Andrew Park has been an advocate of legal equality as federal trial attorney, an Administrative Judge with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the director of an LGBT legal advocacy group, and a consultant and strategist for international LGBT organizations. During this work he has discovered the strengths, and limitations, of legal equality. Equality gives LGBT people the right to be treated as well, or as badly, as everyone else. For kids who need a better education, workers who need better jobs, people who need better health, the goal should be a better life, not just one that is equal. Park looks at the history of other movements in the US have gained their equality and civil rights, yet the promise of liberty eludes them. He also looks at other countries where LGBT people have a much higher level of legal equality than in the US. In many of these countries, LGBT people still face huge barriers in the workplace, in schools, and in their communities. Park proposes a new set of goals for the LGBT movement based on the human development framework. This people-centered approach is used throughout the world by international agencies and governments. Park brings his international experience to the table by showing how a development framework can help shape the LGBT agenda in the United States. The goal of international development is to understand, through research, surveys, and data collection, the lives of individuals and to increase the capability of individuals to make their own choices. Park proposes that the movement focus on the well-being of LGBT people, and seek to increase levels of health, income, education, democratic participation, and other aspects of human growth. Rather than asking whether institutions treat people equally, Park suggests that we ask whether LGBT people are able to live the lives they want. Park proposes that we measure and monitor the well-being of LGBT people (something that wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago) and that we set priorities to improve lives. He proposes the creation of an American LGBT human development index which can be applied to any local LGBT community. Park reminds us that equality is a floor, not a ceiling. He incorporates an argument that each LGBT person deserves not just equality, but a recognition of moral worth and dignity. LGBT people are good, concludes his last chapter, and being LGBT is good as well. Each person deserves the ability to live as they choose.
