Equal Rights??? By moka0618

5. November 2009 by student.

Recently there was an election within some of the states, on the ballot in Maine was whether gay marriage should be allowed or not. The voters by a 52.81% voted against gay marriage. Although I am not overly surprised by this, there are still so many people who feel that being gay is wrong, I am deeply disappointed. I do believe that being gay is no different from being straight, no one makes the conscious choice about what sex they are attracted to. You make the conscious choice about who will be your partner or spouse. I feel that people giving an opinion like deciding whether gays are allowed to marry is not different from the equal rights African Americans struggled for. Although these people may be able to have “equal” rights for themselves alone, they really don’t have equal rights. As what was posted to my friend’s facebook post:  “Thank you so much for the great support you have given us…people do not realize that without being legally married I cannot be part of my partner’s health insurance so we have to pay two separate health insurances. …we cannot enroll in any clubs that have married couples benefits to save money like the YMCA we each have to pay a separate membership…we cannot  file joint returns…if by chance she is hospitalize I cannot speak for her behalf without her parents’ permission or if she dies I do not have the right to tell the funeral director our plans…if we had children who ever is the bio mom is the only one who has the right to make decisions…oh yes we can have paper work made out by an attorney but that runs into a few hundred dollars…for some of the rights married people have. Why should we have to put out the money to protect ourselves when a marriage certificate would do the same thing and they say we don’t need those rights…just plain dumb…” I have edited out some of the names associated with this post just for the posters’ privacy. It is moments like this that shows that although, there is supposed to be equal rights and tolerance for people’s differences, this really hasn’t happened at all yet. Something this small about whether gays should be allowed to marry is similar to when gays had to struggle to have equal rights in the workplace. They were discriminated against in the workplace just for their sexuality, to the point when they were fired. Of course, the laws in place today made this a fairly easy case to beat, but I would venture to say that an employer who knows that someone is gay and if the employer is prejudice enough, they will look for another reason possibly to fire them. I like many do hope that I will see the day in my own life where people are given equal rights; I know that truly this will never happen.

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