Homosexuals

Homosexuals are offended because they were some of the people that fought courageously to end things like slavery, colonialism, and segregation (for African Americans), and yet even as the gays continue to battle against the forms of inequality that still hurts our neighborhoods and communities today. Still, people aren’t grateful enough for what most gays do for our country, even after the horrific treatment that comes from African Americans and others. In some African countries, homophobia is now giving the rise to persecution and forms of legislation aimed at denying gays community and sometimes criminally punishing the gays for them doing the simple act of loving someone of the same sex. In Africa, African leaders are forming a climate in which hate and violence towards the homosexuals, are not only acceptable but also actively encouraged (Ray 1-2). There are now 37 African countries that criminalize same-sex relationships.
In some countries, some of the presidents and leaders actually want to imprison, kill, and generally hurt homosexuals, just because of who they love and whatever gender they go for. In the summer of 2008, the Gambian president, Yahya Jamme, infamously threatened to behead homosexuals in his country. Since the imposition of Sharia’s law in 12 states in Northern Nigeria (Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara) in 2000, roughly a dozen people have been sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly engaging in homosexual acts.
Many Presidents have “promised” during their elections, to give homosexuals some rights they deserve, if they voted for his as president. For example; Bill Clinton promised to end the ban on gays in the military if he was to become president with their votes. This promise bought little attention during the campaign, but later on the congress got attacked with phone calls from religions organizations, opposed to ending the ban on homosexuals (Andryszewski 43). In late January of his election, as suspected, Clinton backed away from his promise that he made with the homosexuals, to end the ban with a “stroke of a pen”, under the compromise that the United States Armed Forces would no longer ask recruits about their sexual orientation.
Even after Clinton’s compromise with the armed forces, they still didn’t hesitate to violate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Timothy R. McVeigh served 17 years in the military. The military was suspicious about his sexual orientation, so they persuaded his internet service provider to reveal information about his e-mails and then sought to discharge him. After a legal battle, he was discharged, but he was allowed to retire with full benefits and payment of his legal fees (Andryszewski 47).
Many people believe that legalizing homosexual marriages would bring new benefits to heterosexuals. This will benefit them by, reducing divorce rates of fraudulent marriages to go down and more orphaned children grow up in stable and loving homes. Also, allowing homosexual marriage will make neighborhoods safer for families and boost the economies for struggling communities. Many child institutions believe that kids would be better off living in loving gay homes rather than in institutions that shuffle them from one home to another until they reach 18 years of age (age out of the system) or in a heterosexual home that divorce, due to one parent “coming out of the closet”.
The more Homosexuals that are accepted as equal people, the more heterosexual marriages will become more stable because there are an untold large number of heterosexual marriages that are broken up because one spouse comes “out of the closet”. Many homosexuals marry into a heterosexual marriage because of the fact that they are afraid of being discriminated against, homophobia coming from people around them, pressure of getting a job, not being allowed to worship in some churches, loss of many dreams like being in the military, and also raising kids because many adoption agencies don’t allow homosexuals to adopt (Alvear and Cameron 1).
There are several other reasons why homosexuals deserve to have to right to get married like, if two homosexual parents are not married then the non-biological parent has no rights to the child and also the child does not have the same financial or emotional safety that other children with married parents do. If two women have a child together and they are not able to get married, only the biological parent has right to the child. For example, if the child’s biological mother is away and the child gets severely hurt, the hospital can deny the non-biological mother from seeing the child. If the child comes home and the biological mother still isn’t there, the boss of the non-biological parent is not obligated to provide sick leave for that parent because she is not related by blood or by law (mother’s marriage). If the two mothers separate, the non-biological mother is under no legal obligation to provide child support for the kid, hurting the child more. If the biological mother dies, the non-biological parent has no legal rights to the child, which then allows the state to take the child from his/her only left loving mother, and can be thrown into the foster-care system (Alvear and Cameron 2). These are all examples that will hurt the emotional status of a child that is in the situation of having homosexual parents that are not married.
There are more than half a million children growing up in a home with same-sex parents, that mostly were not able to married, also meaning a half a million children growing up with serious disadvantages than other children with (married) heterosexual parents, caused by prohibition of same-sex marriages and discrimination towards homosexual relationships (Alvear and Cameron 2).
There is only one solution to solve this problem that homosexuals have is to give them the same rights everyone else has. I believe that if we give homosexuals the same rights that everyone else has, then our world would be a much safer and happier place.