The gay rights debate

By Emily Carden
Sherman High School

The American nation was founded on fundamental rights and freedoms, but those who support gay rights feel that the gay community is being denied these rights and freedoms.

Discrimination against homosexuals is still prevalent in our society, whether it’s because people oppose the idea of things like gay marriage and gay couples adopting children or just because they don’t like homosexuality.

The gay rights situation seems to be an impossible one in which there is no clear plan for victory, much like the controversy of slavery in America during the 1800s. Denying homosexuals fundamental rights is discrimination, but allowing gay rights could set off more discrimination.

The issue of slavery was solved through a series of compromises and a civil war, but currently the gay rights debate remains unsolved. In the meantime, gay people continue to suffer from prejudice.

One gay teen in the area recounted an incident he recently endured. “My cousin and I were at the mall, and she hears three guys saying ‘fag’ and ‘queer.’ They just started to yell rude comments.

“I was thinking about some of the things they were saying to me and began to actually cry,” he continued. “I am just like anyone else. We all bleed the same blood.”

Sherman High School sophomore Jennifer Cunningham sympathizes with the teen, but she does not accept his lifestyle.

“People think that being gay is an easy thing when really I think it would be very hard,” she said. “[But] I believe that being gay is a sin, and I do not believe that gays should have rights. God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.”

Gay rights have been brought up countless times in political campaigns as well as in Supreme Court cases. Within the last two decades, many questions have been raised over the issues of homosexual sodomy, gay marriages, surrogacy and the exclusion of gays in activities such as Boy Scouts and the military.

With the topic of gay rights still vague, it’s likely that these types of questions will continue to present themselves for the foreseeable future.