In the current, public discourse on marriage rights, reproductive rights and so on, what seems to be missing is a basic familiarity and understanding of Human Rights.  We tend to think of one's rights as 'something,' and something known to us, and yet it is apparent that we lack this essential knowledge.  As my first post on this blog, I offer this as an introductory course.  

There was a time, not so very long ago in the history of Western Civilization, when Human Beings didn't have rights.  Kings had rights; priests had some limited rights, and that was pretty much it.  Human Beings like you and me had no rights.  At that point in history, Human Beings didn't even have a vocabulary with which to contemplate such a possibility.  Generations and centuries came and passed.  Occasionally a King, who was concerned about keeping his head attached to his body, would extend rights to barons or noblemen, and just as often, the next King would revoke them.  

In Fifteenth Century Italy, the seeds of Humanism began to germinate.  In France, René Descartes famously asserted, "Cogito ergo sum (I think, therfore I am)."  Medieval despotism and feudalism began to give way to the Age of Reason, French and German Enlightenment philosophies and British Empiricism.  The propositions arising from these philosophical movements provided the necessary lexicon for an ongoing inquiry into Human Rights and social contracts, profoundly affecting political thought.  The English Bill of Rights (1689) delineated several of the rights now familiar to us, although domestic citizens were privileged over colonial citizens and some rights were limited to Protestants.  The fundamental document of the French Revolution, the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) includes this remarkable statement in Article VI,

"The law must be the same for all, whether it protects or it punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible for all important offices, positions and public employments, according to their ability and without other distinction than that of their qualities and talents."

In defense of the French Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet, Rights of Man in 1791. Paine claims that Human Rights arise in Nature and precede government, writing:

"The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."

Notice the relentless expansion of the concept of Human Rights, so much that they eventually supercede the government.  The rights became more expansive, inclusive and comprehensive, as philosophy and polital theory continued to forward valuable questions and generate specific language with which to continue the conversation.  When James Madison wrote the United States Bill of Rights, also in 1791 he recognized the expansive nature of Human Rights and included as the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

What is the significance of all of this?  Whether Human Rights arise from Nature or one's creator, or not, the concept of Human Rights did not exist just a few hundred years ago.  We as a species were able to speak and write the concept of rights into existence, where those rights have grown into a reified reality.  Human Rights cannot be contained or limited in scope or range.  Human Rights inexorably expand to include more people, and those people become inheritors of an ever-expanding treasury of rights.

Now, we have among us certain self-interested persons and groups that believe Human Rights have expanded all that they ever need to.  They feel that further extensions of rights for Human Beings would go too far.  They believe that extending rights to any more people would somehow diminish their privileged position.  None of that matters.  What makes a difference is that Human Beings will continue to move away from authoritarianism toward liberty, and any attempt to thwart that movement is depraved and perverse.

The philosopher Hegel, said the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.  We have the opportunity to look back from here to learn from history that any expansion of rights for Human Beings improves the quality of life for all of us.  The rights of marriage equality and reproductive rights are both elements of the inevitable expansion and extension of Human Rights.  The sooner, the better.

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Update: Here is a lovely short film that says much the same thing in different ways…