Legislating heterosexuality is laws that impose penalties for being or publicly expressing non-coercive or “mutually consensual” sexuality of other than the heterosexual type. Such laws can affect lots of people — especially young people, and here is why we know that they hit especially the young:
On 16 August 2015, Britain’s YouGov polling firm headlined “1 in 2 young people say they are not 100% heterosexual” and opened: “Asked to plot themselves on a ‘sexuality scale’, 23% of British people choose something other than 100% heterosexual – and the figure rises to 49% among 18-24 year olds.” It went on to report, “With each generation, people see their sexuality as less fixed in stone. The results for 18-24 year-olds are particularly striking, as 43% place themselves in the non-binary area between 1 and 5 and 52% place themselves at one end or the other. Of these, only 46% say they are completely heterosexual and 6% as completely homosexual.”
On 31 March 2022, Bloomberg News headlined “One in Five High Schoolers Isn’t Heterosexual, CDC Survey Finds” and opened “One in five high school students does not identify as heterosexual.” It said:
The Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey issued by the [U.S.] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention polled just under 8,000 U.S. high school students between Jan. and June of 2021. … Some 22.5% of respondents said they were gay, lesbian or bisexual, or that they identified in some other way or were questioning their sexual identity.
The findings are in keeping with a Gallup poll released last month, in which almost 21% of Gen-Z respondents aged 18 and over identified as members of the LGBTQ community — more than any other generation.
The fact that a higher percentage of younger people than of older people (who have become more acculturated to norms with the passage of their years) self-identify as not being exclusively heterosexual, indicates that as people get older, they increasingly self-identify as being heterosexual. This fact suggests that, at least to some extent, a person’s sexual orientation is not natural but instead is acculturated — the result of conforming to the norm (which norm is naturally heterosexual).
What is normal (or even natural) is not necessarily better than something that is abnormal (or even unnatural). For example: genius is abnormal, but it is certainly better than normal. (And an effective and safe medication is unnatural, but it is certainly an improvement.) On the opposite side, sadism is abnormal, and it is certainly worse than normal. (And going without things that don’t occur in nature can shorten a person’s lifespan.) Popular prejudices to the contrary notwithstanding. However, regarding sexual orientation, there is no reason to prefer one over another, other than to conform to the normal (in order to “fit in”). In other words: the only reason to prefer what is the norm in this matter (sexual orientation), is not, at all, ethical but is instead self-interested (or pejoratively called “selfish”) — the preference for heterosexuality is pragmatic, NOT ethical. Many religions have this all wrong, and they distort the public’s view regarding sexuality (deceiving the public to believe that this is an ‘ethical decision’ instead of a pragmatic statement — true or false — about the given individual, “oneself”). Prejudices harm a society; they don’t help it.
In this case, such bigotries not only produce misery amongst the targeted individuals, but cause millions of gifted persons to leave the bigoted country, or to become vastly less productive in their professions than if that bigotry had not been the norm there.
The preamble to a nation’s Constitution states the ultimate goal that that nation’s — the Constitution’s — writers, their Constitution (the country’s Founders’ Constitution), [Historical evidence points to the US Constitution being based on the Kaienerekowa, the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee — DV ed] aims for; and, in any authentic democracy (if it IS a democratic Constitution), that nation’s Supreme Court is obligated to interpret ALL laws (the Constitutionality or NOT of all laws), not ONLY by every clause in the Constitution but ESPECIALLY by the ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE that the Founders stated: the Constitution’s Preamble. Here is the Preamble to Russia’s Constitution (also seen here):
We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation, united by a common fate on our land, establishing human rights and freedoms, civic peace and accord, preserving the historically established state unity, proceeding from the universally recognized principles of equality and self-determination of peoples, revering the memory of ancestors who have conveyed to us the love for the Fatherland, belief in the good and justice, reviving the sovereign statehood of Russia and asserting the firmness of its democratic basic, striving to ensure the well-being and prosperity of Russia, proceeding from the responsibility for our Fatherland before the present and future generations, recognizing ourselves as part of the world community, adopt the CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.
The next-most-important clauses are the first ones; here are the first two:
Article 1
The Russian Federation – Russia is a democratic federal law-bound State with a republican form of government.
The names “Russian Federation” and “Russia” shall be equal.
Article 2
Man, his rights and freedoms are the supreme value. The recognition, observance and protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen shall be the obligation of the State.
Moreover:
Article 14
1. The Russian Federation is a secular state. No religion may be established as a state or obligatory one.
2. Religious associations shall be separated from the State and shall be equal before the law.
Article 15
1. The Constitution of the Russian Federation shall have the supreme juridical force, direct action and shall be used on the whole territory of the Russian Federation. Laws and other legal acts adopted in the Russian Federation shall not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
So: the authors of Russia’s Government stated clearly the non-participation of religious organizations in the decisions concerning the Constitutionality or not of a law in Russia.
Furthermore:
Article 19
1. All people shall be equal before the law and court.
2. The State shall guarantee the equality of rights and freedoms of man and citizen, regardless of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, property and official status, place of residence, religion, convictions, membership of public associations, and also of other circumstances. All forms of limitations of human rights on social, racial, national, linguistic or religious grounds shall be banned.
3. Man and woman shall enjoy equal rights and freedoms and have equal possibilities to exercise them. …
Article 24
1. The collection, keeping, use and dissemination of information about the private life of a person shall not be allowed without his or her consent. …
Article 28
Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of conscience, the freedom of religion, including the right to profess individually or together with others any religion or to profess no religion at all, to freely choose, possess and disseminate religious and other views and act according to them.
Article 29
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech.
2. The propaganda or agitation instigating social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife shall not be allowed. The propaganda of social, racial, national, religious or linguistic supremacy shall be banned. …
Article 55
2. In the Russian Federation no laws may be adopted which abolish or diminish human and civil rights and freedoms.
What “human rights” and “freedom” and “civil peace” and “principles of equality” would be advanced, instead of opposed, by the new law that recently was unanimously passed by Russia’s Duma or legislature and signed into law by Putin (and which is so badly reported-on that its text is not yet available in a U.S. Web-search)? Russia’s Constitution CLEARLY prohibits anything like the new Russian law, even saying that “All forms of limitations of human rights on social, racial, national, linguistic or religious grounds shall be banned.” “BANNED.” (The fact that Russia’s Supreme Court has not been enforcing, but ignoring or denying, the Constitution is damning.)
Basically, what the new law (whatever it is) does is to impose anti-gay censorship upon commerce, and the arts, and the sciences, and on the educational system, so as to satisfy the prejudices of bigots.
Russia’s Duma, and President, and Supreme Court, have thus been driving out LGBT people — including great performers in all fields, scientific, artistic and otherwise — in order to satisfy the public’s bigotries that are promoted by all religions, and they are doing this in blatant and direct violation of their own Constitution. The stupidity of this is awesome. It hurts Russia; bigotries hurt ANY country.
Russia’s Constitution is just a piece of paper, no different from America’s Constitution (and remarkably similar to that), which likewise is no longer actually in force. The traitors have taken over, not only in this or that country but in most countries. To be a bigot isn’t only to be stupid; it is to be a traitor in any country that has a democratic Constitution.
Furthermore: censorship, of anything, is toxic to any democracy. Not only is it unConstitutional in any democracy, but it is inconsistent with any democracy. Religions love it; but democracies can’t survive it.