The closet was once the law. Without an LGBTQ+ Bill of Rights, it could be again

“Homosexual Rights? You’ve got to be kidding me.”That was the reaction when the embryonic network of LGBTQ+ rights organizations, formed in those dark days, met in 1968. The “North American Conference of Homophile Organizations” adopted what they called the “Homosexual Bill of Rights.”Their demands were extraordinary for the moment:Decriminalization: Private consensual sex between adults of legal age should not be considered a criminal offense.Security and Immigration: Sexual orientation should not affect the granting or renewal of federal security clearances, visas, or citizenship.Military Service: Service in the Armed Forces should be without regard to homosexuality.Employment Equity: Sexual orientation shall not impact employment eligibility with federal, state, local, or private employers.Same-sex relationships were a felony in 49 states. The country was in the waning days of the Lavender Scare, when the federal government barred the employment of “known perverts.” Police harassment of queer bars was rampant — the kind of harassment that would ignite the Stonewall Rebellion just a year later, the uprising we commemorate with Pride each June. “Homosexual Rights?” The very notion seemed farcical.Related: Fighting back: Lambda Legal unveils campaign to protect LGBTQ+ rights from Trump-era attacksBut over the next 50 years, the LGBTQ+ rights movement would win them all.In 1997, the Ninth Circuit ruled in Pitcherskaia v. INS that people persecuted for their sexual orientation could seek asylum in the United States. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the sodomy laws that had made LGBTQ+ people criminals in their own country in Lawrence v. Texas. Beginning with Matlovich v. Air Force in 1976, advocates fought for three decades for the right of LGBTQ+ people to serve their country openly, until President Obama finally repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2010. And in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that