Letter to Editor

Lozano’s article explains Governor Doyle’s intent to one day offer these same sex benefits to state employees, the potential cost of implementing such benefits currently rendering the idea prohibitive. The state’s $5.7 billion deficit and myriad budget cuts are included as support. Lozano goes on to say that "the time doesn’t seem right at this point" but that "the proposition for domestic partnerships should not be forgotten."

The time for civil rights is always right now. It demands expediency.

To imply that the civil rights of any people are subject to budget constraints is nothing less than grotesque. On the contrary, a government can’t afford not to place civil rights battles above such disgraceful excuses. Consider our history: imagine the outrage if African Americans were prevented from entering white schools on account of the money needed for all those extra books. Imagine if women were told that the government supported their right to vote, if only the cost of all those extra ballots weren’t prohibiting the actual process. To pardon any government’s refusal to acknowledge a minority’s basic civil rights-- those rights to be enjoyed by the rest of the population-- by citing a burdened fiscal deficit, is beyond shameful. I offer this: any financial deficit is but a teardrop in the raging torrent of moral deficiency should the rights of gay men and women continue to be deferred. Like the Black civil rights movement and the Suffragist movement before it, the gay civil rights movement has righteousness on its side. It will refuse to be gagged, sequestered, or postponed by the same tired arguments slung whenever one group attempts to subjugate another with myopic vitriol in the guise of sensible politics or exclusionary religion. We will not be sated with half-measures or ersatz equivalents.

  Rest assured, our rights are coming.

Very Sincerely,

 Undergraduate/English Literature