Our biggest tragedy as a rustic was the enslavement of Black people who were stolen from their native lands and made into slavery. So as to end this tyranny, courageous people risked their own lives in what has become known as the Civil Rights Movement. This movement was cast on the backs of Individuals of Color and has become a force that has modified the face of America. As a result of of its success it currently serves as a robust model for each civil rights movement that followed.
There is a maxim that history repeats itself and while not a doubt that's what is currently happening during this country with the gay rights movement. Folks who supported slavery, denied white women and folks of color the right to vote, were all on the incorrect facet of history by denying folks's basic human and civil rights. And these days, there are a number of who are still on the incorrect side of history by denying gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans basic civil rights.
We have a tendency to are ruled, in theory, by a document that enables all voters the correct to life, liberty and therefore the pursuit of happiness and where all folks are treated equal. Yet it is very apparent that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans are exempt from these equal rights. That's how it's now, however not because it continually will be, because as history demonstrates, justice can eventually prevail, however sadly it continuously takes a fight.
This country was founded on the premise of protecting the minority view, of allowing all voices to be heard and to supply equal rights for ALL Americans. Democracy has never been a majority rules proposition and nor ought to it be. Many fled to this country to escape non secular persecution. Currently, many of these very individuals's ancestors are the identical folks persecuting gay Americans today.
Same-Sex Marriage
The non secular-right has taken it upon themselves to be the torchbearers for denying equal rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. They say that allowing same-sex marriage would jeopardize the institution of marriage. It is challenging to take this claim seriously providing heterosexuals have a divorce rate of close to fifty%. You can't blame that failure on gay people. In fact, it's laborious to believe that same-sex couples might do any worse than their heterosexual counterparts in the marriage department.
As a lesbian couple, my wife Dawn and I were legally married in the great state of Massachusetts, that was the first state to permit same-sex marriage with all of the rights and edges that go together with it. We have a tendency to have since moved to Maryland, a state that doesn't acknowledge nor permit same-sex marriage. So, we have a tendency to now not have the rights that we tend to had once experienced in Massachusetts together with health care. We are currently once once more relegated to second-category status.
Yet history is repeating itself. Just as same-sex couples are now denied the right to marry in most states, there was another cluster of people in our history as a nation who were also denied the correct to marry.
It wasn't till 1967 that inter-racial marriage was legalized. As a result of the case of Loving v Virginia, all race-primarily based legal restriction on marriage were prohibited. Opponents believed inter-racial marriages to be repugnant, abhorrent and an attack on morality. Sound acquainted?
In 2006, South Africa became the 5th country to legalize same-sex marriage. This is spectacular given apartheid was legal until 1994 and where the impact of unequal treatment is still apparent today. South Africa has done what the United States has yet to totally grasp; they have taken a lesson from their own history and are determined not to repeat that painful chapter by imposing injustice on a different group of people.
Military-Do not Raise Do not Tell
Until the 1954 call of Brown v The Board of Education, legal segregation existed in the U.S. Military. Black soldiers have participated and died in each war this country has fought and has done so with distinction.
The 1994 passage of the Clinton's administration of "Do not Ask, Don't Tell" policy prohibits anyone who "demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from serving within the military of the United States, because it "would produce an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability."
Thus far, over twelve,five hundred gay and lesbian soldiers have been forced out of the military as a results of "Do not Ask Don't Tell". These troopers have served with distinction. They're willing to lay down their lives to bring democracy to alternative countries, yet they're denied equal treatment in their own. Military men and ladies are trained to handle all situations and however we have dismissed 12,five hundred well-trained troopers because some of the heterosexual troopers are afraid they will create a pass at them? The United States military is over-taxed with our involvement in thus many regions of the planet and we cannot afford to lose so many qualified and proficient people.
It is time that we have a tendency to as a country learn from our past mistakes. These mistakes have taken a large toll on all of us. Some history will not bear repeating.
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Doris Hill has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Gay Lesbian, you can also check out his latest website about: