From the Archives: Will the U.S. Supreme Court uphold freedom of expressive association?

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 7, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

This was my second article published on Examiner.com. Eventually I wrote about 500 articles that appeared on the now defunct news site over the six years between April 2010 and June 2016.

Will the U.S. Supreme Court uphold freedom of expressive association?
April 7, 2010 3:22 AM MST

On April 19, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. At issue is whether the University of California’s Hastings School of Law can force a student organization (the Christian Legal Society, or CLS) to accept members who do not share its core values.

The case resulted from the CLS’s preference to reserve membership to evangelical Christians who sign a statement affirming their religious and moral code, which includes a belief that sex outside of marriage is sinful and that homosexuality is also wrong.

Gay and lesbian students at Hastings objected to the CLS membership requirements, arguing that they were being excluded on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Adam Kissel Speaks at UVa
Last week at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Students for Individual Liberty and the Liberty Coalition jointly hosted a presentation by Adam Kissel of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based group that defends the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, of the press, and of association on college campuses across the United States.

Kissel was asked about the CLS case. (See the accompanying video, below, for his full response.)

The rules at the Hastings School of Law, Kissel explained, say that “every student organization has to accept all comers … even if you completely disagree with the mission, even if you are joining it simply in order to thwart what it does and vote against all its policies … and vote in all your friends as leaders, it doesn’t matter.”

This has ramifications even for political organizations, he said, noting that the president of the college Democrats received a letter that said “she had to let anybody into her group, including campus Republicans, to be a voting member or a leader of her group, and she couldn’t have in her constitution” a provision saying that “only Democrats can be campus Democrats.”

Turning to the UVa students in the audience, Kissel said: “That sounds pretty ludicrous to you, I hope.”

Who Complained?
Kissel explained that the gay and lesbian group at Hastings, called “Outlaw,” filed a complaint against CLS, “saying ‘this group is discriminating against us’ and that kind of makes sense from a discrimination point of view. Only people who believe in discriminatory policy are allowed to be voting members. Not only that, there’s a whole category of people who are very, very unlikely to be self-hating so that, even though you’re saying it’s a matter of belief, it’s kind of also a matter of status."

Kissel illustriated his point by suggesting a fictional “Anti-Semitic Appreciation Society [that], if you’re Jewish, you’re very unlikely to be anti-semitic, so you’re kind of automatically excluded.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the argument of Outlaw and the Hastings administration and ruled that CLS had to accept gay and lesbian members, even if those people do not share the core values of CLS.

How did this get to the U.S. Supreme Court? Kissel explained that “the Seventh Circuit disagrees. Fourteen Attorneys General, including the Attorney General of Virginia, disagree.”

The Supreme Court took the case because there is divided opinion at lower judicial levels. What’s more, both sides can make a compelling case.

“So you have a very strong First Amendment group on one side,” Kissel said, “and you have a very strong anti-discrimination group on the other side. Both sides have reasonable arguments.”

The FIRE has submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in CLS v. Martinez, because the organization foresees broad and deep ramifications if the Supreme Court rules against CLS.

What Is at Stake?
“My feeling is,” said Kissel, “if the Supreme Court lets this rule through, it’s going to apply not just to universities having what I call ‘unconstitutional conditions’ (which is what the Attorneys General call it), but it means any city or state could have a non-discrimination rule that applies to every fraternal organization, every organization in the country. Basically, your First Amendment right to freedom of expressive association is thrown out the window.”

He went on to say that if CLS does not prevail, it “means that any other ‘content-neutral’ rule is going to also be accepted, if it’s furthering some kind of government interest. Government has lots of interests. So I’m pretty hopeful that the Supreme Court is going to do the right thing on this one.”

Further reading:

Amicus curiae brief of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Amicus curiae brief of the Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute
Amicus curiae brief of the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute
Amicus curiae brief of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL)
Amicus curiae brief of 14 state attorneys general (including Virginia’s)

From the Archives: Virginia Enters the 20th Century -- in 2005

Nine years ago this week, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a 19th-century law that forbade cohabitation by adults who were not legally married.  The Court based its ruling, in part, on the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the Lone Star State's law against homosexual sodomy.

A few days after the Virginia Supreme Court issued its ruling in Martin v. Ziherl on January 14, 2005, I wrote about the case for The Hook, a Charlottesville weekly. (See this previous post regarding another article I wrote for The Hook on a quite different topic.)

This commentary piece was originally published on January 20, 2005, in print and on line.

Fornication 86ed: Virginia enters the Twentieth Century

By Richard E. Sincere

When the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in the otherwise obscure case of Martin v. Ziherl on January 14, it belatedly brought the Commonwealth into the 20th century.

How so? The court overturned a law dating to the early 19th century, which had not been enforced since 1847, banning sexual relations between two unmarried, consenting adults. It recognized that human beings living in Virginia have a liberty interest in protecting their private relationships from governmental interference.

While the case at hand addressed "fornication" performed by a heterosexual couple, the court made clear that, should a similar case come before it, involving two persons of the same sex and the state's sodomy law (also known as the "Crimes Against Nature," or CAN, statute), it would overturn that law, too.

The Virginia court relied almost exclusively in its reasoning on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, which said a Texas law prohibiting sexual relations between persons of the same gender was unconstitutional.

Virginia State Capitol in Richmond

Referring to the earlier federal case, Virginia Justice Elizabeth Lacy, writing for the court, stated: " ... this same liberty interest is invoked in this case when two unmarried adults make the choice to engage in the intimate sexual conduct proscribed by Code [Section] 18.2-344. Thus, as in Lawrence, the Commonwealth's interests do not warrant such encroachment on personal liberty."

