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Human Rights Symposium 2006 A Glance at Systematic Violation of Human Rights in Iran
Date: January 27, 2007 Location: University of Toronto, Hart House
Report produced by Sima Sahar Zerehi Shahrvand Publications
On January 27, 2007 the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO) hosted a symposium which highlighted the systematic marginalization, stigmatization and violation of basic human rights in Iran. Although Iran’s queer communities were the main focus of this historic one day symposium, many speakers also addressed other form of discrimination based on gender, language, ability, political belief and religious affiliation.
The symposium which took place at the University of Toronto attracted a list of notable speakers including two key note speakers, Barbara Hall the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Hedy Fry the Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre. Other speakers included prominent Iranian scholars, human rights activists and writers such as Dr. Reza Baraheni (University of Toronto), Dr. Shahrzad Mojab (University of Toronto), Dr. Haideh Moghissi (York University), Dr. Ezzat Mosallanejad (Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture), Marina Nemat (author) and Raha Bahreini (Human Rights Activist). The symposium also featured a number of speakers from prominent queer rights/human rights groups such as Jessica Stern from Human Rights Watch – New York, El-Farouk Khaki from the Queer Muslim Organization, and Adrian Coman from the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC – New York).
Introduction to PGLO and IRQO
IRQO, the organization that spearheaded this conference begun as a small collective called the Rainbow Group which was formed over the internet in 2001. The group’s members corresponded by e-mail in the hope of building alliances and creating solidarity among Iranian homosexual, Bisexual and Transgender people. As its membership increased, the Rainbow Group evolved, in 2003, the group changed its name to Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO) to reflect the inclusion of Iranian lesbians in the group’s mandate. The following March, PGLO launched its official website (www.pglo.net) with great success. Three months after the website launched, it averaged 150 users per day. Like many other progressive Iranian web resources, this website was soon banned by the Islamic Government of Iran as part of their ongoing campaign of censorship.
In 2003, a year declared “the Year of Cultural Awareness for LGBT Iranians,” the group focused its attention inwards and focused on community self-education and awareness projects. The year culminated in the publication of a regular monthly online magazine for LGBT Iranians, helping to foster a sense of LGBT Iranian culture. The next year the group focused outward and started to work on an international level, they established a Human Rights Commission and began to advocate on behalf of LGBT Iranian refugees as well as working in collaboration with other international groups to assists LGBTQ refugees on a global scale.
Although the majority of the affiliates and allies of PGLO remain in Iran, and the focus of the group is to advocate on behalf of Iranian LGBTQ communities, it was impossible under the restrictive control of the Islamic Republic of Iran to register the group there. Hence, PGLO became a registered organization in Norway; IRQO is formerly Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization in Canada.
During the short time that IRQO has been organizing, it has made tremendous strides including the publication of Cheraq (Light), a Farsi language magazine for LGBT Iranians and allies, as well as broadcasting a weekly radio program called RAHA (Liberated), which is also available via satellite.
Mandate of Symposium
The aim of IRQO in this conference was to create a collaborative space where Human Rights defenders and organizations could meet and strategize in order to be able to advocate more effectively for human rights in Iran, a country known for its systemic human rights abuses. Expert panelists came together to discuss the current status of Iranian people living on the margins of Iranian social, political, religious, ethnic, linguistic, sexual, and gender lines. The symposium also explored the myriad of ways in which these categories are legally, culturally and socially constructed so as to perpetuate and maintain further isolation, marginalization and discrimination.
Iranian law has a long track record of denying equal rights to women, persecuting political dissidents and civil and human rights activist, discriminating against religious minorities, denying ethnic and linguistic minorities the right to their mother tongues, widely using the death penalty particularly on minors and defining homosexuality as a crime punishable by death to name a few.
In his introductory remarks Arsham Parsi the Executive Director of IRQO and the main force behind the conference spoke about the exclusion of the Iranian LGBTQ communities within broader Iranian human rights struggles. Dr. Victoria Tahmasebi one of the directors of IRQO also echoed Parsi’s comments in her introductory remarks, stressing that no human rights campaign is complete if it is not informed by the struggle of all oppressed groups, and that the broader mobilizations against war and for civil and human rights in Iran must be informed by the resistance of Queer Iranians.
