Oct 29, 2004  |  By: DAVID CICILLINE  | COMMENTS     

THE ELECTION ON Tuesday will determine whether our nation moves forward on the issues of the humanity, dignity, and equality for gay Americans, or if we begin a tragic process of going backwards.

The future of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance, and with it, the direction our nation will take on many issues, including gay rights.

Over the next four years, it is quite likely that Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O’Connor, as well as Chief Justice William Rehnquist, will retire. The next president, either George W. Bush or John Kerry, will be nominating their replacements.

On the issue of justice for gay Americans, a Kerry or Bush presidency will make all the difference, not for the next four years, but for the next 40. A president’s term lasts for only four years, but a Supreme Court Justice is appointed for life.

On so many issues, I believe George Bush has made the wrong choices. But as a gay man, I am fully aware that the choice I make as to who I want to run our nation over the next four years will have a profound influence on the lives of all GLBT people.

If the Republicans maintain control of Congress and the presidency, the next four years could end the progress we have made regarding Supreme Court recognition of equal protection and due process for gay Americans.

TO GAY PEOPLE who either sit out the election, or vote for Ralph Nader or George W. Bush, you cannot say, “I didn’t know,” or “nobody told me.”

I am telling you now: If Bush gets a second term, it is likely that many of the gains we have fought so hard for since the dark days of Stonewall will be reversed, and our struggle for equality will be postponed for generations.

Right now, the Supreme Court is narrowly divided on crucial issues concerning gay rights. Just one or two new right-wing justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — the justices President Bush has called his models for Supreme Court appointments — would reverse the progress made on gay rights over the last decade, and could make further progress through the courts virtually impossible.

One more justice like Scalia and Thomas would likely reverse the landmark ruling in the Texas sodomy case, allowing states to once again treat gay men and lesbians as criminals.

Two more Scalia-Thomas votes would also reverse a Supreme Court decision overturning an anti-gay constitutional amendment in Colorado, and would allow states to abolish local laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

And of course, any hope for gaining federal rights for gay couples, even those with a Massachusetts marriage license or a Vermont civil union, would disappear.

During oral arguments in Lawrence vs. Texas, Justice Scalia actually suggested that with gay kindergarten teachers, “children might be induced to become homosexuals.” In his dissent, Scalia accused the majority of “largely signing on to the so-called homosexual agenda.”

THE APPOINTMENTS GEORGE Bush has made to the lower courts have already had devastating effects on our issues.

Bush’s appointment of William Pryor, who in past comments compared homosexuality to necrophilia, to the federal appeals court provided the tie-breaking vote in July against three homosexual couples challenging Florida’s law banning adoption by gays.

I cannot stress more the importance of this election to GLBT Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Greens, Naderites, and every other faction of our community.

Unless we wake up to the news next Wednesday that John Kerry will become our 44th president, we could very well be facing a Scalia-led Supreme Court that views the humanity and civil rights of gay people as unworthy of any consideration by the nation’s highest judicial voice.