Gay American “Deviance”: Using International Comparative Analysis to Argue for a Free Speech and Establishment Clause Approach to Furthering Gay Marriage in the United States
Source: Yale Law School Student Scholarship Series

Thus far, Fourteenth Amendment antisubordination frameworks have been heavily explored by gay rights activists. However, while sexual minorities in many post-colonial nations are living as second-class citizens who cannot vote and do not have access to education, the LGBT (lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender) community in the United States have never been denied these rights. On the other, many non-Western countries have a long-standing, culturally-established tradition of same-sex marriage, which many gay people are seeking to establish in the United States. However, internationally, this institution exists to counterbalance economic and gender antisubordination, and not as an expression of the personal identity and love American gays wish to convey through legalized marriage.

In this paper, I espouse a First Amendment approach to gay marriage rights by contrasting queers in America to sexual minorities abroad who are better suited for traditional antisubordination protection, as well as to sexual minorities abroad who have less of a need for expressive freedoms and for protection from state-supported conversion or eradication. In addition, I will construct comparisons between queers and religious minorities, both of whom are considered deviant in the United States. I will thereby utilize various contrasts and analogies to highlight the important categorization of queer people in the United States as deviant in the eyes of the moral majority, and to therefore argue for a narrowly-focused First Amendment-based Freedom of Expression and Establishment Clause approach for procuring gay marriage in the United States.

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Intelligence Report: The Year in Hate
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center

Energized by the rancorous national debate on immigration and increasingly successful at penetrating mainstream political discourse, the number of hate groups in America continued to grow in 2006, rising 5% over the year before to 844 groups.

That increase translated into a 40% jump in the number of groups since 2000, when there were 602 hate groups operating in America, according to research by the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Much of the expansion has been driven by hate groups’ exploitation of the issue of illegal immigration, which most Americans see as a pressing concern.

Last year’s hate group growth came despite continuing disarray on the neo-Nazi scene, with various relatively weak groups vying for dominance; a series of embarrassments including the arrests of two key leaders; the deaths of many stalwarts of the white supremacist old guard; signs of a splintering skinhead alliance; and the absence of any single major group working to unify the others.

See also: Sharing the Hate — Video-Sharing Websites Become Extremist Venue