In so doing, the court swept away the rationale for a raft of laws that infringe on the rights of individuals– gay or straight, single or married– to engage in private, consensual, sexual conduct. (The ruling does not affect, the court said, "the Commonwealth's police power regarding regulation of public fornication, prostitution, or other such crimes.")

The General Assembly has, on numerous occasions, considered legislation that would have had the same effect– repealing archaic laws that have no place in a liberty-loving society. Each time the state legislators had an opportunity to modernize the Virginia code's sections dealing with sexual conduct, they let it pass by. Thus it was up to the state Supreme Court to act.

Lest certain ideologues accuse the court of "judicial activism" and of being out of synch with public opinion, two points are in order:

First, the Court's opinion was squarely in line with precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court. Thus, it respected the principle of stare decisis. (According to Bouvier's Law Dictionary, "stare decisis" means "To abide or adhere to decided cases," adding in explanation, "It is a general maxim that when a point has been settled by decision, it forms a precedent which is not afterwards to be departed from.")

Second, the Court's ruling reflects public opinion rather than contradicts it.

In January 2001, Rasmussen Research, an independent polling organization, conducted a statewide survey of Virginia voters to determine knowledge and attitudes about Virginia's CAN statute and related issues. Among its findings were:

* When asked "Should it be against the law for an unmarried man and an unmarried woman to have sex in the state of Virginia?" 71.1 percent of respondents answered "no," including 67.4 percent of self-identified Republicans (those voters one would most expect to answer "yes").

* When asked "Should it be against the law for a married couple to have oral sex in the privacy of their own home?" 81.7 percent said "no" (including 78.9 percent of Republicans).

* When asked "Currently, according to Virginia law, it is illegal for consenting adults to have oral sex in the state of Virginia; a proposal has been made to eliminate the Virginia law; should the Virginia law be eliminated?" 65.2 percent answered "yes", including 61.4 percent of Republicans.

General Assembly members have often maintained, off-the-record, that they are wary of changing Virginia's laws regulating private sexual conduct, because they think they will have hell to pay on election day if they do so. But they have nothing to fear. The Rasmussen poll also asked how voters would cast their ballots for legislators who support repeal of such laws. Overall, 82.9 percent of Virginians said that they would either be more likely to vote for such legislators, or it would have no impact on their vote.

Now, some might argue that a four-year-old opinion survey may not accurately reflect the current attitudes of Virginia voters. That may be true. But it would be up to the naysayers to provide concrete, scientifically valid evidence that proves it wrong.

The court's decision is cause for celebration by all Virginians, as it has removed one more layer of government intrusiveness from our lives. We are freer today than we were on January 13, unencumbered by unconstitutional laws that strike at the heart of our most personal liberties. At the dawn of the 21st century, Virginia is finally reconciled to the 20th.

Charlottesville resident Richard Sincere is author of The Politics of Sentiment.

Accompanying the article was this sidebar from The Hook's editor, Hawes Spencer:

As for sodomy... In 1993, a Richmond area woman, Sharon Bottoms, lost custody of her two-year-old child due to her "felonious behavior": oral sex.

Closer to home, both the Charlottesville and Albemarle Police departments utilized the "sodomy" statute in 1998 to threaten citizens with felonies. In Charlottesville, the goal was ridding West Main Street of prostitution. In Albemarle, 14 men were charged for using a restrooms at the Ivy Creek Natural Area as their little pleasure palace. So how to purify the parks?

House Bill 1054 from Dave Albo (R-Springfield) would convert an old anti-fornication, anti-cohabitation statute into a ban on sex in public places.– editor

I had earlier discussed the Bottoms case in the Free Lance-Star in 2001 and in a press release from Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty in 1996.

The issue is not dead. State Senator Tom Garrett (R-Lynchburg) has introduced a bill this year that would revivify the unconstitutional "Crimes Against Nature" statute in the Virginia Code, which was invalidated by Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, by amending the notorious § 18.2-361.

Garrett's bill passed the Courts of Justice Committee in the form of a substitute (the patron apparently tried to address some of the criticisms that had been leveled at his bill) and is now before the Committee on Finance for further consideration.

The comments on this bill found on Richmond Sunlight are enlightening.

My Op-Ed About GOP Lt. Gov. Candidate E.W. Jackson

Google Alerts failed me.

For readers unfamiliar with Google Alerts, Wikipedia provides a succinct definition:

Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, offered by the search engine company Google, that automatically notifies users when new content from news, web, blogs, video and/or discussion groups matches a set of search terms selected by the user and stored by the Google Alerts service. The results are delivered as an email digest to a gmail account. The service is available to the general public as an open beta release.

I use Google Alerts to track a couple of dozen topics, including iterations on my name and an organization to which I belong, Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL).

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article that included a reference to GLIL and, of course, included my name in the byline. I submitted it to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star but never received a reply from the editor.

It came as a surprise to me when, on Sunday, I discovered by chance that the Free Lance-Star had published the piece on Sunday, July 21. In the intervening three weeks, Google Alerts never let me know about it. (Neither, for that matter, did the Free Lance-Star itself.)

E.W. Jackson and Rick Sincere

The article was about the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia, E.W. Jackson. Two days before the GOP state convention on May 18, I predicted on Coy Barefoot's radio show in Charlottesville that, of the seven candidates for lieutenant governor, two would lose on the first ballot and be dropped out of the competition: state Senator Steve Martin and E.W. Jackson.

I was half-right.

Jackson took the convention by storm and eventually got the nomination on the fourth ballot, after a good portion of delegates had left the Richmond Coliseum to go home. Nobody I know -- outside of Jackson's own group of supporters -- predicted, or could have predicted, his victory. Not even his opponents took him seriously as a rival.