Niaz Salimi, one of the directors of IRQO and the moderator of the first panel spoke about the need for all Iranians to “come out of our traditional closets and acknowledge the reality of queer people in our communities,” she stated that LGBTQ Iranians “are real, they exist and contrary to the rumors of them being aliens, they are part of our families and communities; they are our sisters, brothers or even our own children.” She closed with a quote from novelist Milan Kundera and said that the aim was to gain “Maximum Diversity in Minimum Space.”
Park of Lonely Benches
The symposium begun with a short award winning film by Mirkhail Petrenko titled Park of Lonely Benches. The film documented the chasm between a young gay Iranian man living in Canada and his estranged mother played by Anousha Alamian, who had come from Iran after her husband’s death in order to re-connect with her son. The film was a moving representation of the existing realities faced by queer Iranians, and the impossible struggle to maintain queer identity within the oftentimes intolerant socio-cultural Iranian communities. This moving mini-drama set the tone for the conference and showcased the lived daily struggle of the community.
Panel One
Human Rights in Ontario – Barbara Hall
She also spoke about the ongoing debate about competing minority rights and cases where religious minorities argued that extending rights for LGBTQ communities would mean violating their freedoms. She stated her firm belief that when it came to competing rights, extending the rights of one group does not mean limiting the rights of others. Citing a 2002 case where printing services where refused to a queer group based on the religious beliefs of the printer, she concludes that the courts ruled that it is reasonable to limit freedom of religion in some cases.
Hall highlighted many of the gains made by LGBTQ communities in Ontario including the recognition of same-sex relationships as part of the definition of common-law relationships which includes access to health benefits, employment benefits, and spousal support, She also referenced the newly gained rights to marriage for same sex couples in 2004, which made Canada one of only four nations in the world to legalize same-sex marriages.
While focusing on the success, she also acknowledged that there is still a great deal more work that needs to be done in Canada and more specifically in Ontario in order to ensure equality for all regardless of sexual orientation. She cited the ongoing work on issues such as newborn birth registration for same-sex couples which still only allow space for a mother and father, eliminating the possibility of non-heterosexual family units as one such example.
The Right to Claim Rights in Iranian Political and Civic Life – Dr. Haideh Moghissi
Dr. Haideh Moghissi is a professor of sociology in the School of Social Sciences at York Universities Atkinson Faculty and the Faculty of Graduate Studies. She is also Chair of the Executive Committee of Centre for Feminist Research and a member of the Executive Committee of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University. She was a founding member of the Iranian National Union of Women as well as a member of its first executive and editorial boards, before leaving Iran in 1984. She has published numerous articles as well as books, the most recent being Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture, Identity published by London: Routledge (2006).
Dr. Moghissi began by congratulating IRQO, she stated “It always takes courage and sense of confidence to publically claim the right to be different against the normative expectations in any society, but particularly if you are from a society in which legal and formal structures, social and cultural norms, and religious beliefs impose uniformity and sameness on people and brutally punishes those who transgress.” She went on to fraim her discussion within Hanna Arennt’s concept of “rights to claim rights” in order to highlight the lack of equal rights for citizens in Iran. She explained
“citizenship rights should not be reduced to having a birth certificate or a passport, or the rights to property ownership, to civil service, vote, etc. It includes (or should include) equal right to participate in law making and major decision making processes by which we will be affected.”
She noted that when considering this definition of citizenship rights Iranians living under Sharia law “do not enjoy full citizenship rights in their homeland . . . And this is more than anything else results from the nature of the Islamic state in Iran.”
In her informative discussion of the fundamentals of Sharia law, Dr. Moghissi outlined the simple fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is incompatible with Sharia law, as Islamic law includes an inherent belief in gender and religious hierarchy in society as stipulated by the Quran which are at odds with international human rights documents such as the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Using the work of Iranian reformist clergy, Mohsen Kadivar, she sites the categorization and classification of human beings according to traditional Islam. The hierarchy begins by placing Muslims men on top (denying things such as inheritance rights to non-Muslims). They are followed by Muslim women who are second class citizens to their male counterparts in such areas as marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. The third class are slaves who are counter posed to free-men. The fourth category distinguishes amongst Muslims, privileging Shiites who may claim the religious positions of Supreme Leader (Velayat) amongst other positions, while their Sunni counterparts cannot.
