Why has the gay rights movement taken so long to provide the LGBT community with equal rights? I believe there are many reasons for this, but one that is often unnoticed is US foreign policy. It is true that homosexual acceptance in this country faces the obstacle of the religious right, aggressive masculinity, and the American tradition of sexual repression. Yet, other groups seeking political rights and the freedom of state repression throughout our history did not encounter such a long and arduous movement. In comparison to ethnic minorities, there is a huge difference, which is the physical aspect. You can clearly tell if someone is a racial minority, but aside from openly deviant people in the LGBT community, it is impossible to point out someone's sexuality just by looking at them. Certainly that is a huge difference because if you're a racial minority you cannot hide that and you will may face harsh discrimination. For many sexual minorities, they can hide the fact that they are a sexual minority from their family, peers, and community, and even more tragically from themselves. This creates psychological results that can be just as damaging as being open and physically discriminated against. The surge in suicides for sexual minorities demonstrates this idea.
Sexual minorities have always been with us, and in America they are now more out in the open than ever. They recently won the right to serve openly in the military. African Americans won equal military rights in the 1940s (This is of course merely legal equality because there are still institutional forces that discriminate against homosexuals and blacks in the military. For one, the percentage of minorities serving the military as opposed to whites really highlights how we are not even close to economic equality in terms of race, but I'm strictly talking legal equality). The next step in many LBGT minds is marriage equality. There have been big strides in the last ten years, but the process is still very slow compared to other civil rights movements.
A contributing factor is that there is no foreign policy incentive for the American government to grant equality for the LBGT community. The Civil Rights Act was in part adopted by our government as a Cold War policy. The pressure African Americans were putting on the US government was an embarrassment to America in the international community. Especially with African and Asian leaders. In 1954 when Nixon was Vice President and on a tour of Asia he described an incident where an Indian legislator “derived an unfavorable impression of America because he visited a city in which he got on a bus and the bus driver made him move to the back of the bus because his skin was not white.” This was an utter embarrassment to American officials, and there are many cases like that. Although, not the sole reason for black civil rights, it certainly played a role in the US government's push forward for civil rights. Lyndon Johnson, who signed the civil rights act as President, was against the act while he was in congress. He was not a benevolent sympathizer for civil rights. It was politically a good move domestically as well as foreign for support of the US Cold War agenda.
Is there any foreign policy reason why the US government should give equal rights for the LGBT community? There is no homosexual country (although, many ignorant Americans would say France, or some other European country without a stick its ass is a “homosexual country.” Irony not intended.) Further, the parts of the world that the US is trying to grab into its sphere of influence is not very tolerant of sexual minorities either. A few years ago the Iranian president assured us that there were no homosexuals in his country, to which a friend of mine retorted “because you stoned all of them to death.” Any cursory look at current US foreign policy would show that we are in somewhat of a cold war with Iran over the influence in the Middle East. Iran is not alone in the stoning of homosexuals. Saudi Arabia, our biggest financial ally in the region not only holds contempt for sexual minorities, but has the worst track record for its treatment of women. There is no international embarrassment for our treatment of homosexuals because the battle for gender and sexual equality is international. I'm not saying the US government will only grant equality for the LGBT community if it tries to take resources from a country that is completely accepting of all sexualities, but I do think without that incentive the battle in the US for equal rights will be long and arduous still. The bright side is that on the state level over the last several years sexuality rights are leaving the bigots behind. The problem here is for LGBT people living in the bible belt. That is why we need to continue to push, not only our governments, but our communities, and schools to accept and welcome all types of people into our lives. The Civil Rights Act in itself did not end discrimination and prejudice in our country, it still haunts us, but despite some of the rhetoric going around we are much less hateful than we were in the 1950s, and as long as we communicate with one another and work LGBT issues into our national consciousness we will continue to grow as a species and be able to transform hate into love while we continue the struggle for economic and political equality for all.