That may be why some of the more eccentric statements by Jackson made prior to the convention never made it into general circulation until after he secured the nomination.

One of these instances was an interview with Peter LaBarbera on AmericansforTruth.com. Immediately after the nominating convention, people -- primarily liberal Democrats, but not exclusively so -- glommed onto his statements about gay people, such as:

Their minds are perverted, they’re frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally and they see everything through the lens of homosexuality. When they talk about love they’re not talking about love, they’re talking about homosexual sex.

That's social-conservative boilerplate, and therefore not very interesting.

What did interest me, as a non-liberal, non-progressive gay activist, were his remarks that gay men and lesbians are universally and uniformly "authoritarian" and "totalitarian":

Chesapeake clergyman E.W. Jackson said that gay men and lesbians have "an authoritarian, totalitarian spirit that has decided they know what's best for everyone."

Jackson repeated the characterization when he said: "I used two words to describe what they're trying to do: 'authoritarian' and 'totalitarian,' and I believe that. I believe that they are of a mindset that says we want to destroy, in any way we need to, anyone who dares oppose this agenda. That's a very, very dangerous approach."

Had Jackson said that "some" or even "most" gay people have these characteristics, I might have cut him some slack. I, myself, have been assailed by leftists because I'm not a liberal Democrat. One radio host even accused me, on the air, of not being gay because I didn't adhere to a liberal agenda (in that particular case, with regard to the Boy Scouts of America's pending freedom-of-association case before the U.S. Supreme Court). I retorted that both of his listeners would have reason to disagree -- but that was a long time ago.

My purpose in writing the article that appeared in the Free Lance-Star was to point out that gay men and lesbians are not monolithic in their political views and that many of us even share the basic values that Jackson claims to hold. I noted:

While there are radicals within any political movement, whether right or left, the totalitarian impulse is rare and exists only on the fringes.

Indeed, Jackson's words are at odds with the attitudes and activities of a large number of gay and lesbian Americans whose core beliefs are keenly attuned to the values of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that Jackson claims animate his own political agenda.

In the article, I mentioned three organizations that mitigate against Jackson's blinkered view: Log Cabin Republicans, Pink Pistols, and Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. Were it not for space considerations, I could also have pointed out the existence of GOProud and Outright Libertarians, or even the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL, an anti-abortion group).

It irritates me when politicians -- or anyone, for that matter -- make blanket statements about groups of individuals without having the evidence to back them up. To assert that all gay men and all lesbians are "authoritarian" or "totalitarian" is not only baseless, it's slanderous.

I concluded my Free Lance-Star article:

Whether E.W. Jackson was the right choice for the Republican Party's lieutenant governor nominee is a broader topic best left to other days and other commentators.

One thing is clear, however: His blanket condemnation of gay citizens as wanting to oppress other Americans through "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" methods lacks factual foundation. He should withdraw that accusation and acknowledge that there are many gay men and lesbians who share his fundamental desire for strong families, free markets, and smaller, less intrusive government.

The Republican party and the conservative movement are "big tents" that are, essentially, part of a broader "leave us alone" coalition. People with different backgrounds and different personal characteristics come together to elect public officials who share basic goals but who might disagree about certain issues. That's what coalition politics is all about. To exclude anyone from potential membership in that coalition is bad politics. As former Virginia Congressman Tom Davis likes to say, "politics is a game of addition, not subtraction."

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GLIL Submits Brief in Second Amendment Case

Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL), an organization with which I have been affiliated since its founding on February 12, 1991 -- yes, GLIL's anniversary is just one day away -- has submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. This is the most important Second Amendment case to reach the nation's highest court in almost 70 years.

The following news release is being distributed today by GLIL:

News Release from
Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty

Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty Submit Brief in Second Amendment Case

(WASHINGTON, February 11, 2008) – Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL) has joined with Pink Pistols in support of the Second Amendment rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Americans by filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the United States Supreme Court.

GLIL chairman Richard Sincere explained: “The brief was filed in support of Dick Anthony Heller, who sued the District of Columbia to have its draconian prohibition on private gun ownership overturned. Heller’s rights to own a gun for self-protection were upheld by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty appealed the case to the Supreme Court.”

The brief states that "Laws that prevent the use of firearms for self-defense in one's own home disproportionately impact those individuals who are targets of hate violence due to their minority status, whether defined by race, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic.… [Not] only do members of the LGBT community have a heightened need to possess firearms for self-protection in their homes, the Second Amendment clearly guarantees this most basic right. This Court should not permit the democratic majority to deprive LGBT individuals of their essential and constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in their own homes"

The brief also makes a unique argument, tying the denial of rights of gay men and lesbians to possess firearms to the statutory mandate to exclude those same citizens from military service through the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" rules:

"… Interpreting the Second Amendment as recognizing a right conditioned upon military service, where eligibility for military service is defined by the Government, prevents the Amendment from acting as any constraint on Government action at all. Such a result is contrary not only to the literal text of the Amendment, but to the intentions of the Framers. Further, in light of the current 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, such an interpretation would completely eradicate any Second Amendment right for members of the LGBT community."

A number of other organizations have also submitted amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court in this case, arguing in favor of an individual right to possess firearms, including the Cato Institute, Disabled Veterans for Self Defense, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, the Rutherford Institute, and a group of women legislators and academics.

The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, Docket No. 07-290. A copy of the Pink Pistols/GLIL brief can be accessed at http://tinyurl.com/29uqgo.

Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty was founded in February 1991 to advance the ideas of economic and personal freedom and individual responsibility. It has members across the United States and in several foreign countries. GLIL previously filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. For more information, visit http://www.glil.org or telephone [redacted].

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The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in D.C. v. Heller on March 18, 2008. A decision will be released later in the year, probably at the end of the Court's term in late June.

eDisharmony?

