publications such as Time Magazine, Life Magazine, and others. Despite the entry of the subject into mainstream consciousness very little actual change in the laws or mores of society was seen until the mid-1960s, the time the "Sexual Revolution" began. This was a time of major social upheaval in many social areas, including views of sexuality. These works, along with other changes in society such as huge migrations to the cities following the War, began to build gay communities in urban centers. Through this, gay people began to develop a sense of themselves as a minority group. While gay bars existed even in the early 20th century, they were very few, and often were the focus of regular raids by police. With the rise of the gay community, gay bars became more and more common, and the sense of gay identity strengthened during the 1950s and 1960s. Gay people became less and less willing to accept their status as social outcasts and criminals. However, they had little or no political and social power until the late 1960s, even though some states began invalidating their sodomy laws earlier, with Illinois being the first state to do so in 1962. However, the Stonewall riots of 1969 are considered to be the starting point for the modern gay rights movement in the USA, when all of these relatively underground changes reached a breaking point, and gay people began to organize on a large scale and demand legal and social recognition and equality. The aftermath of the Stonewall riots saw the creation of such groups as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA) in New York City. The GLF's 'A Gay Manifesto' set out the aims for the fledgling gay liberation movement, and influential intellectual Paul Goodman published his The Politics of Being Queer (1969). Chapters of the GLF then spread to other countries. These groups would be the seeds for the various modern gay rights groups that campaign for equality in countries around the globe. In the 1970s many gay people moved to San Francisco, where they rapidly acquired considerable political influence, including getting one of their number, Harvey Milk, elected to the city's Board of Supervisors, a legislative chamber often known as a City Council in other municipalities. Milk was assassinated in 1978 along with the city's mayor, George Moscone. The first national gay rights march in the United States took place on October 14, 1979 in Washington, DC, involving perhaps as many 100,000 people. In the 21st century, defending homosexuals against anti-gay bias and gay-bashing and other forms of discrimination is a major element of American gay rights, often portrayed as intrinsic to human rights. Indeed, one of the most influential gay rights groups in the U.S. is called the Human Rights Campaign. The gay rights movement is often divided on ideological lines. Progressive gay rights organizations include the National Gay and Lesbian Task force (NGLTF), Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and various local gay community centers. Conservative gay rights organizations include the Log Cabin Republicans, the Independent Gay Forum and even some libertarian gay rights organizations have arisen such as Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty and the Outfront Libertarians. The movement has been successful in some areas. By the end of the 20th Century Sodomy laws were repealed or overturned in most American states, and those that still remained were ruled unconstitutional in the June 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Many companies and local governments have clauses in their nondiscrimination policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In some jurisdictions in the U.S., gay bashing is considered a hate crime and given a harsher penalty. The U.S. state of Massachusetts allows same-sex marriage, and the states of Vermont and Connecticut provide civil union as an alternative to marriage. However, in many states, laws and constitutional amendments have been passed forbidding any recognition of same-sex marriage. Virginia law, the most far-reaching, forbids recognition of any benefits similar to those of marriage between people of the same sex. Gay people are now permitted to adopt in some locations, although there are fewer locations where they may adopt children jointly with their partners. Other states have moved to ban gay adoption and foster care. In the cultural arena, similar changes have taken place. Positive and realistic gay characters appear in some television programs and movies, although stereotypes and negative depictions are still visible. The main opponents of the advances of the gay rights movement in the US have, in general, been the Christian right and other social conservatives, often under the aegis of the Republican Party. The Roman Catholic Church, or at least its hierarchy, has also been prominent among the movement's adversaries as opponents of gay marriage and same-sex acts. In the Roman Catholic Church, gay people themselves are not condemned, and are encouraged to live in celibacy, while the Church does condemn gay relationships and the sexual actions performed by gays. Regionally, opposition to the gay rights movement has been strongest in the Southern states. The United States has no federal law protecting against discrimination in employment by private sector employers based on sexual orientation. However, 16 states, the District of Columbia, and over 140 cities and counties have enacted such bans. As of November 2005, the states banning sexual orientation discrimination in private sector employment are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.[http://www.hrc.org/worknet/nd/states_ban_dso.asp]. Many of these laws also ban discrimination in other contexts, such as housing or public accommodation. A proposed bill to ban anti-gay employment discrimination nationwide, known as the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), has been introduced in the U.S. Congress, but its prospects of passage are not believed to be good in the current Republican-controlled Congress. On March 4, 1998, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also applied when both parties are the same sex. The lower courts, however, have reached differing conclusions about whether this ruling applies to harassment motivated by antigay animus. On November 7, 2003 the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in Blanchflower v. Blanchflower that sex between people of the same gender, one of whom is married, does not constitute adultery under New Hampshire law. On 8 April, 2005 Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/politics/09finkelstein.html?ex=1270699200&en=ca95af744bb6439b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland]

