Why We Should Accept Gay People

"If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: 'Hello. Can't work today, still queer.'"

Robin Tyler

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homosexuality.

I did not have the most thorough of upbringings, I admit, and I was pretty much left to my own devices growing up. You see, children are terribly impressionable, wide-eyed creatures. If you tell them that if they tell lies, their tongues would be cut off in hell, they'll believe you. If you tell them that there is a God who created everything in this world - from the sun and moon to toilets which flush themselves - they'll believe you too. If they see you recoiling in horror from a cockroach, something we all know to be completely harmless, they will probably grow up with the assumption that there is really something about cockroaches that they should be afraid about in spite of how irrational they eventually know that fear to be.

I was very lucky to have been left to my own devices for much of my childhood. I was allowed a free reign to discover the world with an uncoloured and unbiased mind, and to interpret it on my own terms. The most discriminatory thing I ever saw my father do was honk at the transvestites who used to gather nightly behind the old bus station every time he drove by. At no point in my young life was I told anything about how I should feel about homosexuals. The first homosexual person I ever met was my supervisor, a large effeminate man with an equally large Australian boyfriend, back when I was working part time at the local Tesco as a sales assistant. I remember being mildly surprised that homosexuals actually exist outside urban myths, but thought nothing worse.

Over the next preceding years, thanks to the internet, I came to know just fractured the world is on the subject. The dichotomy was between the people who thinks that homosexuality isn't wrong or deviant, and that they should enjoy the same rights as heterosexual partners (this camp, as you can imagine, consisted mainly of homosexual people) - and the large heterosexual majority which feels that homosexuality is sinful, wrong, abominable and has no place in the ordered ranks of humanity. It was very easy for me to decide which party deserves my support. I merely asked myself one question: Which side is hurting the other?

I like women and I enjoy my right to fall in love with anyone I want to. No one has ever tried to stop me because well, lucky me, I happen to fall on the straight side of the coin. But what if I'm gay? I used to wonder about that a lot. What if I'm gay and I'm not allowed to fall in love? What if the law forbids me to fall in love, or to consummate my love? Can you imagine what it feels like to be denied one of your simplest and most basic rights?

People should just remember how lucky they are that their inborn nature is in accordance with the vast majority and consequentially, suffer no persecution of any sort. Why then must they deny others what they themselves can possess freely? I find it cruel and selfish. That's all there is to it. Cruelty and selfishness. So what if two men fell in love - or two women? Love isn't a finite resource. Just because gay people love each other doesn't mean that there is much less love to be had by the straights.

When there is no victim, there is no crime. Being in a homosexual relationship isn't a crime because it's between two consenting adults who love each other. Homophobia, on the other hand, should be criminal because it victimises people who just wants to lead happy lives.

On the scientific front, they debate is still out in the field on whether homosexuality is a genetic trait or an environmentally influenced one (there are so many theories on the subject that listing them would eat up most of this article). That controversy is immaterial. If homosexuality is learnt in childhood, it's not their fault because they can't change what made them who they are in their formative years. If homosexuality is due to some hormonal or immunological factors while a child is still in his or her mother's womb, it's still how nature intended them to be. If homosexuality is caused by an actual gene coding for the trait, well, why don't you people just start telling people who have blonde hair, black irises or an inborn inability to detect the scent of cyanide that they are all deviants of nature?

I'll go one step further now and say this: Even if every single gay person in this world made a conscious choice to be what they are (preposterous conjecture, I know), I still feel that no one has the right to tell them they can't live their lives the way they want to, so long as they aren't hurting anyone in the process.

Now, if we look beyond humanity, we'll see that homosexuality is ubiquitous and omnipresent in nature. It was estimated that 25% of all male black swans are homosexuals, 60% of all sexual activities between Bonobos apes are between two or more females, and homosexual behaviour has been documented in every single species of great apes on this planet (a group which includes gorillas, chimps, orangutans and yes, humans). Almost half of all sexual pairings between elephants are of the same-sex variety - with the homosexual relationships between males reportedly being more permanent and less fleeting compared to heterosexual encounters. And the great shaggy macho lions? 8% of mountings are male on male. The female whiptail lizards are so gay that the males of the species are actually facing the danger of extinction. All the lizard chicks need to do to reproduce is dry hump one another and they'll spontaneously become preggers. That's right, people: There's an entire species of Virgin Mary lizards out there. And don't even get me started on the dolphins, penguins, salmons, giraffes, chickens, cats, dogs and killer whales. The entire animal kingdom is having a great time having awesome gay sex right this moment and we're still trying to stop homosexual members of our own species from following their own nature. What a fat waste of time. Why not draft a legislation against sunlight and rain while you're at it, assholes?

If you notice, I have not address the major arguments levelled by the religious against homosexuals and their lifestyle. That's because I have another post in the making just for that purpose. Anyone who has any refutations to throw at my arguments so far can do so in the comments section and I'll address them all in good time.

I do not aim merely to preach tolerance to those who are different from us. I aim to incite complete and utter acceptance. I like to believe that each and every one of us has the potential to be decent and loving human beings. Search your own feelings. See if you can morally justify oppressing a group of people who meant us no harm, and still feel righteous about it.



Related Post: An Unofficial Survey of Homophobia in My College



For the rights of all humankind,
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