Through such examples, Dr. Moghissi makes her case that the fundamental struggle towards human rights and equality in Iran is a struggle for secularism, a struggle that has lost meaning for many European intellectuals. She also adds that an Islam that is compatible with human rights is one that separates mosque from the state, and law from religion.
The Problems of Oppressed Nationalities in Iran – Dr. Reza Baraheni
Dr. Reza Baraheni is one of Iran’s most prominent poets, novelists, literary theorists, and human rights activists. He was a founding member of the Writers Association of Iran, an organization renowned for its work towards democracy. Dr. Baraheni was a political prisoner under the hands of both the previous Monarchist Iranian regime as well as under the Islamic Republic of Iran. His long and colourful careers as an activist expands to his time in the United States in the 70’s when he worked side by side with notable figures such as Noam Chomsky, Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut, Allen Ginsberg and many others to fight for human rights. He has published volumes of novels, poetry, plays, articles many of which have been translated into multiple languages. He was the president of PEN Canada from 2000-2002. He is currently teaching at Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
In his talk Dr. Baraheni focused on two main issues; the oppression of linguistic groups that have been systematically marginalized in Iran, and the erasure of sexuality and queer identity from the history as well as the present Iranian literature through censorship and discrimination. He posits that unlike the assertion made by religious as well as other homophobic forms of scholarship, Iranian literature is littered with historical references of homosexuality as well as other forms of queer identity. He states “there is indeed some kind of bi-sexual, homosexual, as well as heterosexual past in Iranian literature.”
Dr. Baraheni also cites his own novel The Infernal Times of Aghaye Ayaz (1969) a book that has been censored by both the Shah’s government as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran – finally published in its French translation in 2000 – in what Dr. Baraheni dubs one of the longest histories of censorship in the world. The book tells the life story of a young slave who belongs to the Turkish Sultan Mahmood. The master and slave fall in love, and the master is so taken with his lover that he offers him his thrown. The book also serves as a historical narrative, writing a history that has been erased again and again from Iran’s past.
Dr. Baraheni also spoke about the “minoritized” ethnic and linguistic groups in Iran. He used the word minoritized in order to stress the fact that the myth of a mono-lingual Persian and Farsi speaking Iran is untrue. He cited the source ethnologue.com an online resource which documents that 37.8% of Iranians are born to Turkish speaking families, there are in total 24 million Iranian-Turks. Yet, Iran forbids education in any other language than Farsi.
As an Iranian-Turk Dr. Baraheni also points to the myriad forms of racism imbedded within the Iranian community, he states that Iranian culture is full of racist discourse that privileges one group amongst others, for example “there is not a single television in L.A. that does not speak about Iranians as Arians.” He adds “racism is not only where Ahmadinejad is.”
In conclusion Dr. Baraheni re-iterates the importance of including linguistic and ethnic rights amongst the other forms of human rights struggles. He notes that ethnic subjugation in Iran has meant the silencing of some of the best intellectuals, and the continuation of this form of discrimination is scandalous.
Left to Right: Br. Reza Baraheni, Barbara Hall, Dr. Haideh Moghissi Panel Two
Canadian Charter of Human Rights for Minorities – Dr. Hedy Fry
Dr. Fry’s talk focused on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom’s and the Acts such as the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Multiculturalism Act that were subsequently added. While celebrating Canada’s achievements in the area of human rights, she noted that the one country in her opinion that has a more progressive Charter of Right’s than Canada is South Africa, as their Charter was written after Canada’s and in consultation with Canadian law makers. Dr. Fry also pointed out areas that are still in need of development such as the lack of protection for transgender people.
