[128]This special vulnerability of gays and lesbians as a minority group whose behaviour deviates from the official norm is well brought out by Cameron in the germinal article to which my learned colleague refers.[1] Gays constitute a distinct though invisible section of the community that has been treated not only with disrespect or condescension but with disapproval and revulsion; they are not generally obvious as a group, pressurised by society and the law to remain invisible;[2] their identifying characteristic combines all the anxieties produced by sexuality with all the alienating effects resulting from difference; and they are seen as especially contagious or prone to corrupting others. None of these factors applies to other groups traditionally subject to discrimination, such as people of colour or women, each of whom, of course, have had to suffer their own specific forms of oppression. In my view, the learned author is quite correct when he concludes that precisely because neither power nor specific resource allocation are at issue, sexual orientation becomes a moral focus in our constitutional order. For this same reason, the question of dignity is in this context central to the question of equality.
- ↑ See Ackermann J above at para 20.
- ↑ Law “Homosexuality and the Social Meaning of Gender” (1988) Wisconsin Law Review 187 at 212, quoted in Cameron above n 4 at 459. comments:
“The closet metaphor is more powerful for gays, since heterosexism demands that they deny their identity and central life relationships. Gender, by contrast, is visible, like race, and women confront powerlessness, not invisibility.”