News from (where else?) California notes that a lesbian, fresh from the break up of her long-standing relationship, has sued the matchmaking company eHarmony.com because it did not allow her to seek another woman as a partner through its services.

The AP reports:

Linda Carlson said she tried to use the Internet site in February to meet a woman but could not based on her sexual orientation. When Carlson wrote to eHarmony to complain, the company refused to change its policy, according to the lawsuit filed on her behalf in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The lawsuit claims that by only offering to find a compatible match for men seeking women or women seeking men, the company was violating state law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

"Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age," Carlson said in a statement.

For its part, eHarmony gives a perfectly reasonable explanation for why it is unable to serve gay or lesbian clientele: It is simply not set up for it:

"The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages," a company statement said. "Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future, it's just not a service we offer now based upon the research we have conducted."

In a way, Carlson's suit is parallel to a vegetarian suing a butcher shop for not selling tofu. Or an airline for not offering ocean cruises.

More than that, though, Carlson is excruciatingly shortsighted. If she prevails in her suit -- and, given that she filed the suit within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals geographic reach, she may well do so -- then gay-oriented dating and matchmaking services (like gay.com or myPartnerPerfect.com) will have to accept straight clients on an equal basis with gay clients. That will dilute their purpose and make them less safe and inviting for the very people they are intended to serve.

As legal analyst Walter Olson (who presides at Overlawyered.com) told San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders:

Olson noted that Carlson has "a much better chance with existing dating services." But she is suing, Olson noted, because diversity and tolerance have come to mean, "It's not just that you get the choices you want, but also choices you don't approve of have to be taken away."

And: "Diversity in theory is the enemy of diversity in practice."

This case also has parallels to the Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. In the arguments leading up to that ruling, Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty contributed an amicus curiae brief that said, in part:

Gay organizations often seek exclusively gay environments. There are exclusively gay social and activity clubs, web sites, retreats, vacations, and alumni and professional organizations. Lesbian organizations and institutions, in particular, often seek to limit membership and participation. Many lesbian bars and clubs bar all men, straight men, or unaccompanied men, and many women's music festivals exclude men. Sometimes organizations have no explicit policy excluding straight people, but their names indicate that they are meant to be gay organizations, e.g. Federal Gay Lesbian or Bisexual Employees. Finally, while many organizations do not insist on an exclusively gay membership, there would be resistance to leadership by heterosexuals. For instance, gay people certainly would not wish to force a group like Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays to accept as a leader someone who was also active in Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, a group that counsels that gay people should try to become heterosexual.

Such threats are far from theoretical; at least one anti-gay group has already sued a gay parade for the right to participate and protest... For gay organizations that wish to keep consistent the ideological perspective of their leaders, and for lesbians and gay men who want to preserve spaces that are exclusively lesbian or gay, a decision in favor of the Boy Scouts will protect their ability to maintain and control their expressive associations. (pages 24-25; numerous footnotes omitted)

At bottom, one has to wonder why Linda Carlson would seek to find a partner through an organization that admittedly was ill-prepared to provide the best service for her. Wouldn't it make more sense for her to take advantage of one of the numerous web sites or social clubs that cater specifically to lesbians?

Twenty or thirty years ago, when there were limited possibilities for gay men and lesbians seeking social or romantic connections -- that is, before there was an Internet -- Carlson's disappointment at being turned down by eHarmony, and her subsequent reaction, might have made some sense. In today's world of virtually limitless possibilities, her litigiousness raises genuine questions of motive. One doesn't have to be a cynic to see that.

Update: Thanks to GayPatriot and Overlawyered.com for linking to this post!

GLIL President to Speak at Virginia Tech

The following news release (in a slightly different form) was sent out today by Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty:

News Release from
Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty
P.O. Box 3913
Charlottesville, VA 22903
www.glil.org


GLIL President to Speak at Virginia Tech on Marriage Amendment, September 14

(Blacksburg, Va., September 12, 2006) --- Richard Sincere, president of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL), will speak at Virginia Tech on Thursday, September 14, about the proposed Marshall/Newman Amendment to the Virginia state constitution (the so-called “marriage amendment”).

The event, sponsored by the Libertarians at Virginia Tech and other student organizations, will take place in the Squires Haymarket Theater from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Molly McClintock of the Commonwealth Coalition will also speak. Delegate James M. Shuler (D-12th District) will introduce the program.

Richard Sincere was the first openly gay candidate for public office in Virginia, running twice for the House of Delegates in District 49 (1991 special election and 1993 general election) and for Arlington County Treasurer (1991 general election). He has served as chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia. In addition to serving as president of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (www.glil.org), a non-partisan organization, Sincere is also vice-chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia and is the Republican member of the Electoral Board for the City of Charlottesville.

A widely published writer on public policy topics, Richard Sincere is the author of two books on U.S. policy toward Africa. He has contributed articles to the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Roanoke Times, and other newspapers. He is the entertainment editor for The Metro Herald, an African-American weekly based in Alexandria, Virginia.

The Commonwealth Coalition (www.votenova.org) is spearheading opposition to the Marshall/Newman Amendment, urging Virginians to “vote no” on Ballot Measure #1 on November 7.

In addition to the Libertarians at Virginia Tech, Thursday’s forum is cosponsored by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Alliance; Amnesty International; and the Young Democrats at Virginia Tech.

Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty was founded in February 1991 to advance the ideas of economic and personal freedom and individual responsibility. It has members across the United States and in several foreign countries. For more information, visit http://www.glil.org.