Perhaps the most inspiring note in Dr. Fry’s speech was her assertion that Canada “should not be deporting anyone to Iran.” Dr. Fry indicated that Canada is no longer taking a lead in human rights struggles as it use to in the 70’s. She spoke nostalgically about Trudeau’s Canada and stated “the Canada that was not afraid to stand up for rights must come back.”
LGBT Human Rights in the World – Adrian Coman
Adrian Relu Coman has been working in human rights organizations for over ten years. He was the first executive director of ACCEPT Romania, the national LGBT organization that led the campaign to repeal the sodomy law and adopt anti-discrimination legislation in Romania. He was a board member of the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA-Europe) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and currently serves on the boards of the Human Rights Advocates Program at Columbia University as well as the Romanian Helsinki Committee (Bucharest). Mr. Coman is also the program manager for IGLHRC which has a close working relationship with the IRQO in their advocacy for Iranian refugees.
In his presentation Mr. Coman offered a brief but thorough overview of the human rights situation for LGBT communities across the world. In particular he informed the crowd that while Iran has an extremely poor human rights record in relation to gay and lesbian people, it is nevertheless one of the few countries in the world that allows transgender people to translate their identification documents to correspond with their gender designation.
LGBT Human Rights in Muslim Countries – El-Faroukh Khaki
El-Farouk Khaki is the founder of Salaam, a queer Muslim Support group established in 1991. He is also the secretary-General of the Canadian Muslim Union as well as being one of the original founders of the Muslim Lawyers Association of Ontario.
In his short talk, Mr. Khaki responded to the difficult question posed by the moderator, Arsham Parsi:
“According to the International Lesbian and Gay Association’s report, currently there are 9 countries in the world that issue capital punishment for LGBT people including: Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan and Yemen. Why are all these countries Muslim countries?”
He responded that the root of the problem was not Islam as a religion but Patriarchy and Misogyny. He stated that currently, a very small percentage of Muslims are being shown as representing all Muslims. He illustrated this by stating that only 3% of those who identify as Muslims attend Mosque on a regular basis. Hence, it is the visible manifestations of Islam and what it means to be Muslim that we encounter when thinking about human rights from a Muslim perspective.
Mr. Khaki concluded his talk by stating that “we breathe life into text” and “what you get out of the Koran is what you put into the Koran.”
LGBT Human Rights in Iran – Jessica Stern
Jessica Stern is a researcher from the LGBT program of Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch has been working closely with Iranian LGBT’s inside as well as outside of Iran, assisting with refugee cases. The organization has played a key role in Egypt in the successful campaign to decriminalize homosexuality, presently they are focusing on the conditions for LGBT people in Iran.
In her presentation Ms. Stern spoke in detail about the persecution of LGBT people in Iran. She spoke about the fact that discrimination in Iran towards LGBT people is legalized and “homophobia, patriarchy, and misogyny are embedded culturally as well as legally in Iran.”
In Iran homosexuality is simply regarded as criminal behavior to the point that tests have been created to detect homosexuality in suspected individuals. She also spoke extensively about the inherent inequality in Iran’s penal code when it comes to the criminalization of homosexuality. She stated that the death penalty can be issued for men when penetration occurs whether the men have participated passively or actively after a single offense. However, there is no differentiation between active or passive participation in homosexual activity for women and women are subjected to the death penalty after the 4th offense.
Speaking to the gendered attitude towards LGBT people in Iran, Ms. Stern concluded that the country conditions in Iran are much more volatile for men than for women. As female sexuality is more hidden and women are more likely to be viewed as secondary class citizens without the freedom to congregate in public spaces such as parks, they are much more unlikely to be suspected of sexuality transgressive activity.
Left to Right: Dr. Hedy Fry, Jessica Stern, El-Faroukh Khaki, Adrian Coman Panel Three
Religious Minorities in Iran – Marina Nemat
Marina Nemat is a former political prisoner, arrested at age 16, she spent more than two years in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison. In 2005 she was selected as one of the finalists in the CBC Literary Awards in the Creative Non-Fiction Category. In 2006 she produced a documentary for CBC Radio. Her memoir of her life in Iran, including her time in prison will be published by Penguin Canada in April 2007.
