Progress On LGBT Rights More Modest Than It Appears

Omar G. Encarnación, writing in Foreign Affairs, argues that the recent advance in ensuring same-sex couples can marry in the United States is much more modest progress on LGBT rights than one would think: "the United States lacks not only federal legislation protecting same-sex marriage but also federal laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, better known as ENDA -- a law intended to prevent antigay discrimination in the workplace -- has languished in Congress since it was first introduced in 1974." He notes that conservative parties in countries like Argentina, Chile, France, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay, have supported same-sex civil unions as an alternative to marriage. Pope Francis supported such a measure when he was archbishop in Buenos Aires, making "the Republican position on gay rights to the right of the pope." The U.S. Constitution also does not lend itself to a "bold court rulings in favor of gay rights," Encarnación argues. "By and large, the U.S. Constitution remains faithful to its eighteenth-century foundations, which includes a very narrow view of social rights."