A-LISTS youthful thinking
by melissa k.t.
Recently I was wondering what makes people so against gay marriage. It is
pretty irritating when closed-minded people try to convince you that you don’t
deserve the same rights that everyone else enjoys. I have had many conversations
with religious extremists and they never fail to get me angry. I never have been
the best at keeping my cool regarding things I feel extremely passionate about. I
always feel like yelling out the bumper sticker passage I see all the time that says,
“If only closed minds had closed mouths.” When someone is sitting there telling
me that I am abnormal and my lifestyle is going to make me go to hell, several
thoughts pass through my mind. The first is that I don’t understand why people
feel so inclined to push their own beliefs on everyone else. The second is if you
don’t want a gay marriage…don’t have one, but what gives you the right to tell
me what I am allowed to do with my life? I get pretty tired of people telling me
what to do with my life in general, let alone these people who don’t even know
me, or anything about our community or background.
The thoughts kept swirling around in my head and
I didn’t seem to comprehend why some people just don’t
seem to be able to open their minds. I got to thinking
about a theory based off of some research I discovered
and then furthered with my own research in a class I was
taking. Through research I discovered that there are two
A Better Understanding of
basic types of homophobia. One type is people who be-
lieve homosexuality is learned and that you can become
gay somehow. In turn these people are afraid of becom-
ing gay so they reject anything they view as supportive of
homosexuality in order to not become gay themselves.
The second type of homophobia involves the view that
homosexuality is a sort of disorder and people are born
with it. These people tend to want to help people cope or
deal with their “illness” or they pity their “plight.”
This information was a fascinating discovery. I am
extremely interested in the way people’s minds work. I
set out to confirm my suspicion that people who believe
more strongly that homosexuality is a choice would be
more likely to be very unsupportive of gay marriage.
The research I did was only on college students but the
findings confirmed my suspicion.
I agree with a theory I found in an article I was
reading, that people who are homophobic, and believe
homosexuality is a choice, are so concerned with possibly becoming gay them-
“People who are homophobic, and selves that they reject anything and everything having to do with homosexuality,
including gay marriage. This is not a conscious train of thought however. I think
believe homosexuality is a choice, are so that fear of being different drives the actions of these people. I also believe it is
important to educate people so that they can understand the community and
concerned with possibly becoming gay that no one is “turned” gay.
themselves that they reject anything and
It is extremely difficult to gain civil rights through a popular vote. Many
people make uneducated voting decisions and throughout history the biggest
everything having to do
civil rights decisions have been passed through the courts, not through the vot-
ing booths. Until there is a court date however, we have to try our hardest to make
with homosexuality.”
a difference in any way we can. Before we are able to gain our full civil rights as citi-
zens in this country I think our mission should be to educate people one by one.
If everyone has one friend whom they can educate, each person can in turn tell
one other friend and knowledge can spread. When people are uneducated about
issues they also make uneducated decisions in the voting booths. There will be
elections to come where our rights are going to be decided on by these people.
Take ten minutes of your day to talk to someone about your life, about how you
don’t have the right to marry the person you love and it will make a difference.
24 RAGE monthly | February 2010
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