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Diverse Coalition Brings PATRIOT Act Concerns to Congress

As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence prepares to hold hearings on the sunsetting of the most egregious clauses in the USA PATRIOT Act -- passed quickly and without much deliberation in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- a diverse coalition of citizen groups has sent a letter to Committee members outlining the concerns of many Americans.

This letter certainly shows how politics makes strange bedfellows. In what room would you find, together, the conservative Rutherford Institute, the libertarian Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and American Muslim Voice? Or the Japanese American Citizens League hand-in-hand with the Korean American Coalition and the Organization of Chinese Americans?

I should note that I have written about the USA PATRIOT Act in the past, notably on April 5 and on January 1.

The letter below was coordinated by the Rights Working Group, which describes itself as "a coalition of civil rights, civil liberties, human rights and immigrant rights advocates who seek to develop a coordinated response to policies and attitudes leading to the deterioration of civil and human rights in the aftermath of 9/11."

The debate continues. Here is the letter in full:

April 18, 2005

Dear Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

While we applaud Congress’ promise to hold oversight hearings concerning the USA Patriot Act, we are concerned that Congress will focus too narrowly on that Act and ignore the broader civil rights, human rights and civil liberties issues that are of concern to our organizations and all Americans. Congress must recognize that widespread opposition to the USA Patriot Act reflects a more general discomfort over the government’s actions. It should note that the “anti-Patriot Act” resolutions passed by more than 360 communities and four states in fact deal with a wide array of issues outside the scope of the USA Patriot Act.

We urge the Congress to examine the many rights and liberties issues that have arisen since 9/ll, including the following:

*Mass secret arrests of Arabs and Muslims followed by detention for extended periods without charges, denials of access to counsel, secret hearings and, in some cases, abuse by prison guards;

*Abuse of the material witness authority to detain citizens and others without charges;

*Discriminatory enforcement of the immigration laws, leading to arbitrary detentions and deportations;

*Detentions of Americans incommunicado as “enemy combatants” without access to lawyers or the courts;

*Expanded use of secret wiretaps and secret searches of Americans’ homes and offices;

*Massive growth in surveillance technologies and authority (including the authority under the USA Patriot Act to seize library and medical records and all commercial databases) with inadequate legal protections against abuse;

*Spying on lawful political and religious activity; and

*Eavesdropping on attorney-client communications without judicial approval or oversight.

Taken together, these issues reflect a steady assault on fundamental rights and liberties that has served only to make us less free, and not more secure. With few exceptions, Congress has failed to address these issues. To the contrary, it is continuing to consider legislation, such as the REAL ID Act, that targets immigrants and asylum seekers unfairly without enhancing security. For Congress now to focus only on the concerns raised by the USA Patriot Act would be inappropriate.

Signed Organizations:

NATIONAL GROUPS:

American Civil Liberties Union
American Friends Service Committee - Washington State Office
American Immigration Lawyers Association
American Muslim Voice
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Amnesty International USA
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Center for American Progress
Center for Democracy and Technology
Center for National Security Studies
Constitutional Rights Coalition
Council of Ethics-Based Organizations associated with the Department of Public
Information, United Nations
First Amendment Foundation
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quaker)
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watch
Japanese American Citizens League
Korean American Coalition
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Mennonite Central Committee Washington State Office
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development
National Committee Against Repressive Legislation
National Council of La Raza
National Federation of Filipino American Associations
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
National Immigration Forum
Immigration Law Center
National Korean American Service & Education
National Lawyers Guild
National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement
National Organization for Women
Open Society Policy Center
Organization of Chinese Americans
People For the American Way
Progressive Librarians Guild
Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund
South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow
The Interfaith Alliance
The Multiracial Activist
The Rutherford Institute
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

LOCAL GROUPS:

Albany Bill of Rights Restoration Committee (Albany, NY)
American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado
Asian Law Caucus (San Francisco, CA)
Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
Atlanta Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (Atlanta, GA)
Bangor Area Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Bangor, ME)
Bloomington Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Bloomington, IN)
Carolina Peace Resource Center (Columbia, SC)
Chico Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Chico, CA)
Citizens for an Informed Community (Bridgewater, MA)
Citizens for Peace and Justice (Jackson County, OR)
Clatsop County Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Clatsop County, OR)
coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles
Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights (Las Vegas, Nevada)
Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights (Chicago, IL)
Concord Civil Liberties Committee (Concord, MA)
Constitutional Justice Society, Inc. (MO)
DuPage Against War Now (DuPage County, IL)
East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (Oakland, CA)
Fort Collins Bill of Rights Supporters of Fort Collins (CO)
Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (Charlottesville, VA)
Green Party of Clallam County (Clallam County, WA)
Idaho Green Party (Boise, Idaho)
Idaho Patriots (Boise, ID)
Jersey City Peace Movement (Jersey City, NJ)
Lake County Peace Action (Lake County, CA)
Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Lane County, Oregon)
Las Vegas Peace & Justice Center (Las Vegas, NV)
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (San Francisco, CA)
Missouri Voters Action Team (MO)
Montana Women for Peace (Livingston, MT)
New Hampshire Faithful Democracy (Peterborough, and Concord, NH)
New Hampshire Faithful Democracy (Peterborough, NH)
New Hampshire Unitarian Universalist Social Responsibility Department (Concord, and Littleton, NH)
New Hampshire Unitarian Universalist Social Responsibility Department (Peterborough, NH)
Nicaragua Center for Community Action (Berkeley, CA)
NYC Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (New York City, NY)
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (Huntington, WV)
Organization of Chinese Americans-South Florida Chapter (Miami, FL)
PA for Democracy (PA)
Peace Action WI (Milwaukee, WI )
Philly for Change (Philadelphia, PA)
Pittsburgh Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (Pittsburgh, PA)
Port Orford Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Port Orford, OR)
Potters for Peace (Berkeley, CA)
PRIME-Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees (Clifton Heights, PA)
Prince George Bill of Rights Defense Coalition (Prince George, MD)
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center (Boulder, CO)
SAGE (Amherst, MA)
South Asian Network
Statesmanship National Activism Project (MO)
Statesmanship Party, Inc. (MO)
SW Colorado Peace & Justice Coalition (Durango, CO)
Tacoma Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Tacoma, WA)
Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (Nashville, TN)
The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (Dearborn, MI)
The Bozeman Peace Seekers (Bozeman, Montana)
The New York Immigration Coalition (New York, NY)
The Reform Party of Missouri, Inc. (MO)
Thomas Merton Center (Pittsburgh, PA )
Watertown (MA) Citizens for Environmental Safety (Watertown, MA)
Westchester Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (Westchester, NY)
Women For: Orange County (Orange County, CA)
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Cape Cod, MA)
Worldview, Ltd. (Peterborough, NH)