Canada

Canada has advanced dramatically in the fight of same-sex rights, exceeding many other liberal nations in laws and benefits directed towards same-sex couples and members of the trans communities. The court case of Everett Klippert caused much discussion of homosexuality among Canadians. In 1965 Everett Klippert was interrogated by the police as part of an arson investigation in the Northwest Territories. Klippert was arrested after admitting that he had had sex with other men. When psychiatrists determined that Everett Klippert was unlikely to stop having sex with men, he was declared a dangerous offender and sentenced to life in prison. Macleans magazine, Canada's popular newsweekly, then printed an article sympathetic to homosexuals. This led to increasing calls to reform Canada's law on homosexuality. Everett Klippert was released in 1971. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada as a result of legislation introduced in 1969 by then-Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada, Pierre Trudeau (who later became the 16th Prime Minister of Canada). He famously commented, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." In 1971 Canada's first gay rights march took place in Ottawa. In 1975 and 1976, there are large scale protests after the police raid gay establishments in Quebec and in Ottawa in preparation for the 1976 Olympics. In 1977, the province of Quebec becomes the first province in Canada to include "sexual orientation" in its Human Rights Act. As of 2004, all provinces and territories have included "sexual orientation" to their Human Rights Acts, and the Northwest Territories include "gender identity" in theirs. In 1978, the Canadian Immigration Act was amended, removing a ban on homosexuals as immigrants. In 1981, a major bathhouse raid occurred in Toronto, so outraging the gay community that an estimated 3000 people poured into the streets of Toronto to protest the raid. Infrequent bathhouse raids continue to occur to this day. Laws from the 1800s known as "bawdy house laws" are still listed in the Criminal Code of Canada; police use these laws to lay charges, and use liquor violation laws as grounds to enter the premises. In 1982, Canada patriated its Constitution, and added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The wording "sexual orientation" was not explicitly included in the list of groups listed in Section 15 of the Charter (Equality Rights), against which, "in particular," discrimination is forbidden. However, in 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Egan v. Canada that "sexual orientation" should be 'read in' to Section 15. In the 1980s, several attempts were made to add "sexual orientation" into the federal government's Human Rights Act, an amendment that did not take place until 1996. In 1986, sexual orientation was added to the Ontario Human Rights Act as a prohibited ground for discrimination. In 1988, New Democratic Party Member of Parliament (MP) Svend Robinson became the first MP to come out, declaring that he is gay to the media outside the House of Commons. In 1992, then-Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada, Kim Campbell (who later became Canada's first female prime minister) announced that Canada was lifting its ban on homosexuals in the military, allowing them to serve openly and live on-base with their partners. Canada was one of the first countries to allow this. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled that gays and lesbians could apply for refugee status based on their sexual orientation. In 1995, a court in Ontario ruled that gay and lesbian couples wishing to adopt jointly should be allowed to do so, making Ontario the first province to allow this. Currently, nearly all provinces allow gay and lesbian couples (and single gays and lesbians) to adopt children. In 1998, Glen Murray was elected Mayor of Winnipeg becoming the first openly gay Mayor of a large North American city. In 1999, gays and lesbians scored a major victory when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that gay and lesbian couples should have the same rights at heterosexual common-law couples. This forced the federal Liberal government to pass a bill in 2000 amending 68 federal statutes, including pension benefits, bankruptcy protection, income taxes, old age security, and immigration, among others. Legal marriage, however, remained defined as being between a man and a woman. In 2001, NDP MP Libby Davies came out as a lesbian, becoming the country's first (and so far only) open lesbian Member of Parliament. Libby Davies for gay rights]] In May 2004, the House of Commons and the Senate passed Bill C-250, which added "sexual orientation" to the "hate propaganda" section of the Criminal Code, thus making it illegal for people to propagate hate based on sexual orientation. This does not include clergymen however. In July 2004, Scott Brison, who had previously run for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was appointed Minister of Public Works and Government Services by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, becoming Canada's first openly gay Cabinet memeber. Between 2002 and 2005, courts in several provinces and one territory ruled that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples constitutes a form of discrimination that is prohibited by Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and struck down the federal definition, requiring that those jurisdictions register same-sex marriages. The first ruling required the federal government to draft legislation recognizing same-sex marriage, but later rulings brought the new definition into effect immediately in the jurisdictions concerned. Canadian jurisdictions thereby became the third in the world to allow same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium. By July 2005, same-sex marriages were legally recognized in all provinces and territories except Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, encompassing over 85% of Canada's population of roughly 32 million people. (See Same-sex marriage in Canada.) The federal government announced in the summer of 2003 that it would not appeal the decisions, and would draft legislation to allow same-sex marriages across the country. The bill was put before the Supreme Court of Canada to ensure that is would withstand a Charter challenge by those who oppose same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court heard arguments on the draft legislation in October of 2004. The bill was passed by Parliament in July 2005 making Canada the fourth country to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, and the first to do so without a residency requirement. (See Civil Marriage Act) In the House of Commons, three parties support LGBT rights with varying degrees. The New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois are the most vocal supporters of these rights, and the Liberal Party of Canada is divided in its approach to the issue. The Conservative Party of Canada is largely opposed to LGBT rights, although some members, typically former members of the Progressive Conservative Party, have supported LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage. Former members of the Canadian Alliance have generally opposed expanded LGBT rights, and some former CA MPs who are now Conservative MPs have been rebuked for calls to re-criminalize homosexuality. There are currently five members of the House of Commons and one senator who identify as gay or lesbian. There is one former MP and one retired senator who identify as such.

Republic of Ireland

Homosexuality was formally decriminalised in the Republic of Ireland in 1993. Currently discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is outlawed by the Employment Equality Act, 1998 and the Equal Status Act, 2000. These laws forbid discrimination in any of the following areas: employment, vocational training, advertising, collective agreements, the provision of goods and services and other publicly available opportunities. At present Irish law does not provide for gay marriage or civil partnerships, although a civil partnership bill is currently under consideration. The decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993 was the result of a campaign by Senator David Norris and the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform which led to a ruling, in 1988, that Irish laws prohibiting homosexual activities were in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform was founded in the 1970s to fight for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, its founding members including Senator Norris and future President of Ireland Mary McAleese. Prior to 1993 homosexuality was not illegal in the Republic per se but certain laws dating from the nineteenth century rendered homosexual acts illegal. The relevant legislation was the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, and the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, both enacted while the whole of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, the state had a long-standing policy of only prosecuting people in cases where minors were involved or sexual acts were committed in public or without consent. In 1983 David Norris took a case to the Supreme Court seeking to challenge the constitutionality of these laws but was unsuccessful. In its judgement (delivered by a 3-2 majority) the court referred to the "Christian and democratic nature of the Irish State" and argued that criminalisation served public health and the institution of marriage. In 1988 Norris took a case to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that Irish law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The court, in the case of Norris v. Ireland, ruled that the criminalisation of homosexuality in the Republic violated Article 8 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to privacy in personal affairs. The Irish parliament (Oireachtas) decriminalised homosexuality five years later.

