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Alexis Bentley

Mr.Droski

English 11B

8 Dec. 2017

LGBTQ Rights

Imagine being ridiculed and discriminated against for something you, yourself could not

change. That is exactly what the LGBTQ community has been discriminated against for

centuries. There has been unfair discrimination and law acts, and policys put in place against the

LGBTQ community.

LGBTQ has been discriminated against here in the United States, the land of the free.

Where people come to start a new life with no judgement just motivation to make a better life for

themselves. People don't live in America to experience discrimination, they live here to be free

and happy. We the American people have wrongly taken rights from a whole community. The

LGBTQ community deserves rights because they are just like everybody else, they have

wrongfully been discriminated against, and the law acts, and policies that have ruined peoples

lives.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, and Queer community (LGBTQ) deserve

rights because they are just like everybody else. They work a job with you, they go to school

with your children or go with you. You teach them in your classrooms or maybe your child is

being taught by someone of the LGBTQ community. Whatever it is it doesn’t matter, they are
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exactly like you the only difference is that might they like their same gender or that they are a

different gender than what you thought their gender was, whatever it is there is no difference.

Some wrongeful discrimination towards the LGBTQ community is that The United

States Military officially banned LGBTQ people from serving in 1941, when it stated that

“homosexual proclivities” would be an immediate disqualifier in the screening guidelines, The

military thought that having LGBTQ people serve would lead to distractions, security risks, and

a weaker military. Even though “the Crittenden Report concluded that there was no evidence that

they posed any greater security risk than non-LGBTQ personnel.” There have been many more

military studies since then and have all ended with the same conclusion. While the policy known

as the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” (DADT), instituted by president Bill Clinton in 1993 that forbid the

military personnel from inquiring a servicemembers sexual orientation, there was still more than

14,000 L, G, B (Lesbian,Gay, and Bi-sexual) servicemembers discharged. The military

employed more than 15,000 Transgender personnel in 2014, but discharged them all per official

policy in case their identity was discovered. This is all just in the military. Now that same-sex

marriage is legal in all states, the LGBTQ rights are still being questioned,like in Alabama, “the

chief justice of the state supreme court, Roy S, Moore, ordered probate judges to refuse marriage

licenses from same-sex couples.” The L,G,B people have been arrested and fired from their jobs

simply because they are gay. In Europe,being gay was made illegal and in some cases punishable

by death. Some view that being Lesbian, or Gay is a mental state, which can be reversed through

“conversion therapy” which is a form a psychotherapy which is used to try and change a person's

sexual orientation or gender identity.

Laws, acts, or policies that have been unfairly passed to stop the progression of the

LGBTQ commuity, “Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a law signed by President Bill Clinton
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in 1996 that defined marriage under federal law as between one man and one woman.” This law

directly stops Lesbians, and Gays from marrying their partners. The Defense of Marriage Act

(DOMA) denied federal service benefits to same-sex couples even after they had been legally

married in states that would allow same-sex marriage licences. Indiana passed the Religious

Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which allowed it for the people, if their religion allows it, to

discriminate against a group of people specificaly the LGBTQ community. The Public Facilities

Privacy and Security Act or HB2 made it so that in a public building, a person must use the

bathroom that is the same as the sex on his or her birth certificate. Making it so that transgender

women must use the men’s bathroom while transgender men must use the women's bathroom.

To some, religion conflicts that being Lesbian, Gay, or Bi-sexual is a sin and should not

be tolerated. If that is your belief then good for you, but because your religion says that being

Lesbian, Gay or Bi-sexual is a sin or that being transgender is just unnatural, it does not give you

the right to discriminate against a person. Doesn't your religion tell you to treat others how you

would like to be treated? Would you like to have your rights taken away? Would you like to be

beaten and arrested because of who you are? I do not think so, you should not discriminate

because that is not what your religion is telling you to do. If your religion calls someone else's

life style a sin, you do not have to associate with that specific person, but in the case you do have

to associate with that specific group of people you should be kind and gracious because that is

what your religion tells you to do.

The LGBTQ community has been wrongfuly discriminated against. Our rights have been

taken away. We, the LGBTQ community, are just like everybody else we eat, we sleep, we talk,

we walk, and we feel just like anybody else. Just like many others in this country the LGBTQ

community faced many obsticals to obtain some rights such as not being arrested for being gay,
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but we still have a long way to go to break through and stop all discrimination. Maybe one day

all around the world the LGBTQ community will be accepted and be discrimination free. We can

only hope and work for a discrimination free world.

Works Cited

"Homosexuality." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2017. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context,
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link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC3010999201/OVIC?u=lom_accessmich&xid=4a4501a5.

Accessed 6 Dec. 2017.

"LGBTQ Rights and Military Service." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2017.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC3010999036/OVIC?u=lom_accessmich&xid=21d10929.

Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.

"LGBTQ Rights and State Laws." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2017.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/QSQWGQ847960079/OVIC?u=lom_accessmich&xid=98b

a2cf9. Accessed 6 Dec. 2017.

There was not 5 sites about my topic on opposing viewpoints and one of them had an opposing

viewpoint on the article.