Public Agenda: First Choice 2004

Create Your Own Choicework: Gay Rights

Choicework is a useful way to think through public issues, but the approaches we describe aren't the only way to look at this problem. You may have your own ideas, and people often decide they can't totally buy into one approach. So look at the options below and come up with your own way of looking at the problem. Check off all of the actions you think should be taken and add your own ideas.

Check off all of the actions you think should be taken:

Protect and extend equal rights of all our citizens

Provide the same rights to gay and lesbian couples that are currently only given to straight couples – including the right to marry and adopt children.

Require states to recognize same-sex marriages conducted elsewhere.

Enact federal legislation barring discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment or housing.

Broaden hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation.

Require that employee benefits be offered to people with domestic partners.

Permit gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military

Let states and communities choose their own solutions

Rather than dictating a solution, the federal government should let individual communities decide whether to allow same-sex marriages or civil unions.

The government should let individual states, communities and businesses decide whether they want to offer domestic-partner benefits.

Communities should decide for themselves whether they need hate crime laws or whether current laws are sufficient. If they do adopt them, the laws should cover hate crimes against all minorities, including gays and lesbians.

Government should let individual communities decide, based on community sentiment, whether to include discussion of gays and lesbians in sex education.

Protect traditional institutions and values

Enact legislation to strengthen and support traditional families — like a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Allow employers and landlords to live by their moral and religious codes.

Prevent gays and lesbians from getting any special legal rights or protections

Reinstate the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military.

Ban adoptions by gay parents.

Prohibit public schools from incorporating discussions about homosexuality into curriculum.

Are there other actions not listed here that you think should be considered? If so, enter them here:

Additional action: