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first...the US doesn't have "basic" human rights in terms of being free to be a person of queer sexual orientation. While the SCOTUS did affirm a right to privacy, including the sphere of who you go to bed with, the make up of the court is changing.
secondly, any equal rights legislation on the books nationally does not include orientation.
none of this means i think the lynchings are coming tomorrow. indeed, the discussion stays (largely) within the civil sphere. which is why i stay here in the frozen north of minnesota, and not a few more miles north.
the point i was trying to make is that this execution was politics of exclusion. ills, real or imagined, are cast on to a group or individual. that individual is removed from the sphere of group participation by a variety of means. here, the mechanism is usually ostracism and discrimination. there, it's loop of rope.
important, and indeed critical differences in practical effect. but the problem i see is that we're not removed from that situation in kind. According to leading figures in the American political right, "the gays" this and "the gays" do that...and all the while i have to wonder what the average person thinks of queers as a gut reaction.
in this thread we've seen comparisions of adult consensual sex to pedophilia, analogies involving drug trafficking, and a whole host of canards that are told about queers to make them seem less human. while we have largely removed homocidal violence from the vocabulary of the opposition, queer rights advocates have legitimate reason to worry that we're being perceived as a threat and a menace, something that needs to be cast out of American life.
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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-John 3:16
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