In her talk Ms. Nemat focused on the oppression of religious minorities in Iran. Her study refuted the assertion made by the Islamic Republic of Iran, that religious minorities are respected. She asserted that
“the Iranian constitution openly discriminates against religious minorities and that even the basic rights that the constitution has granted the recognized religious minorities (Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians) have been systematically disregarded in one way or another.” According to Nemat it is the presence of divine law as the source of legitimacy and political authority in the country and further “the sole accepted interpreter of this divine law” the spiritual leader which are at the heart of Iran’s religious intolerance. In her detailed study Ms. Nemat outlines the religious make-up of Iran. She posits that amongst Iran’s aproximately 70 million strong population “close to 99 percent of the population are Muslims, of which approximately 89 percent are Shi’a and 10 percent are Sunni. Baha’is, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians combined constitute the remaining 1 percent of the population.” The largest non-Muslim minority is the Baha’i community, “which has an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 members throughout the country. “ However, the Baha’is have yet to gain legal status in Iran. The Jewish community estimates vary from 20,000 to 30,000, “a figure that represents a substantial reduction from the estimated 75,000 to 80,000 Jews who lived in the country before the 1979 Islamic revolution.” In addition, “according to U.N. figures, there are approximately 300,000 Christians, the majority of whom are ethnic Armenians and Assyrians. The rest are mainly Catholics and Protestants, with a few from Russian Orthodox decent. The U.N. Special Representative reported that Christians are emigrating at an estimated rate of 15,000 to 20,000 per year.” According to figures generated by Zoroastrian groups there are approximately 50,000 Zoroastrians in Iran. As the largest religious minority, Sunni Muslims represent approximately 10 million people. Although as Muslims, Sunni’s have a relatively more religious freedom, nevertheless the Iranian Constitution “forbids a Sunni Muslim from becoming President, and no Sunnis have ever obtained senior government positions. Against all their efforts and despite the fact that over 1 million Sunnis live in Tehran, Sunnis have not been allowed to build a Sunni mosque in that city.” In addition, Sunnis have charged that the Iranian broadcasting company, Voice and Vision, airs programs that attack them. In her detailed analysis Ms. Nemat cites numerous examples of discrimination, under-representation, and oppression of religious minorities in Iran. She explains “According to the laws of the Islamic Republic, everyone has to belong to one of the four officially recognized religions. For example, in order to apply for the general examination to enter any university in Iran or to apply for any job in the government, the applicant has to answer a multiple-choice question about his/her religion. This question has four possible answers: Muslim, Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian.”
As such anyone belonging to a religious group that is not listed is automatically barred from post-secondary education. Non-Muslims are also prevented from holding numerous key decision making positions such as running for Presidency, becoming the Commander in the Islamic Army and a taking a position as a Judge.
Furthermore the penal code of Iran openly discriminated against religious minorities. For example in the case of adultery
“Under article 88 of the Penal Code, a Muslim man who commits adultery with a Muslim woman is punished by 100 lashes. However, a non-Muslim man who commits adultery with a Muslim woman is subject to the death penalty. If a Muslim man commits adultery with a non-Muslim woman, the Penal Code does not specify a penalty.”
In conclusion Ms. Nemat states “many laws of Iran’s constitution openly discriminate against religious minorities, and even the laws that seem to protect them, usually leave the door open to discrimination and injustice.”
Disciplining Women’s Sexuality in Iranian Prisons – Dr. Shahrzad Mojab
Dr. Shahrzad Mojab is the Director of the Institute for Women’s Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto and Professor at the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Dr. Mojab’s areas of research and teaching are access to and educational policy studies; anti-racism education; critical and feminist pedagogy; feminism and nationalism; gender, state, diaspora and transnationality; women, war, militarization and violence to name a few. She is the editor of Women of a Non States Nation: The Kurds, co-editor of Of Property and Propriety: The Role of Gender and Class in Imperialism and Nationalism as well as others texts and articles. She is currently conducting SSHRC-funded research on war, diaspora, and learning; women political prisoners in the Middle East; and war and transnational women’s organizations.
