“Common Denominator”

The concept of who deserves civil rights seems to be a tough one for many people.Let’s see if this complex question can be simplified.

In the United States, we have a long history of trying to figure out who deserves equality and civil rights. We don’t approach the issue apart from religion, although separation of church and state is built into our constitution. Today this ideal gets a wink and a nod as opposed to being upheld as a standard in deciding law.

Black people now have a full set of civil rights, but there was a time when they didn’t. Although they have the same anatomy as white people, there was a time when those in power and heads of religious institutions, weren’t sure they were human as opposed to animal. About a century after they were freed from slavery they finally won civil rights. During that century they were oppressed, tortured, and murder on their way to equality. Some in the Black community might argue that they still are not fully equal, and they may have a point.

Women were another group in the United States that have not always had equal civil rights. Here again religion taught their inferiority to men, and used this as reason to not treat them as equal. There was a time in this country’s history when women couldn’t vote and were by in large servants of men. When allowed to work by their husbands or fathers, they held jobs subservient to men, taking care of the minor details seen as beneath their male bosses. In the rare instances when a woman held a position of power, she was paid less than a man in a similar position because after all she was a woman. As with the black community, women may argue the point of their equality and here again may have a case.

Gays and Lesbians are now battling for equal civil rights in the United States. Religious institutions are hip deep in this issue as well. They argue that these men and women are choosing a sinful life style as opposed to being born into an orientation as are heterosexuals. Lies and mistruths are told about them in an effort to make them seem less than they are as people, and therefore less deserving of equality under the law.

Another group fighting for civil rights are the Transgender people. They argue that they were born with the wrong bodies, believing that internally their true identity is that of the opposite sex. Religious institutions argue that they are either mentally ill or going against God and nature by changing their bodies to more resemble what they believe their true identity to be.

All of the formerly or currently oppressed groups have some things in common. I’ll mention just a few; their oppression was or is based on religious beliefs and prolonged by weak civil leadership. Most of these groups have discriminated against the other oppressed groups after they received their own equal rights. Women argued against the equality of Black people. The Black community voices some of the strongest opposition to Gay and Lesbian equality. Gay and Lesbian people would rather that Transgender people be left out of their civil rights movement because the public can’t wrap their heads around the Transgender struggle.

The oppression of all of these groups is either based on or made worse by religious institutions and beliefs, and allowed to continue because the constitutional ideal of the separation between church and state is not being upheld by American government. America claims to be the “land of the free”, yet Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people have more freedoms in some other countries. America claims to be the “home of the brave”, yet the politicians that this oppressed segment of America’s citizens helped elect are unwilling to stand up to religious leaders, and again define the vital separation between these institutions and civil law.

What should be the deciding fact as to who should have equality, as to who should have equal civil rights? What common denominator should be used to simplify the confusion about civil rights each time a somewhat different group appears on the horizon? The debate can forever be ended by answering just one question,

“Are they human”?

MT