special rights
Reserved legal advantages
Special rights is a phrase used critically to characterize legal protections for particular groups—especially LGBTQ people—as unearned privileges rather than equality measures.
The term frames civil rights expansions as giving one group advantages over others: They're not asking for equal rights, they're demanding special rights.
The phrase peaked in 1990s anti-gay campaigns and remains a rhetorical tool for opposing anti-discrimination laws.
- legal immunityProtection from prosecution
- sovereign immunityState's protection from lawsuits
- first refusalPriority purchasing right
- legal exemptionsPermitted departures from statutes
- grandfather clauseExemption preserving prior status
diplomatic immunity · civil liberties · regional autonomy · natural justice · sharia courts · affirmative action · minority protections · due process · ancestral lands · vassalage · eminent domain · dispensation · exemptions · dispute resolution · arbitration · mediation · fatwa · vested interests
special rightsuniversal rights
Protections owed to all
equal rights · human rights · inalienable rights · natural rights · inherent rights
special rightsrightlessness
Absence of legal entitlements
disenfranchisement · discrimination · marginalization · civil death
special rightsequal protection
Uniform legal treatment
equal treatment · civil rights · equal justice · common humanity · shared rights
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