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Gay Rights

Sandra Moua

Literacy 11 Ms. Dadly 16 May 2012

Moua 1 Gay Liberation Movement Should gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals be granted the same rights and protections as heterosexuals? The Gay Liberation Movement in the United States was formed because of the Stonewall riots in 1969 by many gays and lesbians fighting for their rights for being gay. In the 1980s the onset of AIDS epidemic brought on difficult challenges to the movement because that was when opposing opponents, people against gays, used it to block further legal protections for gays and lesbians; but because of the recent activity of the movement gays and lesbians have gained more rights. There are other groups involved in gay rights then just the Gay Liberation Movement like: DOMA, Defense of Marriage Act, GetEQUAL, was born out of the National Equality March last year and managed by Heather Cronk, and GOProud, managed by Chairman Christopher Barron. DOMA is mainly fighting for Gay Marriages, because gays and lesbians have the right to marry the same and opposite sex in and out of state. Look marriage is important to me . . . I support marriage equality. But its a state issue, and states ought to be able to work through this process. And were winning. The left seems hell-bent on pulling defeat from the jaws of victory by focusing on this courts-only strategy. Its a complete and total turnoff to a huge segment of the voting population. Christopher Barron states that he supports marriage equally; even though he got married to his boyfriend Shawn in Georgetown. GetEQUAL and GOProud are both fighting for Gay Marriages, Gay Adoptions, Gays in the Military, and also Gay Execution.

Moua 2 GOProud has come up with 3 reasonable arguments to the government about gay rights. Conservations will: 1) stop treating gay sex any differently from premarital sex, 2) stop blaming nice, conservative gays for the [actions of] hateful, angry, leftist gays . . . and 3) agree to do something about their hair. Gays will drop this business about gay marriage and pushing pc rules on the military. GOProud has made reasonable and unreasonable arguments about gay rights especially about Gays in the Military. There are sound reasonings, unbigoted ones, for the policy on gays in the military. Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenback was dismissed from the Air Force, of a decorated combat veteran, because he had been identified by someone as gay; because of this the Air Force charged him, after investigating, with the Dont ask, dont tell law passed by Congress in 1993, by prohibiting gays, lesbians, and bisexuals from serving openly in the United States Military, armed forces. The truth is that there is actually no Dont tell, dont ask law, this is often a common mistake. The law that Congress really passed in 1993 (USC Section 654, title 10) states that: The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and disciple, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability. Many people and states are against the Gay Liberation Movement because they think that A gay lifestyle undermines traditional values and institutions in the country. Gay rights are not that much welcomed in many states.

Moua 3 The Supreme Courts ruling in Lawrence v. Texas invalidated a Texas law that made sodomy a crime and upheld the privacy rights of people in homosexual relationships. Texas is one of the many states that doesnt support or allow any gay rights. There are also many states and people that support gay rights. For example Massachusetts supports a gay lifestyle because In 2009 Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriages. Also President Barrack Obama wants to change the laws so gays have more rights. President Obama signed the Matthew Sheppard Act into law in 2009, adding acts of violence against gay, lesbian, bisexuals, and transgender people to the list of federal crimes. Obama is working hard in order to change many laws to help all kinds of people as well as they can also become an American civilian. The people against the Gay Liberation Movement oppose that any gays shouldnt have rights because they think that a gay lifestyle is unjust for the country. Should gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals be granted the same rights and protections as heterosexuals? Those who oppose any gay rights say no because they state, That a gay lifestyle undermines traditional values and institutions in the country. Those who support gay rights say yes because they state that, All people regardless of sexual orientation deserve the same rights and protections. This paper will include logical, emotional, and ethic appeals on the Gay Liberation Movement. These arguments will change your mind if you say yes or no to the question: Should gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals be granted the same rights and protections as heterosexuals?

Moua 4 The opposing side for the Gay Liberation Movement oppose against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals being granted the same rights and protections as heterosexuals. They have arguments against gays having rights like Gay Marriage, Gay Adoptions, and Gays in the Military. The opposing side has many arguments against the movement like Tom Minnery: While it may feel good to some that a stigma is lifted from a particular group, something else has been lifted: the boundaries that prevent sexual chaos in our culture. Tom Minnery, vice president of Focus on the Family, after the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas struck down a Texas law that banned sex between homosexuals. Tom Minnery states that being a homosexual or transsexual is wrong because it will create sexual chaos in our culture. Also President Clinton is against gay rights: Dont ask, dont tell is a tribute to our national talent for hypocrisy. Yes, President Clinton was prepared to agree, homosexual acts might be a risk to the high standards or morale, good order, discipline, and unit cohesion, be if nobody knew about them, then what harm could they do? . . . The left has nothing better to offer than riding rough side over the opinions of the majority of servicemen and repealing the law. The same poll found that 10 percent of respondents would leave the service if gays were allowed openly to serve and another 14 percent would consider leaving.