In her talk she spoke about the conscriptive spaces of Iranian prisons and their role in disciplining women’s sexuality.
Understanding Disability as a Human Rights Issue – Raha Bahreini
Raha Bahreini is a third-year student at the University of Toronto. She is doing a double major in Equity Studies and Rthics, Society and Law. Currently, she is the Youth Coordinator of Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention Project (GAAP), an inititive by New College at the University of Toronto. She is one of five IRQO directors since its establishment in May 2006.
In her talk Ms. Bahreini focused on the over 500 million differently disabled people in the world a population she calls “the most marginalized groups in many developed and developing countries.” Her aim was to frame disability as “a political and human rights issue.”
Ms. Bahreini framed her presentation by first providing a theoretical background on models that have been developed for understanding disability as a sociopolitical issue. She also spoke about the human rights conventions that have been developed on the rights of Disabled People at the international level. Finally she concluded by applying these theories and discussions to the situation of disabled people in Iran.
By analyzing disability as oppression Ms. Bahreini provides a foundation “for the concept ableism to come into being on par with concepts like sexism, racism and homophobia.” She explains that this shift “equips us with a political perspective for forming a disability movement with the aim of bringing about social justice and equal opportunity for disabled people.”
In speaking about the current situation in Iran in regards to issues of disability, Ms. Bahreini explains that much like other parts of the world, disabled people in Iran constitute 10% of the population, while severely disabled people are 2% of the population. According to her findings a large majority of Iranians with disabilities are poorly educated, unemployed and underpaid.
Ms. Bahreini adds that “the most progressive and comprehensive legal act concerning disabled people was passed in May 2003, under President Khatami’s administration. The act which is called the Disability Protection Act provides basic legal protections for disabled people in areas such as access to public buildings, employment, education, housing and finance.”
While this act was designed to provide more opportunities for accessible and affordable education and housing for registered disabled people, it falls short of doing so. As Ms. Bahreini notes, out of the “1.5 million severely disabled people in Iran, only 500,000 are registered under State Welfare Organization and thus only these 500,000 people can have, on paper, access to these benefits, not to mention all the practical and bureaucratic obstacles involved for even these registered disabled people.”
Sexual Orientation and Torture – Dr. Ezzat Mosalanejad
Dr. Ezzat Mosalanejad, a Ph.D. in political Economy is a prominent activist, he was a founding member of the Iranian Cultural and Community Centre in Montreal and the Montreal Democratic Forum. In Toronto he has worked with numerous agencies as a counselor, policy analyst and director. He is currently a Settlement Worker, Policy Analyst, and researcher working with the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Refugee Update, a journal devoted to refugee protection and advocacy in Canada. He was a former political prisoner in Iran and the author of numerous articles and essays including the recently published book on Torture titled Torture in the Age of Fear. Dr. Mosalanejad’s personal, as well as professional experience, with the subject of torture gives this work its breadth and depth.
At the symposium Dr. Mosalanejad spoke about the use of torture, particularly rape as a means of disciplining sexuality in Iran.
Left to Right: Marina Nemat, Dr. Shahrzad Mojab, Dr. Ezzat Mosalanejad, Raha Bahreini For more information contact: www.irqo.net 416.548.4171
Arsham Parsi, Director, IRQO
Niaz Salimi, Director, IRQO
Dr. Victoria Tahmasebi, Director, IRQO
Sam Kousha, Director, IRQO
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The
day was organized into three main panels; the first panel opened with
Barbara Hall, who was appointed the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario
Human Rights Commission in 2005, was the key-note speaker. Ms. Hall drew
on her over 35 years of experience as a community worker, lawyer and
municipal politician to speak about the current state of human rights in
Ontario. She spoke about the long struggle of the LGBTQ communities in
Ontario and the steps taken to achieve the current gains. She noted that
many of the current rights that the queer community enjoys in Ontario are
relatively recent gains and came info effect in the late 80’s and 90’s.
Dr.
Hety Fry is the Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre. She has been
representing Vancouver Centre since 1993 with the promise to her
constituents to fight for equality under the law for gays and lesbians.
