Is it wrong, really?

It has been my understanding that words are powerful in the emotions that they evoke in us, so I will try and be cognizant of the words that I use as I discuss the issue I have chosen: the treatment of the LGBT community and whether or not they should have equal rights.

As I mentioned earlier, words are powerful representations (symbols) that evoke particular emotions in us. When words are used in a derogatory manner to persecute a group of people to express hate they have a negative effect on society as a whole. Victims of such persecutionn often experience mistrust, depression, and self-hatred as result of their persecution. The worst ways in which these forms of hate manifest themselves are in cases in which a victim takes his/her own life(suicide), or are at the receiving end of a hate crime. Victims families are often left reeling in the aftermath of such tragedies. Such acts of hate dehumanize us as a people.

One of the things I used to ask myself is how do a group of people come to be persecuted? People can be persecuted for for a variety of reasons: their race; ethnicity; religious affiliation; sexual orientation; or simply because they are in the minority. One of the ways in which it has been justified to victimize LGBT is through religion; people will find a passage in the Bible to support their prejudice and spend the remainder of their lives quoting, or misquoting, it. Shakespeare said: "Even the devil can cite Scripture to his purpose." I think that we can all agree that we would like to think the Bible should not (could not possibily) be misinterpreted, but we are men and are fallible, and it has been done so time and time again with tragic results. It is my firm belief that the Bible is about God and his love for us, not about sexuality, even if it states in Leviticus 20:3 "A man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed." In Leviticus, there are many laws, or codes, such as the passage mentioned that tell how one should (or should not) live their life (i.e. eating of pork, stoning of women who are not virgins on their wedding night, stoning of adulterers), codes that are not followed today. Today, those scriptures are caled a Holiness code, something that is not relavent to today.

Other ways in which it has been justified to persecute members of the LGBT community is to say that homosexuality is unnatural and is a choice because heterosexuality is the accepted norm. Is it a choice, really? If it were that simple, why would so many choose to be victimized for who they are and experience depression, self-hatred, and for some, to tragically end their life? Some argue that LGBT not only choose to be LGBT, but are also made that way (or grow up that way) leading to the debate of Nature vs. Nurture. If it were unnatural, would homosexual behavior be found in animals because they chose to be that way? In New York's Central Park Zoo, two male chinstrap penguins displayed courtship rituals and even tried to incubate a rock until they were given an egg that needed to be incubated. The two male penguins incubated and raised the chick. If A+B=C, then A must equal C. Animals are "natural". Animals can be homosexual, therefore homosexuality is natural.

In June 2, 1969 the Stonewall riots happened. Stonewall marked the beginning of the LGBT movement in the U.S. The persecution of the LGBT community in Greenwich Village was government sanctioned. I think that it is important that events like that are never forgotten, because, as George Wilhelm Hegel said, "those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it."

Today, in our country, LGBT people do not have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts, such as equal rights to marry who they love, or to serve openly in the military.

The American Psychological Association states "homosexuality is neither a mental illness nor a moral depravity. It is simply a way a minority of our population express love and sexuality." With that said, one must ask themself: is it wrong to treat LGBT as less? I think that it is wrong, but it is not just a simple matter of right and wrong, but a combination of all the reasons that it is wrong rather than based on the premise that someone thinks it is unnatural or that the Bible says so to justify their treatment of the LGBT community.