Rest of Europe

Portugal, France, Norway, Sweden, Slovenia, Finland, Hungary, Croatia and Denmark recognize same-sex civil unions. Germany recognizes same-sex civil unions, which confers rights to joint adoption. The Netherlands, Spain and Belgium recognize same-sex marriages, including the right to joint adoption. Most east European countries have laws banning discrimination against gay people; however, few of them recognise same-sex civil unions (with the exception of Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia). The mayor of Warsaw who has since elected President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, twice banned Pride marches in recent years. They went ahead against his wishes, but marchers were harassed and assaulted.

The Middle East

Turkey, Cyprus and Israel are of the few countries in the Middle East where Homosexuality is not illegal or persecuted by the authorities. In Israel, same sex marriage is not officially recognized, but common-law marriage status (gay) has been established after numerous high court appeals. Israel has an active gay community, with annual gay pride festivals held in Tel-Aviv since 1998. The [http://www.gay.org.il/joh/eng/WPJ.htm World Pride Festival] in Jerusalem, originally planned for 2005, was postponed until 2006. An attempt by Jerusalem's mayor to thwart Jerusalem pride in June 2005 was challenged in the courts. The mayor lost and was ordered to contribute funds to the event. In most other Middle Eastern countries homosexuality is illegal, often punishable by flogging and even hanging.

South Africa

In December 2005, the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that it was unconstitutional to prevent people of the same gender marrying when it was permitted to people of oppsite gender, and gave the South African Paliament one year to "rework laws allowing same-sex unions. If Parliament does not do this in one year, the Marriage Act will be rewritten to include the words "or spouse" to allow these unions to take place." The article states that same-sex couples may marry at present, but the marriage is not recognised in law. [http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national&articleid=258183 Mail & Guardian Online, Dec 1 2005, Johannesburg]

References

- http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/138/2/210
- http://www.narth.com/docs/schoenewolf2.html

External links

- [http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/hudoc/ViewRoot.asp?Item=0&Action=Html&X=501232531&Notice=0&Noticemode=&RelatedMode=0 Norris v. Ireland] (European Court of Human Rights case law)
- [http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/Hudoc2doc/herep/sift/555.txt Report of the European Commission Of Human Rights on the case of Sutherland v. the United Kingdom (Application 25186/94), 1 July 1997]
- [http://www.glaad.org GLAAD - Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation]
- [http://www.pflag.org Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays]
- [http://www.thetaskforce.org National Gay and Lesbian Task Force]
- [http://www.gayrightswatch.com - Gay Rights Watch]
- [http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/country/israel Gay Middle East - Israel section]
- [http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/020220_gay_israel_history.html Queer In the land of sodom] History of Homosexuality in Israel
- [http://www.GoodAsYou.org Good As You : Gay & Lesbian Activism with a Sense of Humor]
- [http://www.helem.net Helem] - GLBTIQ rights organization in Lebanon
- [http://www.williamapercy.com/pub-outing.htm Outing] Category:Activism
- Category:Political movements Category:Politics by issue

Gay

Gay is a word with several meanings in modern society. It can be used as either a noun or adjective. As a noun, it is most commonly used as a term to identify a man with a homosexual orientation. It can also be used to describe a homosexual woman, although lesbian is more specific. The first name Gay is still occasionally encountered, usually as a female name although the spelling is often altered to Gaye. (795th most common in the 1990 census according to [http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.female.first]) Gay used as an adjective describes stereotypical traits associated with gays and lesbians, their culture, or perceived lifestyle.

Etymology

Sometimes, histories of word origins are less than useful for communicating modern meanings of socioculturally potent words. Furthermore, the usage of any word changes dramatically as the culture in which it is embedded changes. Gay once was used to mean "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy" and was very common in speech and literature. In more recent times, starting in the mid 20th century, the word gay cannot be used solely in this former context without the expectation that one will assume a double entendre, or that the person using the term is out of touch with contemporary society. Some have tried to recover the original connotation of the word, but with limited success.

Etymology of the modern usage

The use of the term gay, as it relates to homosexuality, is documented as early as the 1920s. Its original meaning was 'happy and carefree', and until the early 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay" without prejudice. One of Oscar Wilde's favorite venues in Dublin was the Gaiety Theatre, first appearing there in 1884. A quote from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Mrs. Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable use of the word, though it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness: :They were ...gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay. The 1929 musical Bitter Sweet by Noel Coward has the first uncontested use of the word: in the song "Green Carnation", four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing: :Pretty boys, witty boys, You may sneer :At our disintegration. :Haughty boys, naughty boys, :Dear, dear, dear! :Swooning with affectation... :And as we are the reason :For the "Nineties" being gay, :We all wear a green carnation. Coward uses the "gay nineties" as a double entendre. The song title alludes to the gay playwright Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation himself. However in 1934 the term was still unknown by the general public, as evidenced by the title of the The Gay Divorcee, a musical film about a heterosexual couple. It was originally to be called The Gay Divorce after the play on which it was based, but the Hays Office determined that while a divorcee may be gay, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in reference to homosexuality. In a scene where Cary Grant's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he must wear a lady's feathery robe. When another character inquires about his clothes, he responds "Because I just went gay...all of a sudden!" [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/comedy/bringingupbaby.html] Gay was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). Gay can be also used as a plural collective-like noun: "Gays are opposed to that policy;" although this usage may be deprecated by some, it is common [http://www.google.com/search?q=gays] particularly in the names of various organizations such as PFLAG: (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere). It is rarely used as a singular noun "he is a gay" and sounds unusual in this context, such as in its use by the Little Britain comedy character Daffyd Thomas (a gay man who believes himself "the only gay in the village" despite abundant evidence to the contrary). In the 1960s, gay became the term predominantly preferred by homosexual men to describe themselves. Gay was the preferred term since homosexual was the name used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to denote men affected by the "mental illness" of same-sex attraction. The illness of homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973, but the clinical connotation of the word was already embedded in society. By 1963, the word was known well enough by the straight community to be used by Albert Ellis in his book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Man-Hunting.

Folk etymologies

It has been claimed that "gay" was derived as an acronym for "Good As You", but this is a backronym (based on a fake etymology). Another folk etymology accrues to Gay Street, a small street in the West Village of New York City — a nexus of homosexual culture. The term also seems, from documentary evidence, to have existed in New York as a code word in the 1940s, where the question, "Are you gay?" would denote more than it might have seemed to outsiders.

