Saintless

This was written by Isaac Higham, who was kind enough to let me repost it here.

To the girl who sat two rows behind me in class today,

Don’t think I didn’t hear you. The professor was going along in his lecture discussing socioemotional development in early adulthood when he made an aside comment during the slide on Gay and Lesbian young adults, about how there has been much controversy over gay marriage lately. It was then that you made your snide remark “Yeah and they won’t shut up about it.”

It is clear, my fellow classmate, that you just do not understand.

While you may have your reasons- legitimate or not- for disliking the idea of gay marriage, your comment shows you have a clear disgust for LGBT persons fighting and working for their rights. Yes, gay marriage is the media darling and the hot button issue of the movement, but marriage is not the be all end all of this struggle.

Did you know that one can still be fired from their job, not because of poor job performance, but simply because they are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender? Are you aware that they can similarly be evicted from their housing for the same reason?

Not only can one legally be discriminated against in the work place based solely on their sexual orientation, our federal government actually mandates such discrimination in the military. Is it fair, in your disgusted eyes, that a man or woman who loves serving their country should face a choice of losing their job or going against their values and integrity and lying about who they are?

Do you think it right that the partners of such service members- who make such immense sacrifices sending their loved one off to a foreign land to serve the country- should be forced to be invisible and hide their relationship and love so their partner can keep their job? Is it an American value that they be denied the opportunity to end a phone call with “I love you” out of fear of repercussions?

Do you understand that Gay and Lesbian families are denied insurance coverage for their families? Do you comprehend that despite drawing up legal documents (that they have to remember to carry with them wherever they travel), they can still be denied to chance to visit their partner in the hospital in a time when families need to be together most, and in some cases when one is on their death bed?

Do you realize that heterosexual couples are able to immigrate their married partners to the United States if their spouse is not a citizen, but that gay and lesbian couples are denied this same protection?

Are you aware that we live in a state where a court has ruled that despite having signed co-parenting and co-guardianship agreements, a person can be denied visitation to a child they have helped raise because these agreements don’t offer the same protections as those offered to married heterosexual couples?

Did you know that there is an epidemic of gay homeless youth? Up to 40% of all homeless youth identify as LGBT.

Is this something you understand? I don’t think you do.

So while you continue to mock with scorn the efforts of LGBT persons to obtain the over 1,100 federal level and hundreds of state level rights denied them in marriage, maybe you could at least take a minute and open your heart to understand that there is so much more going on here.

You just don’t understand that these are real issue affecting real people. You just don’t seem to understand.

Do these things seem like fair and just policies to you? If they do, then it appears that I am the one who just doesn’t understand.

Signed,
Isaac Higham

Tags: Isaac Higham

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 9:53 pm and is filed under LGBTQ, human rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.