What rights could i get if i were gay

Our privacy statement is changing. Changes will be in effect July 31, The struggle of LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for equal rights has moved to center stage. LGBT people are battling for their civil rights in Congress, in courtrooms and in the streets. Well-known figures are discussing their sexual orientation in public.

Gay and lesbian people are featured in movies and on television - not as novelty characters, but as full participants in society. Despite these advances into the American mainstream, however, LGBT people continue to face real discrimination in all areas of life. No federal law prevents a person from being fired or refused a job on the basis of sexual orientation.

The nation's largest employer - the U. Mothers and fathers lose child custody simply because they are gay or lesbian, and gay people are denied the right to marry. One state even tried to fence lesbians and gay men out of the process used to pass laws. In Colorado enacted Amendment 2, which repealed existing state laws and barred future laws protecting lesbians, gay men and bisexuals from discrimination.

The U. Supreme Court struck it down in the landmark Romer v. Evans decision. We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.

Evans I. During a typical "raid," police tried to arrest people for their mere presence at a gay bar, but the patrons of the Stonewall Inn fought back - and the gay rights movement was launched. Using many of the grass-roots and litigation strategies employed by other 20th century activists, gay rights advocates have achieved significant progress:.

But the increased empowerment of LGBT people has brought about even more open and virulent anti-gay hostility:. Inafter more than two decades of support for lesbian and gay struggles, the American Civil Liberties Union established a national Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.

Working in close collaboration with the ACLU's affiliates nationwide, the Project coordinates the most extensive gay rights legal program in the nation. Increasing opposition from a well-organized, well-funded coalition of radical extremists and fundamentalists promises many battles and challenges ahead.

The struggle for legal equality for LGBT people rests on several fundamental constitutional principles.

LGBTQ Rights

Equal protection of the law is guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and reinforced by hundreds of local, state and federal civil rights laws. Although the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified at the end of the Civil War, was designed to ensure legal equality for African Americans, Congress wrote it as a general guarantee of equality, and the courts have interpreted the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender, religion and disability.

The right to privacy, or "the right to be left alone," is guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. InGriswold v. Connecticut struck down a state law that prohibited married couples from obtaining contraceptives, citing "zones of privacy.

Virginia decriminalized interracial marriage. The Eisenstadt v. Baird decision recognized unmarried persons' right to contraceptives.