Commonly accepted usage

Overview article: Terminology of homosexuality
- Gay is used as an adjective to describe sexual orientation (attraction, preference, or inclination) and is usually chosen instead of homosexual as an identity-label.
- Gay sex involves acts between or among people of the same sex or gender.
- Gay is usually used to describe the "gay community" by both insiders and the mainstream media.
- Gay can be used as a nonspecific derogatory comment towards a person or object.
- Gay is sometimes used to describe an object of particular flamboyance.
- Other connotations can vary widely based upon speaker and situation.

Sexual orientation

Many people consider gay and homosexual to be synonyms. Other people, however, consider gay to be a matter of self-identification and homosexual to refer to sexual activity. By using these definitions, a person could be gay but not homosexual, or homosexual but not gay. See sex for a discussion of the complexities surrounding the concepts of sex and gender. Sexual orientation, behavior, and self-identification are not necessarily aligned in a clear-cut fashion for a given individual. If a person has had same-sex sexual encounters but does not self-identify as gay, terms such as closeted, on the down low, discreet, or bi-curious may apply. Similarly, a person may identify as gay even in absence of sexual activity. This is the case for some celibate individuals and for young people who have come out of the closet as gay for political or emotional reasons but are not yet ready to form a sexual relationship. This may also apply to bisexuals, who may consider themselves to be gay due to their same-sex attractions even if they are in a monogamous relationship with a member of the opposite sex. This too involves certain complexities, however, as some people consider gay and bisexual mutually exclude one another, though this is of great debate between the respective parties. However, some same-sex oriented persons actually prefer the term homosexual to gay, seeing the former as describing a sexual orientation and the latter as describing a cultural or socio-political group with which they do not identify.

Self-identification

Self-identification of one's sexual orientation is becoming far more commonplace in areas of increased social acceptance, but many are either reluctant to self-identify publicly or even privately to themselves. The process is fairly complex, and many groups related to gay people cite inadvertent heterosexism as a leading problem for those that would otherwise self-identify.

Selecting the appropriate term

Some people reject the term homosexual as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding. They believe it is too focused on physical acts rather than romance or attraction, or too reminiscent of the era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. Conversely, some people find the term gay to be offensive or reject it as an identity-label because they perceive the cultural connotations to be undesirable or because of the negative connotations of the slang usage of the word. According to the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington's Glossary for School Employees: :"Homosexual: Avoid this term; it is clinical, distancing and archaic. Sometimes appropriate in referring to behavior (although same-sex is the preferred adj.). When referring to people, as opposed to behavior, homosexual is considered derogatory and the terms gay and lesbian are preferred, at least in the Northwest [of the United States]." Sometimes the term gay is used to describe both same-sex male and same-sex female relations. More rarely, it is used as a shorthand for terms queer or gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.. The term also sometimes includes transgender, transsexual, and intersexual. Some trans and intersexed individuals find their inclusion in this larger grouping to be offensive. It is commonly used to refer specifically to gay men; the precise meaning may need to be made clear from context. The term lesbian, however, is exclusively female.

Gay community

The emotional, cultural, social and erotic lives of gay people are represented by the gay community. Although there is wide ethnic, socioeconomic and cultural variation within the community, social cohesion exists for several reasons. For example, many LGBT people have been through similar experiences. The community also serves as a refuge from homophobia, though this role is decreasing in many parts of the world as society becomes more comfortable with LGBT people.

Descriptor

The term gay can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to gay people or things which are part of gay culture. For example, while a gay bar is not itself homosexual, using gay as an adjective to describe the bar indicates that the bar is either gay-oriented, caters primarily to gay men, or is otherwise part of gay culture. Using it to describe an object, such as an item of clothing, suggests that it is particularly flamboyant, often on the verge of being gaudy and garish. This stems from the notion that such items appeal to gay people (usually to gay men). Using the term gay as an adjective where the meaning is akin to "related to gay people, culture, or homosexuality in general" is a widely accepted use of the word. By contrast, using gay in the pejorative sense, to describe something solely as negative, can cause offense.

Pejorative usage

When used with a derisive attitude (e.g. "that film was so gay"), the term gay is purely pejorative and can be deeply offensive. The derogatory implication is that the object (or person) in question is inferior, worthless, effeminate, or stupid. This usage has its origins in the 1980s, when homosexuality had already become mainstream but was still taboo. Beginning in the 1990s and especially in the 2000s this usage is common among young people, who may or may not link the term to gay people.

Alternate spellings

Other spellings, such as "ghey" and "ghei", are sometimes found on the Internet and are used in an attempt to bypass chat room censors.

External links

- [http://www.gayrightswatch.com Gay Rights Watch]
- [http://www.gay.com Gay.com News & Chat]
- [http://www.gaycrawler.com GayCrawler.com Gay and Lesbian worldwide directory] Category:LGBT Category:Sexual orientation and identity Category:Slang Category:LGBT terms ja:ゲイ

Right

:The following article discusses the notion of rights in matters of philosophy and Law. For the direction right, see left and right or starboard. For a discussion of "right" in the sense of right-wing politics or ideology, see Right-wing politics. "Claim" redirects here. For other uses, see Claim (disambiguation). A right is the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. Rights serve as rules of interaction between people, and, as such, they place constraints upon the actions of individuals or groups (for example, if one is granted a right to life, this means that others do not have the liberty to murder him). Most modern conceptions of rights are universalist and egalitarian; in other words, equal rights are granted to all people. Such rights may be defined in terms of the Golden Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you"). An individual agrees to respect the rights of others in exchange for the assurance that the others will respect the same rights for him in turn. By contrast, most pre-modern conceptions of rights were hierarchical, with different people being granted different rights, and some having more rights than others. For instance, the rights of a father to be respected by his son did not indicate a duty upon the father to return that respect, and the divine right of kings to hold absolute power over their subjects did not leave room for many rights to be granted to the subjects themselves. It is not generally considered necessary that a right should be understood by the holder of that right, thus rights may be agreed on behalf of another, such as children's rights or the rights of people declared mentally incompetant to understand their rights. However, rights must be understood by someone in order to have legal existence, so the understanding of rights is a social prerequisite for the existence of rights. Therefore, educational opportunities within society have a close bearing upon the people's ability to erect adequate rights structures. There are two fundamental controversies surrounding the notion of rights: First, there is the question of the basis for rights (on what basis can rights be said to exist). Second, there is the question of the content of rights (what the rights of a person actually are).