Moua 5 We have to at least take seriously the possibility that this would be the price of treating military service as a human right. Many people in the military are against gays in the military. There are also assumptions that gay soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines so often speak, mistakenly, about the repeal of the Dont ask, dont tell policy, as if theyre water boarding and thinking of which side to choose from We also know that most heterosexual males ideas of masculinity are inextricably bound up with what we now call sexual orientation. In other words, being a man typically does mean for soldiers both being brave, stoic, etc. and being heterosexual. Another way to put this is to say that honor, which is by the testimony of soldiers throughout the ages of the essence of military service. Includes the honor of being known for heterosexuality, and that, for most heterosexual mates, shame attends a reputation as much for homosexuality as a weakness or cowardice. These days men only think about being stronger than the other. If men arent strong they are not considered men, this is what men think these days. The non-gays in the military demand not to have gays in the army; because, they wouldnt know the difference between brotherly, sisterly, or erotic love. Gay Marriages, Gay Adoptions, and Gays in the Military are very strong issues right now. Many people oppose these issues like parents, My parents are against gays because they think its against our religion. Her parents opinion is that they dislike gays because it affects their religion.

Moua 6 Those who are religious are usually going to believe in their religion first. Another issue for gays is sexual relationships. The homosexual relationships is simple friendship carried to a higher power, and as the advocates for gay marriages imply, that it is exactly the same as the erotic love between men and women. Those who are not homosexuals have always resisted any simple equivalence between sexual love and friendship . . . the robust heterosexual, if told that close friendship with another man or women is only a degree away from homosexual relations with him, will back off the friendship. Men and women argue that their friends may be gay and thus have closed off being very close friends. Heterosexuals dont want to be in a homosexual relationship because they might be against it or that they think its wrong to be a homosexual; that is way they would rather be just friends then close friends with a homosexual. These issues are why the opposing population is against the Gay Liberation Movement, DOMA, GetEQUAL, and GOProud. The supporting sides for the Gay Liberation Movement agree that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals should be granted the same rights and protections as heterosexuals. Like GOProud, GetEQUAL, and DOMA, many people support gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals as well. These groups all fight for any kind of gay right like marriage, adoption, and in the military. Andrew Sullivan explains, Why Gay Marriage is good for Straight America. When Andrew was a child he said,

Moua 7 When I thought about the future, all I could see was black. Andrew was always a cheerful boy, playing with his male friends but as he got older he noticed that he was different from everyone else. Its hard to convey what that feeling does to a child. In retrospect, it was a sharp, displacing wound to the psyche. At the very moment you become aware of sex and emotion, you simultaneously know that for you, there is no family, no future home. In the future, I would be suddenly exiled from what I know: my family, my friends, every household on television, every end to every romantic movie Id even seen. My grandmother crystallized it in classic and slightly cruel English fashion: youre not the marrying kind, she said. It was one of those things that struck a chord of such pain; my pride forced me to embrace it. No, Im not, I replied. I like my freedom. As Andrew states he knows how it feels to be different. He realized that he might be one of them and he felt strange feelings of both the exhilaration or sexual desire and the simultaneous, soul-splintering panic that he was going to live alone his whole life, lying or euphemizing, concerting some public veneer to hide in private shame; because of what Andrew felt I stayed from parties; I didnt learn how to drive; I lost contact with those friends whose interest suddenly became girls; and somewhere I began to die. He knows the feelings of being different. Just like the Americans simple foundational promise: the pursuit of happiness. Andrew finally went to look for it after he turned twenty-one.

Moua 8 After he experienced his first time of what love is he started to think that being different isnt evil. He married with his husband and also started to support the Gay Liberation Movement with helping them with arguments. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right to marry for everyone, citizen or even traveler, as a core, inalienable right, bestowed by the Declaration of Independence itself. The court has ruled that the right to marry precedes the Bill of Rights; it has decided that prisoners on death row have a right to marry, even if they can never consummate it. It has ruled that no dimidiation may be put on it for anyone deadbeat dads, multiple divorces, felons, noncitizens. Hannah Arenelt wrote in 1959 that the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right . . . Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs . . . basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival. Barrack Obama is a historic American figure not because he is black, but because he is the pursuit of happiness that marriage represented. In this quote it states that we the people have the right to pursuit life, liberty, and happiness. Everyone is born with this right, so why is it so wrong to pursuit your own life and happiness?

