There are far too many issues happening in the world today for us to concern ourselves with who loves whom, and why. There is terrorism, nuclear warfare, global climate change, mass shootings, poverty and hunger, and yet we still have politicians spending their time arguing against gay marriage. The fact is that some men fall in love with other men, and some women fall in love with other women. Why concern ourselves with who people want to love? Love is love.
As a nation and a world, we are making progress in the area of gay rights. But we still have a long way to go. There are currently 35 states that have anti-marriage laws or constitutional amendments against same-sex couples in the United States. There are many places in the world where homosexuality is illegal, and the punishment is often imprisonment. In Sudan there is even a death penalty for homosexual activity.
In their 2012 platform, the GOP stated under a section entitled “A Sacred Contract: Defense of Marriage,” “We reaffirm our support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” I don’t mean to generalize that all Republicans are anti-gay marriage, or that all those who are anti-gay marriage are Republican, because that is clearly not the case. But, this view is listed on the GOP 2012 platform. It maintains wide-enough support across the GOP to include their platform.
According to an Oct. 13th article published in The Guardian, “One in six gay or bisexual [persons]—about 630,000 individuals—has been victim of a homophobic hate crime or incident in the past three years.” I believe that much of this bias against homosexuality comes from the fact that in many places homosexuals cannot enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals. They are not equal in the eyes of many governments, and that incites hate crime.
Russia has recently been in the news for the controversial legislation that was signed into law in June. The law defines distributing homosexual propaganda to minors as a federal crime. There were activists that protested the legislation, and consequently there has been an outbreak of anti-gay violence in the past year or so in Russia. On Oct. 12, 67 people were arrested in St. Petersburg after a fight broke out between gay activists and those critical of their lifestyle.
And why all the controversy? The world is becoming more liberal about homosexuality. In 1962, Illinois decriminalized homosexuality. In 1973, homosexuality was removed as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. In 1977, Harvey Milk won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In 1982, Wisconsin outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2009, the Matthew Shepard Act was passed, which extended the hate crime law to include discrimination on a basis of sexual orientation. And just this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.
We are moving toward a world where gay men and women will hold equal rights, be allowed to marry who they please and be protected from hate crimes. But today, legislation is still being passed to inhibit gay rights, such as the gay propaganda law in Russia. I argue that supporters of such legislation are on the wrong side of history. I believe that equality will come. But, we need to do everything in our power to bring that era of peace quickly into being.
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