Legal rights

In modern English and European systems of jurisprudence and law, a right is the legal or moral entitlement to do or refrain from doing something or to obtain or refrain from obtaining an action, thing or recognition in civil society. Compare with duty, referring to behaviour that is expected or required of the citizen, and with privilege, referring to something that can be conferred and revoked. The specific enumeration of rights accorded to citizens has historically differed greatly from one century to the next, and from one regime to the next, but nowadays is normally addressed by the constitutions of the respective nations. Generally speaking (within the English and European systems) a right corresponds with a complementary obligation that others have on the same object or realm; for instance if someone has a right on a thing, simultaneously another party or parties have an obligation to do something (or to abstain from doing something) in order to respect that right or to give concrete execution to that right. Property rights provide a good example: society recognizes that individuals have title to particular property as defined by the transaction by which they acquired the property granting the individual free use and possession of the property. In many cases, especially regarding ideological and similar rights, the obligation depends on the legal system in its entirety, or on the state, or on the generical universality of other subjects submitted to the law. The right can therefore be a faculty of doing something, of omitting or refusing to do something or of claiming something. Some interpretations express a typical form of right in the faculty of using something, and this is more often related to the right of property. The faculty (in all the above mentioned senses) can be originated by a (generical or specific) law, or by a private contract (which is sometimes exactly defined as a specific law between or among volunteer parties). Other interpretations consider the right as a sort of freedom of something or as the object of justice. One of the definitions of justice is in fact the obligation that the legal system has toward the individual or toward the collectivity to grant respect or execution to his/her/its right, ordinarily with no need of explicit claim. Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics (book five), claims that there is a large difference between written (generalized) justice and what is actually right for the (specific) individual. :(10-3) "But what obscures the matter is that though what is equitable is just, it is not identical with, but a correction of, that which is just according to law." :(10-4) "The reason of this is that every law is laid down in general terms, while there are matters about which it is impossible to speak correctly in general terms. Where, then, it is necessary to speak in general terms, but impossible to do so correctly, the legislator lays down that which holds good for the majority of cases, being quite aware that it does not hold good for all." :"The law, indeed, is none the less correctly laid down because of this defect; for the defect lies not in the law, nor in the lawgiver, but in the nature of the subject-matter, being necessarily involved in the very conditions of human action." Rights can be divided into individual rights, that are held by citizens as individuals (or corporations) recognised by the legal system, and collective rights, held by an ensemble of citizens or a subgroup of citizens who have a certain characteristic in common. In some cases there can be an amount of tension between individual and collective rights. In other cases, the view of collective and individual rights held by one group can come into sharp and bitter conflict with the view of rights held by another group. For instance compare Manifest destiny with Trail of Tears. With reference to the object of the right, a common general distinction is among:
- intellectual rights, which include:
- civil rights
- religious rights
- rights of opinion
- real rights (from the Latin word "res", thing), which include:
- property rights
- rights of use
- liberties See also: human rights, positive rights, negative rights, exclusive rights. Particular systems can (or could in the past) include special rights like:
- fief rights, which included:
- economical rights (like the right to collect taxes)
- performance rights (like the jus primae noctis or corvee)

Important documents

- Magna Carta (1215; England)
- Required the king to renounce certain rights and respect certain legal procedures, and to accept that the will of the king could be bound by law.
- Bill of Rights 1689 (England)
- Declared that Englishmen, as embodied by Parliament, possess certain civil and political rights that can not be taken away.
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789; France)
- One of the fundamental documents of the French Revolution, defining a set of individual rights and collective rights of the people.
- United States Bill of Rights (1789/1791)
- The first ten amendments of the United States Constitution.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
- An over-arching set of standards by which Governments, organisations and individuals would measure their behaviour towards each other. The preamble declares that the
- :"...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."
- Other general Declarations from the UN have followed, notably the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 [http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm].
- European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
- Adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.
- Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982)
- Its purpose is to protect rights of Canadian citizens from actions and policies of all levels of government.
- Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000)

External links

- [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Right "Right" in Wiktionary]
- [http://www.hrw.org/ Human Rights Watch]
- [http://www.amnesty.org/ Amnesty International]
- [http://moodle.ed.uiuc.edu/wiked/index.php/Teacher%E2%80%99s_rights Teacher's Rights]
- [http://www.ifex.org/ International Freedom of Expression Exchange] Category:Law Category:Rights ja:権利 simple:Rights