A 'Dissenting' View on Gay/Lesbian 'Priorities'

GayPatriotWest links to an article in The Cornell Daily Sun by graduate student Brian Holmes, "The Language of American Values," in which he takes to task some of the tactics and positions of mainstream gay-rights organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign. Holmes writes, in part:

The national gay rights groups have issued a "unity statement," pledging to work toward "Civil Rights, Community, Movement." There are two problems with this approach. First, there is the problem of focus. These groups should be striving to ensure that gay and lesbian Americans and their families can live and work and contribute fully to society without fear of retribution by the state; this is priority one.

Good point. Too many goals set by self-styled gay-rights organizations depend on taking advantage of state action rather than opposing the intrusiveness of the state.

The "unity statement" to which Holmes refers, for instance, was coordinated by the Human Rights Campaign and lists these "common priorities" that the groups intend to pursue in the "months and years to come":

* We must fight for equal employment opportunity, benefits and protections — and the federal and state laws that safeguard them.
* We must fight against anti-LGBT violence and for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in federal hate crimes law that already protects Americans based on race, religion and national origin.
* We must fight — in both the private and public sectors — for better access to health care and insurance. We must advocate for HIV/AIDS policies — including age-appropriate, LGBT-inclusive comprehensive sexuality education — that effectively address this epidemic at home and abroad.
* We must insist on safe schools, where youth can learn free from bullying, harassment and discrimination.
* We must fight for family laws that give our children strong legal ties to their parents.
* We must work to overturn the military’s discriminatory anti-LGBT ban, which dishonors service members who serve their country with valor and distinction.
* We must continue to expose the radical right’s efforts to advance a culture of prejudice and intolerance, and we must fight their attempts to enshrine anti-gay bigotry in our state and federal laws and constitutions.
* And we must continue our vigorous fight for the freedom to marry and the equal protections, rights and responsibilities that safeguard our families, strengthen our commitments and continue to transform understanding of our lives and our relationships.

It's hard not to notice that fighting anti-gay laws is second from the bottom of the list, while expanding the federal government's role in labor-management relations is at the top, followed immediately by expanding the federal government's role in prosecuting crimes that are normally left to state and local authorities.

Believe it or not, there are gay Americans who oppose these "priorities." For instance, Reason magazine's Washington correspondent wrote in a 1999 column: "Two and a half years in Washington and I've finally found the free marketeers in the Republican Party--they're gay." Quips aside, Lynch went on to report on the substance of a Log Cabin meeting in Northern Virginia:

The second Wednesday of each month, in the basement of the Rhodeside Grill in Arlington, Virginia, anywhere from 30 to 60 gay men, a few straights, and a couple of women gather under the auspices of the Log Cabin Club of Northern Virginia. I dropped by yesterday to catch the featured talk, "Freedom for All: The Case Against Employment Non-Discrimination Laws," by Nigel Ashford, a professor of American politics in England.

I assumed they had to go all the way to England to find a gay conservative willing to argue against making homosexuality a protected class under federal discrimination law. But this hunch was wrong. The vast majority of the 40 or so gentlemen and two ladies present appeared to agree with Ashford. This puts them at odds with the national Log Cabin Club and probably every other gay advocacy organization.

Bookended by a dartboard and a TV showing local news, Nigel began his talk by saying he had 15 minutes to give 12 reasons why the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), was a bad thing. "Start with a principle," he said. It is wrong to discriminate, but it is wrong to force people not to discriminate. Since he has no right to a particular job, being denied it is not a denial of his rights. Said Nigel, "Even bigots have rights."

Nigel then laid out three more specific reasons to oppose ENDA: It's a threat to civil liberties, to society as a whole, and to gays. "It is intended to increase opportunity, but perversely, and I said perversely, not perversity, it will have the opposite effect," he said. This is because employers will be less likely to hire openly gay individuals if they fear they cannot let them go without risking a lawsuit.

So what is the proper agenda for politically active gays? Gays should work for equality before the law, Ashford said, by attacking sodomy laws and promoting gay marriage, gays in the military, and gay adoption laws. That's not exactly a Republican agenda, but then, Ashford has the benefit of being British.

Not everyone agreed with Ashford's libertarianism. A dissenter said he supported equality and therefore he wanted to be equal with minorities and women. Someone else in the audience clapped. Nigel answered that such group rights were damaging to America, adding that he thinks anti-discrimination laws for other groups should be abolished as well.

