English 10B/5th Hour

11 December, 2017

The Debate Over LGBT Rights

“In the summer of 1981, an article appeared in the New York Times about a mysterious new disease that was affecting gay men in New York and San Francisco. The symptoms were horrifying: skin cancers, infection, intense pain, pneumonia… Death. Within months dozens of gay men were sick and dying, and the gay community was terrified. Called “gay cancer,” and later GRID(Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), it quickly became identified as a “gay” disease… We now know this disease as AIDS. There were 16,000 reported AIDS cases by 1985”(Palmer 43). For decades, the gay community(also known as the LGBT community for lesbian, Gay, Biual and Transgender people) has been under constant turmoil. This disease outbreak of AIDS drastically changed the way the United States looked at LGBT individuals, and now they fight for the right to have basic rights. Rights such as marriage, customer service, and adoption are commonly denied to LGBT people because of other people's religious or personal beliefs. LGBT individuals should not be discriminated against because they are entitled to the same rights that heterouals have and because the perspectives that society places on LGBT individuals are misunderstood and untrue.

Some people think that the LGBT community is growing too much. These people believe that their rights and personal beliefs are being pushed back, but in reality LGBT people are not hurting the world. In fact, the world is discriminating against them. Article author Warren Richey describes the many ways the United States has been discriminating against the LGBT people and how their perspectives range. In his article he states, “Gay rights activists charge that a series of religious protection laws considered by Republican lawmakers nationwide are little more than a license to discriminate against members of the LGBT community. Religious conservatives, meanwhile, look at the rapid expansion of gay rights during the last decade and wonder if their desire to continue living their lives in accord with long-held concepts of marriage and ual morality being swept away”(Richey). In other words, religious communities fear that these changes in the social environment will mean they have to change their beliefs and practices. These people indeed may have to restrict themselves from publicly discriminating against the LGBT community, even if their faith permits it. Much like “black” rights, LGBT rights are simply ignored similar to the fundamentalist belief that African Americans are born to be slaves, or in this case, that God created marriage and intimate love to be between man and woman. LGBT individuals are being targeted because of who they are- -and who they love, quite similar to how “blacks” were(and sadly sometimes still are) discriminated against because of their skin color. That is flatly, morally wrong. Richey speaks again to quote Justice Anthony Kenny in saying, “‘The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths’” (Richey). If the First Amendment ensures freedom of religion and expression in its documentation, then surely the right of personal expression is given to both the religious conservatives and the LGBT community- -as long as it does not harm others. Richey brings up another good point in the same article, “‘Just as it was unsympathetic to gay and lesbian couples to say, ‘keep your relationship totally private,’ it is also highly unsympathetic to the religious believer to say, ‘you have the legal right to follow your belief in church, but no right in any other realm of life,’ says Thomas Berg, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law” (Richey). So if both supporters of LGBT rights and discriminators have the same common ground, why is it so difficult for discriminators to accept the changing environment? There certainly seems to be enough room in the world for both sides to live freely and in harmony, and the LGBT environment should not be forced to weaken because of discrimination. 

         For say, the LGBT community should not be differentiated harshly from heteroual communities since LGBT individuals are entitled to the same rights that heterouals have. In America, marriage equality has been constitutionally mandated in all 50 states, however it is not publicly recognized. The article My Gay Agenda by Jennifer Finney explains how in some states, discrimination is not discouraged. “In 28 states, it is perfectly legal to terminate an employee because of their gender identification, or the gender of the person they are in love with… In some states, it is even illegal for local governments to pass or enforce anti-discrimination laws. Its sad, what these people have to go through, simply because of the way other communities are able discriminate upon them, and legally too”(Finney). Non-LGBT communities have the right to discriminate in these states, and that is morally deranged. In a powerful article about the rights gay individuals are permitted and should be permitted, Sandhya Somashekhar says, “According to the ACLU, this could mean a teacher or social worker could refuse to help students because they are gay… There’s an effort now to say, ‘wait a minute, no one should be driven from public life or banned from their professions simply because of their beliefs’”(Somashekhar). This is a constant struggle between the old, lingering society and the LGBT community; society is trying to silence the growing LGBT protests by legalizing discrimination. 

