Investigation Of Whether Gay Rights Should Be Universal
Introduction
First of all, how did I come up with this topic? The topic of my GPE paper is: Should gay rights be universal? I came up with this topic, because we live in a modern world, and in my opinion everyone should respect each other and each others choices. This is not really the case all over the world. In the Western part of the world, gay people are accepted by the government, and also accepted by most people. In the Western part of the world, LGBT (LGBT = Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender) people are aloud to marry each other. They can say out loud that that they are gay, they are being seen as normal human beings. However this is not the case all over the world. In still a big part of the world gay people can’t tell their family about their feelings, they live a double life. Gay people are being seen as if they are crazy, as if they are sick. They are not allowed to be themselves.
My research question relates to the GPE topic: ‘changing communities’, because people are changing, religions undergo a change and values and norms changes in society. Because people are becoming more open for changes in society and accepting each individual as they are. This made that gay people felt safe in being more open about their feelings and sexuality and became more and more a part of the community.
The issues I will focus on are, if LGBT people in conservative countries should have equal rights as in non-conservative countries. Does culture/religion play a role. I will also focus on the fact that gay can not get married and adopt children all over the world. Should this be possible? While I was doing research I found a couple of perspectives for and against my research question that where mostly focusing on these 2 issues. In almost every country in Europe, LGBT people have the same rights as people that are not gay.
A lot of people (at least in most of Europe) think that gay should have the same rights. There is no difference between gay and non-gay people. They are all human beings. The only difference is that gay people only like the same sex, and hetero-sexual people like the oposite sex of themselves. But because you like a different sex doesn’t mean you are not a human being. You just have different feelings, which is normal! Every person is it’s own individual, not everyone is the same, and not everyone is supposed to be the same. Unfortunately not everyone thinks the same way. Although the number of countries where gay can get married is increasing, it still isn’t possible all over the world.
In most European countries gay people have the same rights as everyone else, except in Russia. Putin (president of Russia) does not accept homosexuality and he even made laws against gay people. There even exists a law in Russia which states that: people and groups who distribute information that is considered to be ‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships’ will be punished. In 2010 a judgement at the European court of human rights was made, which states that the countries in Europe should allow gay pride events, but Russia did not allow this to happen. In Putin’s opinion, gay pride events are not allowed in Russia! The continent which contains the most amount of countries who do not accept LGBT people is Africa. Out of the 76 countries who still do not accept gay, 38 countries are African.
South-Africa is the only country that is part of the continent Africa who legalised same-sex marriage. Even Though South-Africa legalised same-sex marriage, a big part of the community of South-Africa still does not accept gay people. African people state that they have a lot of reasons to not accept gay people. A lot of African people even state that they think that gay people are not human, and that being gay is a ‘disease’. In some countries in Africa, being gay could even be punished by death. A lot of African people have the opinion that gay people do not respect the African culture and religion. Also a big part of the African community does not accept gay, and they argue that homosexuality is not in the Bible, and that being gay in not African. Being gay is a Western import, according to some African people. The religion they use to substantiate their statement is also a religion imported from the Western part of the world. This shows that they really need to rethink their opinion about gay people not being part of a culture or religion!
We live in a modern world. The world is becoming more and more modern and the world is increasingly moving with the times (at least in Europe and America). Being gay is seen as being normal. In the past, being gay was not really seen as being normal. Children who were in school would be bullied a lot more a few years ago if their parents where gay, because their parents are different than usual. But fortunately this is very much changing. It is even said that children who grow up with gay-sex parents, that those children have a lot more discipline, are much more motivated and have much more perseverance, and that those children get a much better job later than children who grow up with heterosexual parents. There even is ample evidence to show that gay couples can be just as good at parenting as straight couples. In fact, some homosexual couples tend to be better motivated and more committed than heterosexual parents.
About 50 percent of straight couple who stumble into parenthood by accident. People who are not healthy should not be given priority for adopting children. Everyone should be treated in the same way. A gay couple can not have children either. It is often said that they choose to be gay so you can not have children, but this is not true. You do not choose for what sex you fall for, it just happens!
