The issue is how to give people equal rights. Giving whites rights that blacks don't have was very much part of our society. Religious leaders would even point to Bible passages to justify bans on interracial marriage, segregation, and slavery.
Here is Howard Dean's very moderate position on LGTB issues, followed by the 2000 Green Party position (which mirrors Dean's position on civil unions).
The Marxist-Leninist position is that religion is a private matter, but that the state must remain atheist which simply means that sectarian orthodoxy must never be allowed to be translated into public policy. IOW, keep the bigotry within the churches and out of the law!
Equal Rights for AllI’m proud to say that as Governor of Vermont, I signed legislation to grant homosexual couples the right to enter into civil unions. This law, the first of its kind in the United States, guarantees lesbian and gay couples the same basic legal rights that married couples enjoy – the right to inherit property, obtain child custody, visit a partner in the hospital and control a partner’s affairs upon death.
The Republican Party seems eager to run against me because of my role in enactment of this historic law. I welcome that debate -- I can’t wait to ask the President of the United States why he doesn’t support equal rights. I can’t wait to ask him to repudiate the GOP-authored Defense of Marriage Act, an unconstitutional, mean-spirited law that stoked fears of homosexuality and pitted one group of Americans against another.
I’m tired of being divided. America is better than that. In this election, I promise that when Republicans pander to our lowest fears, I will fight back by speaking to our highest aspirations. I will offer the American people the chance to choose hope instead of fear, community instead of division, healing instead of hatred.
I’d like to tell you about my vision for an America that includes every one of us. As President I would:
Work to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars employment discrimination based on race, religion, sex and national origin. But nothing in federal law prevents an employer from discharging or refusing to hire someone because he or she is gay. I will fight for enactment of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to remedy this gap in federal law.
Strengthen federal protections against anti-gay violence. The murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming was not an isolated incident but part of persistent anti-gay violence in the United States. I support enactment of the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act to help states investigate and prosecute bias crimes and to add “sexual orientation” to the list of protected categories in the federal hate crimes statute.
Give federal employees the right to name same-sex partners as beneficiaries. Major U.S. corporations such as Boeing, Ford Motor Co. and AOL-Time Warner have adopted human resources policies to allow employees to designate a domestic partner as a beneficiary of health and other employment benefits. The federal government should do the same.
End bias in the immigration laws. Current law authorizes family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents to obtain immigrant visas, but the Immigration and Nationality Act's definition of family does not include same-sex partners. I support enactment of the Permanent Partners Immigration Act (H.R. 832) to add the term "permanent partner" to the statutory list of family members eligible to obtain immigrant visas.
End the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy. Last November several Arabic and Korean linguists from the Army's Defense Language Institute were discharged for being gay despite the critical need for qualified linguists in the war on terror. That was wrong. As president, I will offer gay and lesbian soldiers the opportunity to serve our country openly.
Ensure access to affordable health care, including AIDS/HIV Services. My health care proposal ensures that all Americans would have access to affordable health insurance. This would be a major step forward for individuals suffering from AIDS, many of whom lack coverage despite the need for costly life-saving interventions. I also support increased funding for public health programs like the Ryan White CARE Act.
As President I will fight for the civil rights for all Americans – and that includes lesbian and gay Americans.
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_statement_civilrights_equalrightsforallEquality by sexual orientation, including gay marriage We affirm the right to openly embrace SEXUAL ORIENTATION in the intimate choice of who we love.
We support the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in housing, jobs, civil marriage and benefits, child custody - and in all areas of life, the right to be treated equally with all other people.
Source: Green Party Platform, at 2000 National Convention Jun 25, 2000
http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Green_Party_Civil_Rights.htmFor more information on the Socialist position on religion:
Socialism and Religion (1905)
V.I. LeninReligion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labor of others are taught by religion to practice charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.
But a slave who has become conscious of his slavery and has risen to struggle for his emancipation has already half ceased to be a slave. The modern class-conscious worker, reared by large-scale factory industry and enlightened by urban life, contemptuously casts aside religious prejudices, leaves heaven to the priests and bourgeois bigots, and tries to win a better life for himself here on earth. The proletariat of today takes the side of socialism, which enlists science in the battle against the fog of religion, and frees the workers from their belief in life after death by welding them together to fight in the present for a better life on earth.
Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen's religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free associations of like minded citizens, associations independent of the state. Only the complete fulfillment of these demands can put an end to the shameful and accursed past when the church lived in feudal dependence on the state, and Russian citizens lived in feudal dependence on the established church, when medieval, inquisitorial laws (to this day remaining in our criminal codes and on our statute-books) were in existence and were applied, persecuting men for their belief or disbelief, violating men's consciences, and linking cosy government jobs and government-derived incomes with the dispensation of this or that dope by the established church. Complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm 
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