This post was submitted by Michael

There have been two instances in the news recently where institutions have opted to deny everyone the right to something than allow a queer person to participate in it with a same-sex partner.  First, the DC Archdiocese has decided to no longer offer Catholic Charities employees the option of covering their spouses on their health insurance.  Second, a Mississippi school district decided to cancel prom rather than allow a female student to bring a same-sex date.

You know what, I just don’t get it.  In the case of Catholic Charities, this is a solution to a months-long dialog about how the church can continue to provide its services to the public without sacrificing the teachings of the church by acknowledging and therefore validating same-sex marriages.  How do those two things connect, really?  In the comments on the Washington Post article, one reader suggested that allowing spousal benefits to someone who had been divorced and remarried would sanction those unions as well, which are also against the teachings of the church.  I agree.  Do they care if someone got remarried?  And why should they?

I think the prom situation is even odder.  The school has no moral teachings, as it’s a public and non-parochial school.  Shouldn’t our publicly funded educational institutions be accommodating the diverse student body?  Rather than fight it in court (where they’d likely lose), they just up and cancel the whole thing, allowing individual students or a group of them to throw their own prom “privately” where the organizers can exclude anyone they wish to.  Now everyone is going to blame this girl for ruining prom, which sets her up for potentially viscous attacks from her angry classmates.  Way to go, school board.

What I simply can’t understand is that these institutions are incapable of learning from history.  Conservatives always eventually lose their battles, it seems:  women’s rights, civil rights for persons of color, abortion…  Why should queer rights be any different?  Perhaps they’re aware of their eventual failure, but won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that they didn’t do everything remotely conceivable to prevent the eventual liberalization of society.

In looking over that list of rights that have been hard-won over the previous century, I can’t help but think that queer rights are more analogous to abortion than the other set.  Abortion is a very controversial topic that is still being fought by the church and other conservative groups.  People still flood the national mall on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  Doctors who perform abortions are still getting shot. Perhaps we’ll have a much longer struggle to acquire and maintain full queer rights.  We shouldn’t take too much joy in the small/local victories until it’s clear that our rights are as acknowledged and undeniable as those of any other minority group.  I’m up for it.

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