from "Beyond Identity: Queer Values and Community" by Jonathan Alexander:"Civil rights do not change the social order in dramatic ways; they change only the privileges of the group asserting those rights. Civil rights strategies do not challenge the moral and antisexual underpinnings of homophobia, because homophobia does not originate in our lack of full civil equality. Rather, homophobia arises from the nature and construction of the political, legal, sexual, racial, and family systems within which we live." (Urvashi Vaid)so, in other words, we are going about this the wrong way? the article makes good examples. we are focusing on our separateness. we are saying that we're different and we deserve special privileges, not that we're the same and therefore equal in all respects, including that of rights. or are we? the main argument is that we can't use identity, we must use values (identity excludes people while similar values brings people together). but does the LGBT community as a whole have similar values?"[Sexual orientation] identities, according to Foucault..., originated in the late nineteenth century, largely due to the work of scientists, sexologists, and proto-social workers, who classified people based on their preferred or pursued sexual activities. The original intention of such classification was to normalize heteroerotic sexual activity, pathologize homoerotic and fetishistic practices, and thus to exert some semblence of control over the sexual, intimate, and reproductive activities of the rapidly growing populations of the industrialized nations. And the categories stuck. Over a short period of time, one's behavior became one's identity, ultimately becoming codefied in the seemingly natural categorical division between homosexuals and heterosexuals... it shows us that sexual orientation categories are political and social formations -- and that one category (heterosexuality) is no more natural or inevitable than another."so when i tell the Fundamentalist Christian In Question that the idea of "homosexual" didn't truly exist until the 19th century (so not in Biblical times either), and therefore the use of the word "homosexual" is completely a mistranslation (and more than likely a purposefully biased one) of Biblicial text, do you think he'll believe me? (of course this is also based on the fact that the new testament was written in Greek and if there was no concept of homosexual, there could not be a word for it. this is actually a proven fact, not just my assumption.)aside from that, it's something to think about. this is starting to get into queer theory, but... do you want to be labeled by something that was designed to control people?