Gay Rights
Homosexuals have had a long and tedious history. For thousands of years they have been discriminated against and punished for their sexual orientation. Then in the mid 1900's, they finally decided to start standing up for the right to have their own life style, and their own choices. Their efforts have come along way, but they will still have a lot of hard times coming.Discrimination against homosexuals began way before most people may realize. The first law against homosexual acts was in Great Britain, in 1533, which made homosexual intercourse a capital offence punishable by death ("Gay Rights"). When Adolf Hitler took power he extended the law to include homosexual kissing, embracing, and even having homosexual fantasies. An estimated 25,000 people were convicted under this law in two years alone. They were sent to prisons and later concentration camps. Their sentence also included sterilization, most commonly in the form of castration. Later on, Hitler extended the penalty to death. In the concentration camps Hitler symbolized "regular criminals" with a green triangle, Jews with an overlapping Star of David triangle, gays wore pink triangles, lesbians black triangles and the lowest form of prisoners, gay Jews, wore overla
When will the homosexual ever realize that social reform, to be effective, must be preceded by personal reform?" At the meetings of the new group anti-gay "experts" were allowed to speak and even write articles in MS publications (Wright). He wrote in the Society journal, "We must blame ourselves for our own plight. The new president, Kenneth Burns, now taught that gay people could not fight for changes in society, but had to blend into the background and try to look respectable, with jobs such as doctors and psychiatrists (Wright). Gay rights activist and riot veteran Craig Rodwell said about the incident, "A number of incidents were happening simultaneously. Yet, it took until 2000 for civil union law in Vermont to provide same-sex couples with the same rights, benefits and responsibilities as heterosexual couples such as tax breaks, medical decision making and inheritance ("In-Depth"). But steadily, over the years, people are becoming more and more comfortable about the idea, which may someday lead to homosexuals finally getting the rights they deserve. State laws across the country criminalized same-sex acts, and even simple signs of affection like holding hands between two men or two women could get them arrested. This action disgusted many followers who soon resigned from the group, which may have set the whole gay rights movement back a decade (Wright). People started to viewing homosexuals as not only morally corrupt but a threat to American culture ("Gay Rights"). There was no one thing special about it.
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,
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Acceptance Essays
