On Liberty
Over the past several months QSaltLake has featured a number of columns and news stories related to the struggle for basic human rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Today, however, I’m going to step back a bit and address human rights from a more general perspective — as they relate to humanity as a whole.
America’s history is an interesting one. The founders of this nation asserted that all men were created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. To some of this, I take issue, as has society over the years. Legally now, all persons are equal, regardless of sex. As for the endowment of rights, I tend to think this is something inherent to humanity, not something bestowed by an invisible super-being. That said, it took nearly 200 years for America to recognize that people of color deserve the same basic rights as white Americans, and while that fight is over legally, racism still persists in this country.
Additionally, all one has to do is scan the forums of online local or national media outlets to see the persecution of people of Hispanic descent. In virtually every story involving someone with a Hispanic surname or a darker than average complexion, you will see blistering comments about “those damn illegals.” It doesn’t matter if the person in question is in this country legally or not, the inference is there, and the hatred flows.
The Constitution also provides for freedom of religion, expressly prohibiting Congress from making any law that creates an established religion or interferes with the free exercise thereof. Yet throughout the country today, a heated discussion is taking place about the building of an Islamic cultural center (and prayer room) near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Although I’m a straight male, I can still see the hatred and prejudice that plagues the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, both here in Utah and throughout the nation. Only a few days ago some cowardly punks decided to scribble obscene, homophobic epithets on a sign at Café Marmalade. Not a day goes by without a story of someone spouting anti-gay hysteria in the media.
When I read these stories I ask myself one question, and I ask it because I truly do not understand: Why? What goes on in the human mind that turns difference into fear and hate? I’ve been hurt by women in the past, yet I’m not a misogynist. I was mugged coming out of a bar in Detroit by a black person, yet I don’t fly a Confederate flag or wear a sheet and hood. I had a gay roommate in graduate school who stiffed me for the last month’s rent on our apartment, but I still support equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
But in America today, especially among those on the right end of the spectrum, it has become not only acceptable, but desirable, to lash out at Muslims, Hispanics and gays. From whence comes this hatred?
For me, America is the land of the free and the home of liberty. Maybe I’m just a hopeless idealist, but our country is the land of opportunity and the place where dreams can and do come true for people every day.
Our national history is made great by people from different races, different religions, different cultures, different orientations and different beliefs working together to make their communities, their countries and their world a better place. Social improvement and advancement come from acceptance of differences, from embracing diversity and using it to move us all forward. The battles we fight amongst ourselves over race, religion or sexual orientation only serve to bring us down.
To any conservatives who may be reading, this is your chance. Stand up and support the freedoms of all people, not just those that are your “color,” your religion or who fit into your mold. If you truly value a free society, then you must value the freedoms of those who disagree with you as much as you value your own. That is the price of liberty.
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