While the promoters of homosexual rights seek to place their demands within the context of the larger civil rights movement, several factors reveal this to be both misguided and duplicitous. First, homosexuals as a group do not demonstrate the characteristics which identify other disenfranchised classes such as racial minorities. Neither of these traits are innate or immutable. Both are subject to rational moral censure and, therefore, do not constitute a sufficient basis for legal protection. Third, the courts have remained firm in their stance that there is such a thing as legitimate discrimination.
Criminals represent the most obvious example.
While they do share at least one identifiable trait, committing criminal acts, the nature of that trait does not qualify as basis for special protection. While discrimination on the basis of race or gender have no rational defense, the same does not hold for homosexual behavior, which demonstrates serious harmful personal and social consequences. 2 Individual homosexuals have all the fundamental rights accorded to every citizen of the United States. But neither does anyone else have such a right. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that the general public is not entitled to protection against all instances of derogatory speech, since freedom of speech is a more basic right.