Civil rights

.]] Civil rights are the protections and privileges of personal liberty given to all citizens by law. Civil rights are distinguished from "human rights" or "natural rights"; civil rights are rights that persons do have, while natural or human rights are rights that many scholars think that people should have. For example, the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) argued that the natural rights of life, liberty, and property should be converted into civil rights and protected by the state as an aspect of the social contract. Others have argued that people acquire rights as an inalienable gift from God or at a time of nature before governments were formed. Laws guaranteeing civil rights may be written, derived from custom, or implied. In the United States and most continental European counties, civil rights laws are most often written. In the United States, for example, laws protecting civil rights appear in the Constitution, in the amendments to the Constitution (particularly the 13th and 14th Amendments), in federal statutes, in state constitutions and statutes, and even in the ordinances of counties and cities. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, such rights are frequently granted by custom and are not memorialized in a written law. "Implied" rights are rights that a court may find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom, on the theory that a written or customary right must necessarily include the implied right. One famous (and controversial) example of a right implied from the U.S. Constitution is the "right to privacy", which the U.S. Supreme Court found to exist in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut. In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade the Court found that state legislation prohibiting or limiting abortion violated this right to privacy. States and local governments can expand civil rights beyond the U.S. Constitution, but they cannot diminish Constitutional rights. For example, some American cities make it illegal to discriminate against persons on the basis of their sexual orientation, thus expanding the civil rights of homosexuals; however, cities which create school districts in such a way that the districts discriminate against students on the basis of their race will have injunctions entered against them by the federal courts. States frequently grant civil rights in excess of federal law, such as Article 21 of the Maryland Constitution, which requires that a jury be unanimous in order to convict a person of a crime. Examples of civil rights and liberties include the right to get redress if injured by another, the right to privacy, the right of peaceful protest, the right to a fair investigation and trial if suspected of a crime, and more generally-based constitutional rights such as the right to vote, the right to personal freedom, the right to life, the right to freedom of movement and anti-discrimination laws. As civilisations emerged and formalised through written constitutions, some of the more important civil rights were granted to citizens. When those grants were later found inadequate, civil rights movements emerged as the vehicle for claiming more equal protection for all citizens and advocating new laws to limit the effect of current discriminations. Civil rights can in one sense refer to the equal treatment of all citizens irrespective of race, sex, or other class, or it can refer to laws which invoke claims of positive liberty. An example of the former would be the decision in Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954) which was concerned with the constitutionality of laws which imposed segregation in the education systems of some U.S states. The theories set out below explain why such laws should not be considered legitimate, but do not explain why the case failed to declare the general principle that all manifestations of segregation were a breach of civil rights (that would be more properly a question of politics). The U.S. legislature subsequently addressed the issue through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Sec. 201. which states: (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. Some other countries have enacted similar legislation, or have given direct effect to supranational treaties and agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights (with forty-five countries as signatories), which encompass both human rights and civil liberties.

Related terminology

The term 'civil rights' is often used synonymously with civil liberties, even though theoretical jurisprudence distinguishes between right and liberty (see below: Hohfeld). The root of the word 'civil' reflects the association between a bundle of rights and 'citizenship'. The term Human rights refers to a broader concept.
In the early legal systems of Ancient Rome, plebeians and women had no right to vote whether as a juror or for political purposes, and ownership of property was an aspect of patria potestas, i.e. only the father of the family could own property, his wife, relatives and children having no right of ownership. Similarly, the mediaeval European city-states limited access to the status of citizenship and the civil rights associated with it. This practice of dividing societies by reference to class or caste associates privilege with the upper layers of society and means that civil rights attach to people by virute of their citizenship of a state.
Today, in most western societies, it is taken for granted that every person has a number of rights and freedoms, which are valued deeply, closely associated to the modern concept of democracy and supported by public policy. Civil rights are claimed to be the pillars of modern societies. Nevertheless, it is domicile that attaches to an individual at birth, regardless of such factors as race, gender or class, and determines status and capacity. As each individual moves from state to state, the extent of the civil rights to be enjoyed will be determined by the interaction between the domicile of origin, and the cultures and laws of those states in which that person resides as a citizen.
The term human rights is not limited to citizenship of one state and reflects the concept of fundamental rights that all human beings can claim. Whereas 'civil rights', 'civil liberties' and 'constitutional rights' are used to denote expectations as to behaviour and treatment by fellow citizens in any one sovereign state, 'human rights' is more often used in the context of international law, the supranational systems of law that may or may not have direct effect in sovereign states depending on the treaties signed by each state and the nature of their legal systems. Human rights include civil rights. The term may also refer to the rights of refugees and the problems of statelessness; however, the debate on the extent of fundamental human rights is much broader. Jurist Karel Vasak, for example, discusses a right to peace and the right to a clean environment as fundamental human rights.

Theoretical background: The concept of right

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (1879-1918) maintained that analysis of legal issues is frequently muddled and inconsistent because the legal concepts are improperly understood. The first question, therefore, is to understand what the rights are in "civil rights". There are two major schools of thought:
- Hohfeld proposed a structured system of interrelated concepts
- Nozick and Rawls approached the concept of rights from the perspectives of libertarian and political theory.

Hohfeld's concept of right

Hohfeld distinguished right from liberty, and power from immunity — concepts that are often used interchangeably in non-technical discourse, but are philosophically different. By examining the relationships between these concepts, he hoped to explain the legal interests that have evolved in the real world of civil society and to answer the question whether citizens of a state have any right to access any of the possible forms of social security.
- Right and duty are corelative concepts, i.e. one must always be matched by the other. If A claims a right against B, this is meaningless unless B has a duty to honour A's right. If B has no duty, that means that B has liberty, i.e. B can do whatever he or she pleases because B has no duty to refrain from doing it, and A has no right to prohibit B from doing so. An individual would be considered to have perfect liberty if no one has a right to prevent the given act.
- Power means the capacity to create legal relationships and to create rights and liabilities. The corelative of power is liability. If A has power over B, B must have liability towards A. For example, properly constituted courts have the power to pass judgements that impose liabilities but, if the defendants are outside the courts' jurisdiction, the judgements are unenforceable. Similarly, a legislature has power to make laws, but those laws that attempt to restrict a fundamental right may be unconstitutional. If the laws are valid, they create a disability; the legal opposite of disability is power. So, children or people suffering from a mental disability should be protected from liability and their power to make a binding contract is removed. A person loses the right to sue another to recover a debt if the period of limitation has expired.
- The legal opposite of liability is immunity. In some countries, government departments exercising sovereign powers cannot be sued in tort and the President or the Prime Minister cannot be personally liable in respect of any contract made or assurance given for the purposes of the state. These are examples of immunities. Although the word right is often used to describe liberty, power, or immunity, Hohfeld clearly distinguished them. Indeed, Hohfeld described liberty as an a priori condition of the rule of law, coming into existence long before any Bill of Rights and offering an individual power to the extent that it is not restricted by any law. Essentially, Hohfeld believed that anyone who tries to encroach on the liberty of a citizen must be required to demonstrate their clear right to do so. After more than eighty years of consideration, some doubt whether this set of conceptual relationships is philosophically sustainable. But, the core juxtaposition of right, duty and liberty remains a seductive argument.

