Right lifestyle should not be basis for rights
by Laura Vatalaro, se news editor

     Recently, the premiere of a show called Normal, Ohio, starring John Goodman came on after The Simpsons’ Halloween Special.
     I figured that if a show has John Goodman, it couldn’t be all that bad, but it was. Apparently, the major focus of this new series is on Goodman’s character, Butch, being gay. Every other line had to do with how shocking it was for Butch to be homosexual.
     However, the show did make me think about how our society treats and reacts to gays.
As a society, we have somehow become fixated on homosexuality and how wrong it is. This show and others such as Ellen are examples of this fixation.
     Add to this fixation the fact that, as Americans, we don’t allow same-sex marriages and do not want gays in the military.
     Why is it that being gay makes somebody so different from everyone else that the person is singled out as wrong? Homosexuality does not make someone less of an American citizen, so why are the rights of these citizens taken away?
     Some people believe that being gay is a choice. If homosexuals don’t like the consequences, these people reason, then they can just go to a psychologist and get their heads straight.
     But why would anyone make the choice to be treated the way that homosexuals are treated? They are being persecuted based on something that they cannot control that supposedly makes them different.
     However, it’s not even so much the persecution of homosexuals as it is the fixation and even fascination with them.
     One day when I was in high school, a lesbian friend and her girlfriend were fighting. I knew they were a couple, so I felt kind of bad for my friend because she was getting chewed out by someone she really loved.
     However, the group of people I was with started making comments such as “I’ve never seen lesbians fight before” or “You don’t think they’re going to start making out or something, do you?”
     If they had been a straight couple, my friends would have had the same reaction as I had. My peers would have felt bad for whoever was getting the worse part of the fight. Instead, they singled out my friend by almost dehumanizing her and her girlfriend by assuming that the only thing lesbians do is act dirty and make out.
     I do not condone homosexuality. If it were a lifestyle choice, I would not choose homosexuality for myself.
     However, who am I to label someone as bad because of his or her lifestyle. And I certainly should not declare that a homosexual is not entitled to the same rights I have as an American citizen.
     No one deserves to be singled out because of what makes him or her different, whether it be skin color, size, job or profession or lifestyle.
     Somehow, as a society, we always seem to target a group of people who are considered different.
     Someday, when looking back on this decade, society will view the treatment of homosexuals in the same manner as it now views the treatment of minorities during the civil rights movement or the persecution of Asian-Americans during World War II.
     The majority of people will understand how any society could be so closed minded as to single out a group of people and treat them in such a manner.