SETTING RIGHT LGBTQ RIGHTS

In the current social and political turmoil, few issues are more divisive and cause more controversy than issues related to the rights of sexual minorities and gender dissidents. The polarizing impact of these issues is really astounding given the size of these two groups. Obviously, controversies over gender and sexuality have touched the nerve in wide segments of the population. Explanations for this divisiveness generally focus on either the recalcitrance of conservatives or on the recklessness of progressive advocates of change. This article questions these explanations. It sees the main problem in the very approach used by groups on both sides of the divide. The LGBTQ community uses the human rights approach. In this approach, the rights of sexual minorities and gender non-conformists emerge as absolute, universal, and thus non-negotiable. The opponents of the LGBTQ agenda use universalistic claims of their own, usually centered on religion. These opposing claims make the controversy irresolvable. The dominant view of human rights is that they are absolute, universal, and non-negotiable. They have roots in human nature that is also regarded as absolute and universal. The article offers an analysis of human nature and defines its fundamental properties. The conclusion that follows from this analysis is that only rights that protect these fundamental properties can properly be defined as human rights. These properties make human rights absolute, universal, and non-negotiable. Other types of rights (for example, civil rights or the rights related to self-expression) are important but they are not absolute and universal; consequently, they are negotiable. The tendency to assign the status of absolute and universal to rights that are not related to fundamental properties of human nature is what makes conflicts over LGBTQ rights irresolvable. The article outlines a new approach to the rights of sexual minorities and gender non-conformists that would avoid the trap of absolutism and universalism. Through understanding of the process of creation that is central to human relationship with reality and, consequently, to human nature will make possible a realistic approach toward LGBTQ rights and will help create a more effective strategy for protecting these rights. The article also looks at sexuality education as an important contributor to the controversies related to gender and sexuality.