And then there's the question of hate crime laws. A lot of gay Republicans, I'll admit, support this sort of thing. But gay libertarians do not. In my capacity as president of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, I wrote a column in reaction to the horrible murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in October 1998. Picked up by the Houston Chronicle, the article was spotted by Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who inserted it in the Congressional Record. Here is how it appeared there:

HATE CRIMES AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS -- (BY RICHARD E. SINCERE, JR.) (Extension of Remarks - October 16, 1998)


HON. RON PAUL
in the House of Representatives
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1998

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues in Congress as well as citizens everywhere an article authored by Richard Sincere, Jr., President of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. Mr. Sincere aptly describes how the very essence of hate crimes undermines a pillar of a free and just society; that is, equalt reatment under the law irrespective of which particular group orgroups with whom an individual associates. Ours is a republic based upon the rights of the individual.


[FROM THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, OCT. 14, 1998]
(BY RICHARD E. SINCERE, JR.)

The wicked murder of Matthew Shepard by two thugs, assisted by two equally contemptible accomplices, has resurrected a debate about the need for hate-crime laws.

Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student who had been widely praised for his talents, ambitions, and personality, last week was beaten senseless and left for dead, tied up like a scarecrow along a fence on a little-traveled country road. Miraculously, he was found by passers-by many hours after the attack, still struggling for life when he was rushed to a hospital in Fort Collins, CO, where he died Monday while on life support.

Local law enforcement officials in Laramie, WY, where the crime took place, quickly arrested the alleged perpetrators--two men who performed the assault and two women who helped them hide their deed--and it looks like they will be punished to the full extent the law allows if they are convicted. With Shepard's death, they face a possible death sentence.

Laramie, a university community of 27,000 people, is feeling both shame and outrage, a sentiment shared by all right-minded people throughout the country, indeed around the world. News of this brutal assault has appeared everywhere in print and broadcast media.

The crime against Shepard has renewed calls for passing hate-crime legislation, both in Wyoming and nationwide. Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer and President Bill Clinton have said that this attack shows the need for such laws.

This would be a mistake. It would be a mistake because hate-crimel aws, however well intentioned, are feel-good laws whose primary result is thought control, violating our constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of conscience. It would be a mistake because it suggests that crimes against some people are worse than crimes against others. And it would be a mistake because it uses a personal tragedy, deeply felt by Shepard's family and friends, to advance a political agenda.

Hunter College Professor Wayne Dynes, editor of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, notes that hate-crimel aws, if they are to be applied in a constitutional manner, must be content-neutral. He notes this example: "Countless numbers of people, aware of the unspeakable atrocities under his leadership, hated Po lPot. This hate was surely well warranted. If one of the Pol Pot haters had killed him, would this be a hate crime ? Why not?"

Dynes adds: "In seeking to exculpate the killer, we would get into the question of whether some hate is 'justified' and some is not." He concludes that hate-crime prosecutions "will be used to sanction certain belief systems--systems which the enforcer would like, in some Orwellian fashion, to make unthinkable. This is not a proper use of law."

Under our system of justice, everyone is equal before the law. Those accused of crimes are entitled to certain constitutional protection, which we must cherish, and the victims of a crime--whether a Bill Gates or the poorest street-sweeper in a slum--are entitled to the same respect. (In the Middle Ages, the law required a greater punishment for killing a rich man or noble than it did for killing a peasant or a laborer. Our law recognizes no such distinctions.)

So, too, with class- or group-based distinctions. Is it worse to kill a man because he is foreign-born than it is to kill him to steal his car? Is it worse to kill a woman because she is black tha nbecause she cut you off in traffic? Is it worse to beat up a fat sissyboy if the bullies think their victim is gay, or if they dislike him because he is fat? Crime is crime; assault is assault. All deserve punishment.

Hateful thoughts may be disagreeable, but they are not crimes in themselves. The crimes that result from hateful thoughts--whetherv andalism, assault, or murder--are already punishable by existing statutes.

In a speech at the University of Texas last year [1997], libertarian activist Gene Cisewski said: "We should be anti-violence, period. Any act of violence has to be punished swiftly and severely and it shouldn't matter who the victim is. The initiation of force is wrong and it doesn't matter why--the mere fact you had a motive is enough."

Cisewski acknowledged the good intentions of those who propose hate-crime laws. He noted that "the reason for the call for (such laws) comes from bad enforcement of the laws." Police and prosecutors have been willing to look the other way when victims came from unfavored groups. Luckily, in the Shepard case, the authorities seem unwavering in their prosecution. This is, unfortunately, not always the case.

The answer, Cisewski suggested, and I agree, is that "we hold every law enforcement official and every court official who administers justice to the standard that every American is guaranteed equal protection under the law."

Hate-crime laws set up certain privileged categories of people, defined by the groups to which they belong, and offers them unequal protection under the law. This is wrong. It is sad to see a young man's personal misfortune used by various special-interest groups to advance such an agenda.

We are all shocked and dismayed by the assault on Shepard. Such brutality cannot, should not be countenanced. Let us not multiply the crimes of his attackers by writing bad law in response.

GLIL -- Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty -- also set itself apart, and proudly so, in 2000, when it was the only gay organization to submit a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court's case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. That is, we were the only gay organization to submit an amicus curiae brief arguing that the Boy Scouts had the right, under constitutional guarantees of free association, to set their own membership and hiring policies even if that meant excluding gay Scouts and Scoutmasters. While we decried the policy, we defended the Boy Scouts right to be wrong.

The brief can be found here (in PDF format). This is the news release that GLIL used to make its position more widely known:

Gay Organization Praises Supreme Court Ruling That Favors Boy Scouts
"Freedoms of Association and Expression Were Protected Today," GLIL Leader Asserts

(WASHINGTON, June 28, 2000) --- The president of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL) today praised the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says the Boy Scouts of America are free to choose their own leaders, even if it means excluding gay men as Scoutmasters.

Richard Sincere, president of GLIL since February 1998, stated that his organization was pleased that "by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court recognizes that freedom of expressive association is protected under the U.S. Constitution. Despite what others might say, this is a victory for the rights of gay men and lesbians to form groups, gather for expressive purposes, and pursue their own visions of happiness with freedom and dignity."

GLIL had filed an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, arguing that the Boy Scouts of America have a constitutional right to set their own standards for membership and leadership positions, even if that means the Boy Scouts may exclude openly gay Scout leaders from participation in the organization.

Sincere said GLIL leaders were pleased that Chief Justice Rehnquist seemed to follow the reasoning in the group's brief when he wrote that: "We are not, as we must not be, guided by our views of whether the Boy Scouts' teachings with respect to homosexual conduct are right or wrong; public or judicial disapproval of a tenet of an organization's expression does not justify the State's effort to compel the organization to accept members where such acceptance would derogate from the organization's expressive message."

"Our brief had emphasized our disagreement with the Boy Scouts' policy of excluding gay members and leaders," said Sincere, a former Boy Scout himself. "But if government forces the Boy Scouts to change that policy, the constitutional rights of all of us -- not just the Scouts, but everyone, gay or straight -- will be diminished. Freedom does not belong only to those with whom we agree. Gay men and lesbians have suffered when freedom of association has not been respected. We benefit when freedom of speech and freedom of association are vigorously protected. A Supreme Court ruling against the Boy Scouts would have had the perverse effect of hurting gay and lesbian Americans."

GLIL's brief before the Supreme Court was prepared by the Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based public-interest law firm. GLIL's amicus brief is available on-line at http://www.gayliberty.org.

Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty was founded in February 1991 to advance the ideas of economic and personal freedom and individual responsibility. It has members across the United States and in several foreign countries.

As a final example of work I've done in the past to demonstrate that the words "gay" and "liberal" are not synonymous, I offer this article that appeared (by invitation of the editors) in the Virginia Advocate, a conservative student publication at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In it, I try to show that it is possible to be gay and conservative or gay and libertarian without suffering from psychic dissonance.

You Think You're Gay?

You do have a choice (of political affiliation)

by Richard E. Sincere, Jr., GLIL President, April 2001, vol XXV, no. 2

On Easter Sunday, 2000, members of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL) participated in a protest in front of the White House, demonstrating their disdain for the previous day's kidnapping of Elián Gonzalez by heavily armed government thugs, in a pre-dawn raid at the behest of Attorney General Janet Reno.

So far as we know, no other gay organization took the time to protest this particularly vicious manifestation of the heavy hand of government. Sadly, this example explains why, for many Americans, their gay compatriots have been stereotyped as belonging to one, monolithic political category: liberal Democrats. This simply is not the case. Like all Americans, gay men and lesbians hold a wide range of views on political, social, and economic issues. For various reasons, however, the images presented by the media-and reinforced by some conservative activists-tend to favor the liberal Democratic pigeonhole.

GLIL, a non-partisan organization founded in 1991, is one of the alternatives that represent some politically aware gay Americans. In February 2000, GLIL filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Boy Scouts of America have a constitutional right to set their own policies for selecting leaders, even if this means excluding openly gay scoutmasters. Freedom of association, GLIL argued, is of paramount importance to gay Americans. If the Boy Scouts lost their case, gay people would end up losing, too.

In a speech sponsored by Students for Individual Liberty at the University last spring, GLIL executive vice president Odell Huff noted that "only through our ability to freely associate with one another" are gay people "able to come to terms with our own sexuality, deal with the social hostility we inevitably face, create safe places for ourselves where we can feel comfortable and secure, and meet one another so that we might form happy and stable relationships."

Over the past ten years, GLIL has sponsored forums on our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms; on why the Food and Drug Administration should allow people to choose to use home-testing kits for HIV; and, as early as 1991, in a debate between Andrew Sullivan of the New Republic and Tom Palmer of the Institute for Humane Studies, on the question of equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian citizens.

GLIL also sponsored a debate on hate-crimes laws some six years before the murder of Matthew Shepard brought the issue to national prominence and, at the time of Shepard's murder, an article explaining GLIL's opposition to hate-crimes laws was reprinted in the Congressional Record.

GLIL members oppose laws like the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which interfere with the rights of employers and workers to decide conditions of employment but also support the rights of gay and lesbian Americans to serve openly in the military.

GLIL is not a lonely non-left voice in the gay and lesbian world. There is also the Independent Gay Forum, which publishes the views of a wide range of non-left writers such as U.S. Representative Jim Kolbe, Jonathan Rauch, Jennifer Vanasco, Norah Vincent, Bruce Bawer, and others.

On January 19, 2001, the Republican Unity Coalition was launched, as a gay-straight alliance for Republican activists. Former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming emceed the breakfast, which featured U.S. Representative Tom Davis (R-Va.) as a speaker. Davis stated the obvious: "Politics is about addition, not subtraction," pointing out that if the Republican Party wants to win elections, especially in toss-up suburban areas, it must not exclude any potential voters or activists.

And, of course, there are the Log Cabin Republicans, who have been active in Virginia politics since 1997. The Log Cabin Republican Club of Northern Virginia is now spinning off clubs in Central Virginia and Hampton Roads.

Michael Lynch of Reason magazine wrote of the group: "Two and a half years in Washington, and I've finally found the free marketeers in the Republican Party-they're gay." Former Prince William County GOP chairman Bill Kling noted that LCRC/NoVa meetings are "fast becoming a 'must' campaign stop for many GOP candidates."

So there are alternatives for politically active gay and lesbian Americans. If you're gay, you do have a choice. You are not stuck in an endless, downward spiral of socialism, irresponsibility, and dependency. You can embrace free minds and free markets instead.

Charlottesville resident Richard Sincere is president of the Washington-based Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (www.glil.org).