A major change in society has been the rise of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Transgender, and Questioning  (LGBTQ) + the Sexuality And Gender Acceptance (+SAGA) community. Some people support the uprising, but most choose to degrade it. For generations, gay people have secretly dated because nobody would accept them, and once discovered, they were burned alive. According to the article, “Burning the Faggots, The Traditional View Of Homosexuals,”  “From Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, and for the next 1,500 years, Christians burned the gay.” The slang expression for gay people is “faggot”. A faggot is a bundle of sticks used to fuel fires. Because Christians burned the gay men and women over faggots, the word faggot soon became a derogatory word for gay people. The 1969 Stonewall Inn rebellion was a turning point for the LGBTQ+SAGA community.  The Stonewall Inn was a place where gay men and lesbian women came to drink and dance. As part of a city-wide crackdown in New York, the police stormed the front door, however the gay patrons of the Stonewall Inn did not run. What followed was several days of bloody protests and arrests leading to the mobilization and organization of the gay rights movement around the country. Driven by hope and determination, the gay community fought peacefully, and nonviolently for the 2015 Supreme Court decision that upheld the right to same sex marriage.  Despite the passage of this Supreme Court ruling, many people believe that only opposite sexes can marry, and are reluctant to accept that not everyone fits that profile. Gay people are believed to be substandard, therefore they are treated differently because of their sexual preference. The LGBTQ+SAGA community is said to be incapable of filling particular gender roles because they are unable to complete certain tasks that can be completed by other people. An 8th grade student at South Orange Middle School said, “coming out was challenging. Telling people that I prefered one sex over another was difficult. I wondered how my friends would react, even how my parents would react.” It is important to think of the LGBTQ+SAGA community as revolutionaries, who against all odds, have been treated as subhumans and placed at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

To begin, marriage is a beautiful thing. People choose to believe that the LGBTQ+SAGA community will be the ones to destroy marriage. However, marriage can be shattered by anyone, and any group of people. In the article, “Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide,”  the conservative Justice Scalia mocked the majority opinion by saying, “They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment, a ‘fundamental right’ overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since.” The LGBTQ+SAGA community is not going to destroy marriage. Why would they fight so long and hard for something just to see it destroyed? According to the Huffington Post article, “Same-Sex Couples Less Likely To Divorce Than Straight Couples, Williams Institute Research Finds,” heterosexual couples divorce at a rate that is twice as high as same-sex couples. While many of the people who made gay marriage illegal were happily married, and did not have to hide their love for another person. They thought that straight people's love should come before anybody's love and happiness. In the article, “Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion stated, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.” No group can be the only ones able to marry, for marriage makes two people better than they were before.

In addition, profuse people believe that gay people are born gay, and that statement has been intertwined into straight people's brains. Some people say that when a child is gay, it is the parents’ fault, but as with other insidious rumors, they are all wrong.  Being gay is not genetic, it is a choice made by specific people at the right time. “If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow.” says Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize winner and #1 New York Times bestselling author. It has also been scientifically proven that being gay is a choice, and not genetic at all. According to lead scientist Alan Sanders from the article “Are you born gay or is it a choice? Scientists might have found the answer,” by Pink News, “ The study also did not identify a single gene which was the direct cause of homosexuality.”  Thus, it has been scientifically proven that being gay is a choice, and is not genetic. Someone with gay parents might think that being gay is normal, which it is, but it is mainly a choice made by those two people at the right time.

Moreover, there is no reason for gender roles. Women do not have specific tasks and men do not have specific tasks. Each parent can take on different tasks, regardless of gender. Most women are said to have monotonous chores such as: weekly cleaning vacuuming, washing clothes, and ironing, but anybody can do these tasks. Despite the fact that household chores can be done by any gender, people believe that gay marriage will confuse gender roles, but there are no gender roles. There are no required tasks per parent. Therefore, if there are two women, or two men who have a child, any parent can do any task that benefits the child, and the family. There are no gender roles, only stereotypes. This all proves that gay marriage is equal to straight marriage no matter the gender of the two people.

In conclusion, gay people are the same as straight people. They are perfectly capable of performing the same activities and therefore filling the same gender roles as straight people.  They all are human, and they do have hearts. There is no reason to degrade someone based on their sexual preference. If you look past this, you will see that they are the same as you. They are human, not an extraterrestrial or bottom feeder of the social hierarchy; deserving of the same treatment as any human. It doesn't matter if they’re gay, any race, color, or ethnicity, they should be given the same rights and respect as anyone else.

Works Cited
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