Libertarian Perspectives On LGBT Rights - United States LGBT Libertarians

United States LGBT Libertarians

The Libertarian Party's position on LGBT rights has remained unchanged since it was created in 1972. In 1975, Ralph Raico, helped to create the "Libertarian For Gay Rights" caucus within the party, and subsequently published "Gay Rights: A Libertarian Approach".

The second LGBT rights organization to operate from a libertarian perspective was the Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns. The organization held its first national convention in 1985, and sought to promote libertarianism to LGBT Americans.

During the 1980s, the organization was affiliated with the Libertarian Party of the United States. One of its activities was the production of a lavender pamphlet, to distribute at gay pride events, that explained the libertarian perspective on LGBT rights. Some of the libertarian views mentioned in the brochure are the following:

• Repeal of all laws regarding consensual sexual acts between adults (with the age of consent reasonably defined). This would include abolition of laws prohibiting prostitution and solicitation, whether gay or straight.
• Repeal of legislation prohibiting unions between members of the same sex, and the extension to such unions of all legal rights and privileges presently enjoyed by partners in heterosexual marriages.
• An end to the use of loitering statutes and entrapment procedures as a means of harassing gays and prostitutes.
• An end to the collection by government agencies of data on the sexual preferences of individuals.
• Elimination of regulations specifying homosexuality as a justification for denying or revoking state licenses (for doctors, lawyers, teachers, hairdressers, etc.).
• Repeal of laws prohibiting cross-dressing.
• Recognition of the right of a homosexual parent to be considered for custody of his or her natural child, and of the child to choose the homosexual parent as guardian.
• Elimination of laws specifying homosexuality as grounds for denying the right of adoption.
• Equality of treatment of gay people in regard to government service, including particularly membership in the armed forces.
• End the usage of zoning and loitering laws to harass gay people and gay-owned businesses.
• Equal treatment for gay immigrants.
• End government sanctioned closing of gay bathhouses.

The brochure then went onto explain that libertarians opposed efforts to prohibit private sector discrimination because people have the right to be wrong, and that peaceful persuasion was the better method to deal with prejudice than civil rights legislation.

In the 1990s this organization was joined by the classical liberal-libertarian LGBT rights organization called the Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. As of 2007, the LGLC have a mailing address and the GLIL web page has not been updated since 2003.

The active LGBT libertarian organization is the Outright Libertarians. Founded in 1998, the organization is also affiliated with the Libertarian Party of the United States and takes many of the same position that the Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns did in the 1980s.