Comparison of Issues
Based on all of the information above, I can conclude that there are a lot of relevant issues that are connected to my research question. Both of my issues are very relevant and also very important, because these are things that are happening nowadays. Everything that I wrote is reality, and it is all happening or/ it all had happened in the world. Homo-sexual people are nothing different than hetero-sexual people. They do not choose to fall in love with the same sex, it just happens. Falling in love is a biological/emotional process, you can not control this process. This is why homo-sexual people should be treated the same way and have the same rights as that hetero-sexual people have. We are all human beings, and so are gay people!
Courses of Action
In order to solve the problem of LGBT people not being treated the same, and not having the same right as hetero-sexual people, a couple of things could be done:at first, laws could be made all over the world. Allow gay people to marry each other, allow gay people to adopt children. Remove all of the laws that state that being gay is a crime. In order for this to really happen, European leaders could try to make a change. They could try to talk and convince the leaders of other continents/countries to allow gay people to marry, adopt children and have just the same human rights as everyone else.
Also lessons could be given to people who are strictly against homo-sexual people. In these lessons, people that are against LGBT people could be explained and showed that being gay is a natural process. If you are gay, you are not sick, or crazy, or don’t respect your culture/religion. Being gay is a biological/emotional process, it just happens. Last but not least. Instead of punishing gay people for being homo-sexual, you could punish people who insult and beat up homo-sexual people because they are gay. This is the most absurd reason I have ever heard to treat gay people as if they are less worth than you. Well guess what, everyone is the same and should be treated equally! This is more and more happening. In the future, gay people will only be tolerated more!
Conclusion
My research question: Should gay rights be universal? I chose this topic, because I knew that there was/is a difference between the gay rights in the Western part of the world and the rest of the world, and I wanted to learn more about this difference, and also why their is a difference. I knew some things about this topic, but not a lot. I only knew the basic things, not really a lot in detail. By reading a lot of articles and also reading people’s opinions. I draw the conclusion that a lot of people who are against gay are just hypocrite. I figured that if people think that gay people shouldn't have equal rights, they must have a valid reason, I was trying to see the subject of my GPE essay in different perspectives, even though I have always thought/and still think that gay should and must have equal rights.
Doing all this research and reading all of these people’s opinions made my opinion become even stronger. This GPE essay made me realise how mean and unreasonable people can be. LGBT people nowadays are still not being seen as normal. They still do not have equal rights as hetero-sexual people have. This means that in order to gain them the same rights, a lot needs to be done. Not only by the government but on all levels of society. This needs to be done, because gay rights should be universal!
Bibliography
- Emine Saner/The Guardian (2013) Gay rights around the world: the best and worst countries for equality. Retrieved January 18, 2018,https://www. theguardian. com/world/2013/jul/30/gay-rights-world-best-worst-countries
- David Smith/The Guardian (2014) Why Africa is the most homophobic continent. Retrieved January 18, 2018,https://www. theguardian. com/world/2014/feb/23/africa-homophobia-uganda-anti-gay-law
- Harry Dugmore/The conversation (2015) Why anti gay sentiment remains strong in much of Africa. Retrieved January 31, 2018,http://theconversation. com/why-anti-gay-sentiment-remains-strong-in-much-of-africa-42677
- Bisi Alimi/The Guardian (2015) If you say being gay is not African, you don’t know your history. Retrieved January 31, 2018,https://www. theguardian. com/commentisfree/2015/sep/09/being-gay-african-history-homosexuality-christianity
- Debate (2018) Should same sex couples be allowed to adopt children? Retrieved February 1, 2018,http://www. debate. org/opinions/should-same-sex-couples-be-allowed-to-adopt-children
- Debate (2018) Should homo-sexual people be allowed to legally adopt children? Retrieved February 1, 2018,http://www. debate. org/opinions/should-homosexual-people-be-allowed-to-legally-adopt-children
- Debatingeurope (2018) Arguments for and against gay adoption. Retrieved February 1, 2018,http://www. debatingeurope. eu/focus/arguments-gay-adoption/#. WnNir2Zx9mA
