Gay people aren't siblings

A commenter at Dispatches from the Culture Wars writes

"Inexplicably, says Hein, siblings who care for sick family members are specifically excluded in the bill"

From the linked article at One News Now

I find this objection a very strong indictment of the bill, and of those who framed and advocated it. I do not argue in principal that people in same sex relationships shouldn't receive benefits, but such an exclusion indicates a deep moral flaw in the gay rights movement or some sectors within it at any rate. This may be a fight about rights after a fashion, but its not clearly always a fight about justice. This should put us on notice that there may be a dark side to the implementation of gay rights that we should not fail to consider in our approach to the acceptance of social change.

This is a subject I have mulled over from time to time. The problem is that this isn't a fight about rights at all -- this is a fight about equality. True, we discuss rights so often that such discussion tends to overshadow the larger goals, but that is because unequal rights are something concrete, something that we can point to and show how the queer community is injured by inequality. And also, because of the harm done via the absence of these rights, getting the rights is a primary objective.

However, discussions like the above are a way to give gays rights but not give them equality. Our goal is not for same-sex couples to have all the same rights that opposite-sex ones do, but to get people and the government to recognize them as equal. So they surrender the issue of rights to us, and give gays the same rights that straight people have; but at the same time, insist that those rights also be expanded to others, as well. It's a fairly common tactic -- in the recent effort to get sexual orientation added to the categories covered by federal hate crimes legislation, people wanted also to add the elderly, and the military. And when same-sex couples argue that they deserve marriage because they want the protection this affords their children, people bring up the issue of other non-married people raising children: sisters are a common one.

This tactic is rather shrewd in its simplicity. It basically gives gay people their rights, gives gay relationships their protections, while refusing to treat them as equal -- they are lumped in with siblings, with roommates, with any random strangers. Their relationships are no more than that. Yet at the same time, if gay people object to this, it paints them as bigoted or selfish: they only care about their own rights, and can't be bothered with those poor, struggling sisters trying to raise some children between them.

I don't have any inherent objections to people receiving hospital visitation rights, or the ability to will their property to whomever they want, or that people raising children together receive certain benefits to protect help them. But when people lump these together with the gay rights movement, they are trying to cede the battle of rights without ceding the war of equality.