There is also an abundance of discrimination in the process of adoption for LGBT families.  In an article from the Chicago Tribune, author Tyler Davis describes how LGBT individuals are contributing to society in a positive light. Here he writes on the issue, “Although LGBT people make up only 2 to 4 percent of the adult U.S. population, Andrew Flores, a public policy fellow at the Williams Institute, says that ‘same- couples are about six times more likely to raise adopted youth than heteroual couples are...  and with nearly 415,000 children in the U.S. foster care system, more help is needed’”(Davis). It is not about religion, or how one sees these families. It is about the well being of familyless youth in America. The truth is if LGBT families would qualify if they were straight, that then they should qualify being LGBT, because to qualify you have to be a decent person. This point was made clear in in a speech by Davis in which he spoke out on the issue of discrimination against LGBTs and their rights while saying, “Teaching a child how to be a decent person doesn’t have anything to do with being gay or straight”(Davis). Somashekhar pitches in to say, “more than a dozen states have seen bills this year that seek to codify discrimination, from allowing adoption agencies to refuse placements with same- couples to allowing businesses to turn away customers based on their views of same- marriage or homouality”(Somashekhar).  Recently in the United States there has been a Supreme Court case trial regarding a bakery owner’s refusal to make a wedding cake for a man’s wedding upon realizing that man was going to be married to another man. In the Chicago Tribune article, Davis quotes Currey Cook(an attorney for Lambda Legal), “‘It’s not that the Supreme Court resolved anything as far as parenting for same- couples, but it did clarify that under the law that all same- couples that are married should be treated equally’”(Davis).   So the new debate, regardless of this past decision by the Supreme Court, is whether or not business owners should be allowed to discriminate against LGBT people simply because of their orientation. These business owners defend that they have a faith to stay loyal to, and that serving the LGBT community would be going against that faith. However, as stated in the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech(,etc.)and therefore one can not force his/her beliefs upon others, nor prove that the opposing belief is wrong and should be hidden. In brief, being LGBT should not be hidden and discriminated against, because much like a religion, their orientation shapes who they are.  And there should be no reason that anyone would ever have to change who they are to be accepted into society.

The new generation is much more flexible, and more familiar with the changing society. Former president Obama’s administration even stated that gay rights are human rights, marking a big revolutionary strength that arose in gay pride marching and strikes. In a book on the new generation of homouality, Bill Palmer, a professor at the UCLA School of Law says, “...at the Williams Institute we conducted research to find out approximately how many LGBT individuals live here in the United States.  Various studies have estimated between one and twenty people are gay, and 8.8 million people are openly gay, lesbian and biual in America”(Palmer 17). With so many LGBT individuals living here, and a new generation arising, society is slowing becoming more tolerant of the LGBT community.  The LGBT community has been fighting for their rights since 1970, and has accomplished many political and educational reforms. Every year more and more people come to support the LGBT community, especially members of the new, more accepting generation. Davis backs up this point in his article, stating, “Personally knowing someone who is from the LGBT community plays a huge factor in the growing understanding and acceptance of LGBT people and rights affecting that community”(Davis). The old society is fighting back against the social changes happening in America through discrimination. Ever since the AIDS epidemic in 1981, society has been reluctant to accept any LGBT activity. Since the public had believed that the disease affected mostly gays and drug addicts, the government did not fund any research for AIDS to figure out whether or not it was in fact a “gay” disease. As we know today, it is in fact not a “gay” disease and can be genetic or and transferred through all ualities through ual . In short, society is wrongly discriminating against LGBT communities for things that were misunderstood in the past. There is actually no evidence that the LGBT community is hurting society at all.  

In brief, LGBT communities and individuals deserve the same rights as every other human being does, are misunderstood by society and should not be discriminated against because of it. Though religious conservatives and LGBT communities clash, they are both entitled to the same freedoms. Discriminating against LGBTs should not be allowed because there is no proof that the community is causing any harm. Now the new generation is helping the world see the LGBTs in a new light. Finney speaks out for her freedom, “There’s a monument near the tip of Cape Cod, a tower that honors the Pilgrims, who came to this country seeking the special right to worship as they pleased; the special right to be free from want; the special right to be free from ignorance and fear. Just shy of 400 years later, LGBT Americans and their families still seek that freedom”(Finney).