As the world evolves all the people who live on it evolve as well. The United States basis its constitution on equal rights and that all people should treat each other with equal standards. The gay community over the past couple decades has evolved from not being able to marry legally, to a handful of states passing a law to allow gay marriage. Although laws are being enacted to better the equality of homosexuals, the gay community has a long way to go before they are equal with the rest of society. The gay community has been at a constant struggle for many years about whether they can legally get married in a court room. It has been a battle to get the states to sign off on the law which allows the next step in their relationship. “The legal challenge to DOMA stemmed from a suit by a New York woman, Edith Windsor, who was hit with a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after her wife died in 2009”( Gay Rights). The same situation also occurred but only with a couple of different sex it ended with the surviving spouse would have inherited it tax free. Many heterosexuals believe that it was only intended that a man and women get married and not women and women and vice versa. “Gay rights advocates are making significant gains in winning marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States and around the world, even though the overwhelming majority of states and countries still limit marriage to opposite-sex couples” (Jost). Out of all fifty states about twelve and the District of Columbia have passed the same sex bill; since then a few more states have signed approving same sex marriage. Once all fifty states sign off on the same sex marriage law the gay community will be one step closer to being just as equal as the rest of so... ... middle of paper ... ...t under the microscope and looked at with a fine tooth comb. Only now they are finally getting what they deserve and that’s being equal with the rest of society; they are slowly progressing but not to the point of satisfaction for the gay community. The gay community is dedicated to fighting for equality and they aren’t going to stop till they accomplish their goal of living a normal life just like the rest of society. Works Cited Clemmitt, Marcia. "Reproductive Ethics." CQ Researcher 15 May 2009: 449-72. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. "Gay Rights." CQ Researcher 28 June 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. (Rankin qtd in Jost). "Gays on Campus." CQ Researcher 1 Oct. 2004: 805-28. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. Karaim, Reed. "Gay Rights." CQ Global Researcher 1 Mar. 2011: 107-32. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. Katel, Peter. "Gays in the Military." CQ Researcher 18 Sept. 2009: 765-88. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
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Dilley, Patrick. "Practices and Policies to Control Gay Students." The Review of Higher Education 25.4 (2002): 409-31. Print.
How America should react to homosexuals Many experts agree that homosexuality has existed as long as human beings themselves, although the attitude towards them has undergone dramatic changes in some countries. Accepted by many societies during Greek and Roman era, most of the time homosexuals were considered to be sinners against nature and even criminals. In Medieval and modern periods homosexuals were prosecuted. Enlightenment brought some liberation, substituting death penalty by imprisonment. In Nazi Germany so-called "doctors" tried to "cure" gays by the ways of castration and extreme intimidation. Until 1973 attempts to find a cure against homosexuality, what by majority was viewed as a disease, were continued. Today, when research on twins suggests that sexual orientation is not a choice, but our genetic predisposition, homosexual acts are still considered to be immoral and even illegal in majority of countries and in the eyes of most religious groups homosexuals, probably, always will be the subjects of anathema. As much as the future may look gloomy for many gays and lesbians all over the world, there are remarkable changes in public opinion and officials’ attitudes toward homosexuals in some countries. For example, in 1989 Denmark was the first to allow the same-sex marriage. In the United States the subject of homosexuality remains controversial. For example, In Hawaii three homosexual couples asked the court to recognize their right to get married and the court did. However, the state government refused to legalize this marriage. Consequently, a new amendment was introduced to the state Constitution. At the same time, majority of the states are not even considering this option and homosexuality itself is still illegal there. Still, not only authorities try to determine the position they should take towards homosexuals, many common Americans also have no clear understanding of how to react to homosexuality. Why should we bother to find the answer to the questions: who are the homosexuals and where do they belong in our society? First of all, it is important to realize that homosexuals are an integral part of our society. Your neighbor, your co-worker, your hairdresser, your child and even your spouse can be one of them. According to Richard D. Mohr "[t]wo out of five men one passes on the street have had orgasmic se...
