Hop Against Homophobia Article #6 - Sharita Lira

And now to close out the Hop is the head. She's got a very important message!

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Greetings readers! Today I wanted to chat about marriage equality and this hits closer to home especially for me. How far away is your state from making marriage equality into a law?

First, marriage equality, to me, is a term used to describe the act of two people getting married regardless of what gender and obtaining the same legal rights. Why shouldn’t two people who love each other be able to get married? What’s all the big fuss about?

For some odd reason, some individuals think it’s not right for same sex couples to marry. They attempt to push their own morals on someone else even when it has nothing to do with them. In my opinion, this is wrong in so many ways. I liken it back to the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s when several states passed laws against people of different races getting married. They called it anti-miscegenation. (From Wikipedia Miscegenation (/mɪˌsɛdʒɨˈneɪʃən/; from the Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage,cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation) In reality, why should the government be able to dictate someone’s personal life? Shouldn’t a big step like this be up to the two people involved and not anyone else? I’d say so.

For years now, we’ve heard the terms, the statistics, and all the facts showing the positive effects of marriage equality and now, they’re even hitting my home state. As compared to other big cities like New York and California, Illinois has always been the more conservative of all the three. However, this state continues to grow in leaps and bounds, becoming more of a melting pot and in my opinion it’s about time the government recognized people’s right to get married. Why should it matter whether it’s a man and woman, 2 women or men, or two bi or transsexual individuals? Its two people who’d like to show their love for one another legally.

I’m excited about the news to come in the months ahead and looking forward to seeing all the lovely pictures of people getting their licenses from the state of Illinois. Wouldn’t be great to see it happen before gay pride this year? I think so. Regardless, it’s time for all states to get on the ball and make it happen. No one should be denied the choice to love who they want to love!

Thanks for listening to me today.

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Thanks Shar and that will conclude the HOP! Woot! So, what did you learn? Hopefully a lot. The GLBT community needs support from its allies. And you can do that in several ways. Support the organizations that help GLBT youths, marriage equality, and human rights! Do what you can to make yourself heard!

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