Confronting GLBT Issues
WE HOLD THESE RIGHTS TO BE SELF EVIDENT, THAT ALL ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS. THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
‘Oppressors never offer freedom. The oppressed must seize it for themselves.’ Said Martin Luther King
Wise words indeed. Though the GLBT community has come a long way in the last couple of decades, and we now have much to celebrate, we yet have a long way to go. None are truly free until all are free. The gay community must fully understand that we are yet oppressed in many areas and many places around the world.
To understand where we currently are at, we must look to the past. Few understand the horror of what the GLBT community has historically been subjected to, and in many places still is. There are many history books on facts to document this.
10,000 gays were also murdered by the nazis along with the jews.
In the 1970's, the so called "moral majority" lashed out at gays, led by Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell. Falwell had even launched a public proclamation known as the "War On Homosexuals". Movements were created to bring about the death penalty for homosexuals. College students wore t-shirts proclaiming "Kill a Queer", and "Bury a Fairy". Hundreds of thousands eventually became disowned by their families for being gay.
This insanity of intolerance directly preceded gay men being put in the public spotlight. Even the deaths and illnesses among the self destructive in our community were deemed to be God's punishment for homosexuals by most of the straight world.
Our health problems were deemed to be caused by a gay virus, and this is the beginning of the belief that HIV was the cause of AIDS.
Gays are still treated with disdain in most of the world. They are still looked upon as "infected" and immoral, and sick.
There are many places in the world where beatings and death are the rule, and gays yet have a long way to go to overcome the intolerance of oppression and tyranny that is still placed upon them in many areas.
We can and will overcome all of these difficulties, one step at a time.
We truly believe that a better world is just ahead for us all. A world of tolerance, acceptance, love, and peace. We give our heartfelt congratulations to the GLBT communities in Massachusets and California. These are great nails in the coffins of intolerance.
There are still many places where we are denied justice, equality, dignity, and freedom, and at times, even our lives. Gays must continue to stand for right and demand our rights.
Here is the United States, our country was founded by those who gave their very lives that we could live free. We must all ask, what are we willing to give or to do to keep it free from all who would oppress or tyrannize.
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=lgbt
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/index.html
http://www.speakout.com/activism/gayrights/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gay-rights_organizations