The Gay Rights Movement has brought the idea and acceptance of homosexuals in American Culture a very long way in the last thirty years or so. However, those who accept homosexuality or those who encourage it are still the minority in comparison, and so, there is a long way to go still before homosexuality is considered completely normal and gays are treated just like everyone else. The great uprising of people has already come and gone, and now the movement is in the maintenance stage, where it does not get much media attention anymore. That could be the best way to go for the Movement though, as their goal all along has been to blend in and be treated like everyone else. How better to do that than to not draw attention to one's self.
Wolkomir, M. (2006). "Be Not Deceived: The Sacred and Sexual Struggles of Gay and Ex-Gay Men". New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, pp.18-38.
Marriage is defined as “(1) the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage ("Marriage," 2003, p. 659). Despite the latter definition’s addition to dictionaries in the past decade, this definition of marriage is still debated. Being a touchy subject in both politics and religion today, it’s been very hard to come to an agreement. There are two main sides to this argument regarding the nature of marriage. Some stick to their conservative and/or religious beliefs, while others state that marriage is a civil right (Kim, 2011, p. [Page 38]). However, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in North Carolina and thirty-two other states at this time ("Defining Marriage: State Defense," 2014). Homosexuals have been denied many of the rights given to those that are heterosexual. Same-sex couples are not able to receive other benefits as a heterosexual couple would. The lack of benefits is extremely unequal and unfair. This unacceptable treatment is unconstitutional and should not continue.
A large majority of people in the United States will say that they are in favor of equal rights for homosexuals. They will all agree that homosexuals should have the same rights in housing, jobs, public accommodations, and should have equal access to government benefits, equal protection of the law, and other rights granted to US citizens. However, when the topic of marriage arises, all the talk of equality ceases. Over fifty percent of all people in the United States oppose homosexual marriage, despite the fact that most are otherwise supportive of homosexual rights. This means that many of the same people who are even passionately in favor of homosexual rights oppose homosexuals on this one issue. This is because there is a lot of misunderstanding about what homosexuality really is, as well as the erroneous assumption that homosexual people enjoy the same civil rights protections as everyone else. For the reasons of ending social injustice, the economic and social benefits of allowing homosexuals to marry, and the constitution, homosexual marriages should be a legalized institution.
For many years has the gay rights movement been fighting, since before Stonewall Inn on 1969 and after. Many teens struggle to find out who they are and because of the encouragement and support they meet from people who support gay rights, they come to peace with who they are regardless of what others think, including their families. Many still believe today that homosexuality is a sin and that it’s unnatural but even though it’s regarded as a sin, the LGBT community has fought long and hard to earn their rights and they should have them, the fact that they have a different sexual orientation shouldn’t matter because we’re all human, and we should all be equal.
“Gays and lesbians now in middle age grew up at a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness…” (Papalia, 2015, p. 485). Fortunately, this is not the case anymore and they are more accepted in society. “A lot of people might think that gays have already achieved equality, but I would argue that it's an ongoing fight, and marriage is one of the arenas in which that fight is fought” (Why Get Married?, segment 4). Today same-sex marriage is legal in the United States, but I agree with this statement about equality being an ongoing fight. Many homosexual people are still discriminated against by society. Civilization still thinks they are disturbing or sinning against God, but that is primarily older populations. Younger populations are becoming more accepting of homosexual relationships, which is why there are more laws legalizing homosexual marriage (Papalia, 2015, p.
"Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement." PBS. WBGH Educational Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Marinoble, Rita M. "Homosexuality: A Blind Spot In The School Mirror." Professional School Counseling 1.3 (1998): 4-7. ERIC. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
As the years have passed, homosexuality has become a very controversial topic. The fact that day by day they fight for equality just to be happy, I think it is an injustice that many people refuse to give them the rights they deserve.
The treatment of the LGBT community in American Society is a social injustice. What most people think is that they just want to be able to marry one another and be happy but that’s not it. They want to be treated like humans and not some weird creatures that no one has ever seen before. They want to be accepted for who them are and not what people want them to be and they deserve the right to be who they are just the same as any other human being. After all the discrimination they have endured they should be allowed to be who they are and be accepted as equals just like people of different skin color did in the times of segregation. We have a long way to go as a country but being the greatest country in the world in the eyes of many great America will make big steps to make things fair.