Moua 9 If the government agrees to the peoples rights to pursuit life, liberty and happiness why wont they agree to gay rights? Gays are born into this world with the same rights as anybody else but the government has labeled gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals as not human for not recognizing they are also human; because of these issues, gays have been fighting for their rights, as a result of their hard effort, six states has approved gay marriages. Another issue is being gay itself. Five nations still outlaw homosexuality and carry out executions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual people, according to a recent report by the U.S. group Human Rights First. Currently, the nations that prescribe capital punishment for homosexuality are Iran, Mauritania, the Republic of Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen South Sudan, the worlds newest country, may become the sixth nation to do so, while if religious extremists have their way, Uganda my become the seventh. This quote states that some nations wont rule gays any rights and they execute you for being gay. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, and even executed. Many are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join with the abuse. They are denied opportunities to work and learn, driven from their homes and countries, and forced to suppress or deny who they are to protect themselves from harm.

Moua 10 I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time. Gays are working harder than anyone to gain rights for themselves; they have many groups that go to government and states to state why they should have rights, why they should pursuit life, liberty and happiness, and why they shouldnt be executed for just being a human being thats just a little different from others. Theyre more issues then just this one like: one issue is that some people have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separated and distinct, but in fact they are one and the same. Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights and human rights are gay rights. Another issue is a question of whether homosexuality arises from a part of the world. Some seems to believe it is a Western phenomenon, and therefore people outside the West have grounds to reject it. Well in reality, gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world with human rights. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers, and bankers, soldiers and athletes; and whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors.

Moua 11 A third issue is perhaps the most challenging, this issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not protect the human rights of LGBT citizens. Criminalizing their status or behavior, expelling them from their families and communities, or tacitly or explicitly accepting their killing A fourth issue is what history teachers us gays about how they make progress towards rights for all. How would it feel if it were a crime to love the person I love? How would it feel to be discriminated against for something about myself that I cannot change? This is how gays feel deep inside. A fifth and final issue is in a form of a question; how are we, the people, do our part to bring the world to embrace human rights for all people including LGBT people? At the Human Rights Council in March, 85 countries from all regions supported a statement calling for an end to criminalization and violence against gay people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. We, the people also celebrate Human Rights Day to show out great accomplishments on the last century. Beginning in 1947, delegates from six continents devoted themselves to drafting a declaration that would enshrine the fundamental rights and freedoms of people everywhere. . . They discussed, they wrote, they revisited, revised, rewrote, for thousands of hours, and they incorporated suggestions and revisions from governments, organizations, and individuals around the world. On the morning of December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly called for a vote on the final text. 48 nations voted in favor; eight abstained; none dissented.

Moua 12 And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It proclaims a simple yet powerful idea: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Many people want this law changed but gays have fought long and hard for their rights and will break many rules to gain their more rights for gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transsexuals. That is why if you support gays your should be helping out with their arguments, and form other groups, you should be doing anything in your own way to help out because for all you know you, your family, your friends, or your neighbors could be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transsexual. This concludes this paper for the Gay Liberation Movement fighting for gay rights. Just like how Barron and Sullivan said, Just like being gay is no longer necessarily about being an outsider; it is about being an American. Sullivan, This isnt a policy event . . . its a party. I dont agree with everybody on everything . . . . We dont live in a world of absolutes. Barron. They both state that being gay is being part American and that we arent born without our own personal rules, we have to argue and fight for our own rules to come true.

Moua 13 Works Cited Bowman, James. "Don't Change 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'." Weekly Standard Vol. 15, No. 4. 12 Oct 2009: 25. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 May 2012. Cardinal, Matthew. Executed for Being Gay. Global Information Network. 31 Aug 2011: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 May 2012. ProQuest Staff. "At Issue: Gay Liberation Movement." ProQuest LLC. 2012: n.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 May 2012. Sullivan, Andrew. "Why Gay Marriage Is Good for Straight America." Newsweek. 25 Jul 2011: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 May 2012. Transcript: Secretary Clinton. Free and Equal in Dignity and Rights. Humanrights.gov. 06 Dec 2011: n.p SIRS Government Reporter. Web. 17 May 2012. Zak, Dan. "Divergent Routes on the Road to Equality." Washington Post. 24 Sep 2010: C.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 May 2012.

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