Activity 2

ARE GAY RIGHTS "SPECIAL?"

What Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Say?

OVERVIEW

In this activity, students collect newspaper articles about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. These rights may be denied, demanded, or respected. After discussing the articles, students catalog the variety of rights and compare this list with the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

OBJECTIVES

To describe current lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights that have been denied, demanded, or respected
To compare the rights sought by sexual minorities to the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Age Level: High school to adult

Time: About 60 minutes with a week’s worth of preparation

Materials: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) official or kids’ version, Amnesty International’s animated video of the UDHR

Subject Areas: Social studies

PROCEDURE

Part 1: Collecting articles on LGBT rights

Important: This part must begin one week before the rest of the activity.

About one week before the activity, ask students to collect articles from newspapers, news magazines, and websites about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. Articles about these rights might describe how they are denied, demanded, or respected. These articles can describe any part of the world, though most will probably focus on the United States.

The topics of articles might include:

Local or state initiatives for or against gay rights
Child custody or adoption issues
Same-sex marriage
Gay-straight alliances or curricular issues in schools
Refugee or immigration issues
Sexual minorities in the military, ministry, or some other job
Out or outed celebrities
Gay bashing or hate crimes
Public opinion polls
Reports on gay pride parades or gay pride month
Book, TV, or movie reviews

Part 2: Making a human rights analysis

On the day of this activity, ask students to describe their articles and the rights that were denied, demanded, or respected. Possible rights might include:

Right to privacy
Right to form a family
Right to employment
Right to housing
Right to an identity
Right to be equal before the law
Right to medical care and information
Right to an education
Right to free speech
Right to assembly
Right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment
Right to a fair trial

Keep track of this list on the chalkboard or butcher paper.

If students are having a difficult time finding articles or come to class unprepared, ask them to describe the rights denied, demanded, or respected in the following situations:

A mother loses custody of her child in a divorce because she is a lesbian
State legislators discuss amending state law to define marriage as only between a man and a woman
A student is kicked out of the Naval Academy because he admits he is gay
Two male sports celebrities write a book about their relationship
A state review committee demands that health textbook publishers delete any references to homosexuality
A woman kisses another woman on a network television show
A man is "bashed” on a Saturday night by a group of teenagers shouting "faggot"
A teacher refuses to allow students to use words like "fag" or "homo"in her classroom
The police in an Eastern European nation keep a file of men and women they suspect are gay and lesbian
The military in a Latin American nation torture a man because he is gay
The city grants a permit to hold a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender parade
Amnesty International calls for state governments to drop laws that criminalize homosexuality
A lesbian is fired when her boss learns about her sexual orientation
Students at a local high school form a gay-straight alliance

After students have completed their list of rights denied, demanded, or respected, assign small groups of students to look for those rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) either the official version or the kids' version. As an alternative, show Amnesty International's animated video about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The video runs about 20 minutes. Information about obtaining a copy of the video is available by visiting www.amnesty-usa.org.

Each group should write down whether those rights are guaranteed in the UDHR or whether there is any language that would preclude sexual minorities from those rights. Groups should report their findings to the rest of the class.

A follow up discussion should consider these questions:

What lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights that were respected are guaranteed in the UDHR?
What lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights that were demanded are guaranteed in the UDHR?
What lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights that were denied are guaranteed in the UDHR?
Were any of the demanded, denied, or respected rights NOT mentioned in the UDHR?
Using the UDHR as a reference, how would you respond to someone who says, "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are asking for special rights”?