Should LGBT people be offered reparations for years of inequality?
Jacob Appel, a New York lawyer and adjunct professor of Bioethics at NYU has perhaps opened a real can of worms with an article he posted in April on the website of the Detroit Free Press. He asked whether gays and lesbians are due reparations for the many years of oppression we have suffered. The issue of reparations has been raised before regarding Afro-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Native Americans and others.
Reparations serve as an acknowledgement of wrong-doing as well as restitution for material suffering. Appel said, “while it is most unlikely any of us can expect a check any time soon, the concept of reparations is a way to open the floor for discussion of the moral responsibility for what has been inflicted on gay and lesbian citizens. Once this discussion is underway, it of itself serves as a tool to educate and to warn of consequences to possible homophobic repression as it continues now and in the future.”