Libertarian and political theory: Nozick and Rawls

Minimal state

Robert Nozick (1938-2003) offered a model of a "minimal state", described as libertarianism. Nozick argued that no state is ever justified in offering anything more than the most minimal of state functions, and further, that whatever might exist by way of rights exists only in the negative sense of those actions not yet prohibited. He denied the possibility that any citizen can have rights that require others to offer him or her services at the state's expense, and tested whether exchanges between individuals were legitimate by an entitlement theory:
- The "transfer principle" holds that goods or services "freely acquired from others who acquired them in a just way are justly acquired"
- The "acquisition principle" states that people are entitled to retain all holdings acquired in a just way
- The "rectification principle" requires that any violation of the first two principles be repaired by returning holdings to their rightful owners as a "one time" redistribution (a reference to the Rawlsian Difference Principle). Nozick, therefore, believed that there are no positive civil rights, only rights to property and the right of autonomy. For him, a just society does as much as possible to protect everyone's independence and freedom to take any action for the benefit of one's self. This is an important teleological protection: the Jeffersonian right to the pursuit of happiness is the freedom to engage in any actions so long as they do not infringe upon that same right exercised by others. Critics of the minimal state-model argue that a state which provides no services to citizens is inadequate.

Just society

John Rawls (1921-2002) developed a model of a different form of just society which relied on:
- The "liberty principle" which holds that citizens require minimal civil and legal rights to protect themselves
- The "difference principle" which states that every citizen would want to live in a society where improving the condition of the poorest becomes the first priority. For Rawls, a right is an "entitlement or justified claim on others" which comprises both negative and positive obligations, i.e. both that others must not harm anyone (negative obligation), and surrender a proportion of their earnings through taxation for the benefit of low-income earners (positive). This blurs the relationship between rights and duties as proposed by Hohfeld. For example if a citizen had the right to free medical care, then others (through the agency of the government) would be obligated to provide that service. Critics of Rawl's approach doubt whether the difference principle is congruous with a state consistently applying the capitalist model. Rawl's ideas however have influenced the implementation of social market economies within a capitalist system in European countries like Germany. The difference between Rawls and Nozick is that Rawls thought that a state should always provide the basic fundamentals of physical existence, whereas Nozick gave no guarantee save that an individual always had the freedom to pursue his or her own ends.

Concepts applied: an example

The rights that evolve through history will be the product of the culture in the given state and they will exist independently of the legal system. The extent to which the state decides to give any of these rights some legal enforcement will be determined by the balance struck between the competing interests within the society. As an example, let us take a proposal to make it illegal to treat people differently on the basis of race. This fits into the context of a general freedom of association and has relevance to freedom of thought. So, one view would be that employment is a personal contract and, because employer and employee must work together well if the business is to prosper, the employer should be free to employ whoever he or she wishes. Similarly, so long as a person keeps his thoughts to him or herself, no change should be necessary. What philosophical justifications would there be for imposing duties and liabilities to modify behaviour and correct thought?
- In Nozick's model, there would be no justification. Every citizen is free to offer employment and/or to offer their labour, and any interference with these freedoms would diminish autonomy. In capitalist countries, this philosophy resonates powerfully with citizens who oppose any restriction on their right to use their justly acquired wealth for their own benefit.
- For Rawls, the Liberty Principle means that no one person should be any less "equal" than any other. Therefore, it would be appropriate to restrict liberty and impose duties to promote social justice. This model works best in countries where the principle of wealth distribution is accepted by the majority. Hence, particular notions of what may constitute fairness or justice will always drive public calls for coercive anti-discrimination laws to fill in the gap where the naming and shaming of "offenders" is not an effective deterrent.
- Hohfeld's analysis would be apolitical. Unlike Nozick and Rawls, the method does not depend on particular political assumptions, but applies rigor to identify the issues of principle. Hence, Hohfeld would begin with an unregulated society in which the employer has a power but no duty to offer employment to all citizens. This is enshrined in the fundamental principle, freedom of contract, which requires that every contract be a consensual bargain. If the codified practice of employers is not to offer employment to a class of citizens, this denial of opportunity is the equivalent of a disability and, as such, a state could act to remove the de facto immunity protecting the employers from appropriate legal redress. What form would this redress take? It cannot be the grant of an absolute right to employment in every citizen of the affected class. There may be many employers in the society but not every one of them may require additional employees. So the earliest time that a corelative duty to offer employment could attach to an employer is when a vacancy arises. But this is only one vacancy and there may be many seeking it. Which among those offering their labour has the best right to the one job? In the reality of this theoretical society, this has to be a decision made by the employer since only the employer has the power to create the contract (i.e. to define the terms and conditions of the work to be done and the wage or salary to be paid). So the only right that the state can give members of the affected class is the right to be judged fairly as against other job applicants and, if successful, to be offered the same terms and conditions applied to those already employed. Anything more than that would be to give job seekers rights and powers that no other part of the law of contract allows — a clearly unjustified outcome since this would be encroaching on the standard package of rights and liberties enjoyed by all citizens in all the other areas of commercial activity within the state. So, a balance is struck. The need for general certainty in the operation of the law outweighs the benefit from introducing a limited exception for the benefit of one group. Yet, a way is found within the law as it stands, for some relief to be given to a disadvantaged class. It is a compromise struck in expediency, but which achieves the desired outcome.

Civil rights movement

Historically, the process of moving toward equality under the law was long and tenuous. But after a status had been reached where every citizen has the same rights by law, practical issues of discrimination remain. Even if every person is treated equally by the state, there may not be equality because of discrimination within society, such as in the workplace, which may hinder civil liberties in everyday life. During the second half of the 20th century Western societies have therefore introduced legislation that tries to remove discrimination on the basis of race, gender or disability.

Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland saw the formation of the Campaign for Social Justice in Belfast in 1964, followed by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967. It consciously modelled itself on the civil rights movement in the United States. The largely Catholic membership demanded the repeal of the Special Powers Acts of 1922, 1933, and 1943, and an end to the discrimination by Ulster Unionist Party government, especially the gerrymandering of local electoral districts to ensure the victory of unionist candidates in areas with nationalist majorities (most blatantly in the city of Derry), in the awarding of local authority housing and in employment. Tentative steps to address these issues by Prime Minister Terence O'Neill was met with vehement opposition from hardline Protestant politicans, most notably Ian Paisley. Frustration at the resistance to reform and the heavy-handed tactics of the RUC and the British army, first caught on film on Duke Street in Derry on 5th October 1968, pushed many Catholics towards supporting the IRA. The British government responded with a policy of internment without trial of suspected republicans which provoked a civil disobedience campaign. For more than three hundred people, the internment lasted several years. In 1978, in a case brought by the government of the Republic of Ireland against the government of the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the interrogation techniques approved for use by the British army on internees in 1971 amounted to "inhuman and degrading" treatment. In an attempt to break the escalating cycle of violence including Bloody Sunday in Derry, the British Government introduced direct rule from London in 1972, proroguing the Northern Ireland Parliament. But, following the ending of an IRA ceasefire in 1976, there was a resumption of the political violence that has long been a feature of life in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement introduced power-sharing but the devolved assembly at Stormont has been suspended since October 2002 and the British Parliamentary Election in 2005 produced a polarised result, diminishing the power of the more moderate parties. One of the leaders of NICRA was future Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, another, Austin Currie, a candidate for President of Ireland in 1990. Hume's co-Nobel Laureate, David Trimble, was leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in the 1990s and 2000s, and had campaigned against sharing power with Catholics in the 1970s. Although some progress has been made, there is a political vacuum in Northern Ireland, caused by the breakdown of the peace process, and many of the issues in policing, housing, and employment first raised by the Campaign for Social Justice in 1964 have yet to be resolved. Joan Harbison, head of Northern Ireland's Equality Commission, noted in her Annual Report in 2000 that, "while this Report reveals that the overall composition of Catholics in the civil service, at 38%, continues to move closer to the figure for labour availability, major under-representation continues to exist within the most senior grades." At present, senior civil servants in Northern Ireland are required to hold a British passport, ruling out those who hold Irish citizenship. In the more recent Monitoring Report No. 14 A Profile of the Northern Ireland Workforce published by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland in November, 2004, Roman Catholics comprise 42.7% of those of working age available for work. "Comparing only those sections of the fulltime workforce which were monitored in 1990, the overall Roman Catholic share has increased by 5.9 percentage points, from 34.9% in 1990 to 40.8% in 2003." (2004, at p9) But, despite the improvement in the overall pattern of employment, there are causes for concern. For example, in the Security Related Occupations, which include the Police Service, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Prison Service, etc. "The composition was 85.6% Protestant. 9.9% Roman Catholic, and 4.5% undetermined." (2004 at p27).
- See the debate of the Northern Ireland Assembly at http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/record/reports/000628.htm
- and the pdf of the Fair Employment Monitoring Report No 14 - A Profile of the Northern Ireland Workforce at http://www.equalityni.org/publications/recentpubdetails.cfm?id=2
- [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/whyte.htm John Whyte: How much discrimination was there under the unionist regime, 1921–68?]

Liberal feminism

Main article: Liberal feminism Whereas radical feminists believe that an improvement of the situation for women can only be achieved through a revolutionary social change, liberal feminism suggests a more conservative approach. Liberal feminists try to achieve equality for women through social reforms by changing institutions and law so as to accommodate gender equality. This approach proved successful. It was liberal feminism that initiated changes in European institutions and that brought about legislature against the discrimination of women. In some European countries (f. i. Austria) job adverts may not be worded in such a way so as to exclude female applicants. Public institutions often try to increase the number of females and encourage women to apply. Feminist writers associated with this tradition are amongst others Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and second wave feminist Betty Friedan. One major step in the civil rights of women was the movement for the right to vote for women in the early 20th century.

References

- Hohfeld, W. N. Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, ed. by W.W. Cook (1919); reprint, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964.
- Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books. 1974.
- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Revised edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1999), ISBN 0-674-00077-3.

External links

- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-rights/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
- [http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/index.htm Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project]
- [http://www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/PhotoAlbum/civil_rights.cfm Images of the Civil Rights Movement in Florida]
- [http://www.crmvet.org/ Civil Rights Movement Veterans]
- [http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/ Susan Klopfer's Mississippi Civil Rights Bookstore]
- [http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/VideoFilm2/video.cfm?VID=42 St. Augustine Race Riots] Brief video clip of demonstrations by blacks on Butler Beach in St. Augustine.
- [http://http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2716/ Civil Rights Movement]
- [http://www.lulu.com/content/135246 Where Rebels Roost... Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited] Category:Rights Category:Social justice
- zh-tw:公民權利civil right the right to justice

Human rights

Human rights refers to the concept of human beings as having universal rights, or status, regardless of legal jurisdiction, and likewise other localizing factors, such as ethnicity and nationality. The existence, validity and the content of human rights continue to be the subject to debate in philosophy and political science. However human rights are defined in international law & covenants, and further, in the domestic laws of many states. There is, however, a great deal of variance between how human rights norms are defined in these multiple contexts and how they are upheld in different local jurisdictions. Within particular states, "human rights" refer to safeguards for the individual against arbitrary use of power by the government regarding 1) the well being of individuals, 2) the freedom and autonomy of individuals, and 3) the representation of the human interest in government. These rights commonly include the right to life, the right to an adequate standard of living, freedom from torture and other mistreatment, freedom of religion and of expression, freedom of movement, the right to self-determination, the right to education, and the right to participation in cultural and political life. These norms are based on the legal and political traditions of United Nations member states and are incorporated into international human rights instruments (see below). With the exception of so called non-derogable human rights (the four most important are the right to life, the right to be free from slavery, the right to be free from torture and the right to be free from retroactive application of penal laws), most human rights can be limited or even pushed aside during times of war.[http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/comp210.htm] Conduct in war is governed by International Humanitarian Law.

Human Rights in international law

The 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights resolution was adopted virtually unanimous