By Amber Rhodes
Tuesday the fourth, when I heard the news about the president I cried from happiness, and then I heard the news about Proposition 8 and the other anti-gay legislation that was passed and I cried again, this time from despair.
This election saw four anti-gay legislations passed. Three were banning gay marriage; California's Prop. 8, Arizona's Prop. 102, and Florida's Amendment 2.
The fourth anti-gay legislation was Arkansas' ban on gay couples adopting children, Initiative 1.
As the president of the GSP (Gay Straight Partnership) and the friend of many homosexual individuals, my heart broke for them. I knew that this was a possibility, that there was a chance that what was given could be taken away, but for some reason I also thought that people were kinder than that. In a way I feel like society has taken a step backwards, back to a time where people are not really people if they are not the status quo: white and heterosexual.
We are a society that is based around equality; at least this is what it says in the constitution, but by passing these ballot measures we are saying that people are not equal. In a way we are saying by being gay you are not equal to heterosexuals, that somehow being gay makes you sub-human.
For years the U.S. placed laws and restrictions on people of a different color, telling them that they were not person enough to marry, to live fulfilling lives, to be equal to the heterosexual white population.
Now when we look back on that time we are embarrassed at our stupidity. I hope that soon we see that anti-gay legislation is no different, and soon we will look back and be just as embarrassed at our narrow-minded attitudes.
One's religion may not agree with homosexuality, or in gay marriage, and homosexuality may be different from the norm, and the different is scary.
However, this is not a question of religion; this is a question of right and wrong. It is wrong to take rights away from any individual even if you may not agree. It is wrong to let fear of the unknown make others feel inferior. And it is wrong to pass propositions and amendments that ban homosexuals from the rights that each American should have.
It is right to allow any couple, heterosexual or homosexual, to be a family, to visit their loved ones in hospitals, to have children and to live a full life as a married couple.
