Anti-LGBT Laws Are Not the American Way

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Throughout history we have all seen that oppression and discrimination very rarely work for the parties that agree with implementing them, especially not in United States. The Jim Crow laws that were designed to segregate blacks and white may have lasted for a pretty long time (1877 – 1954) but they were obviously repealed due to the civil rights movement. Even outside of the United States we do not take too kindly to oppression anywhere. The Holocaust, Joseph Kony’s Lord Resistance Army, and the now over thrown dictatorship in Egypt are just a few examples on how our society reacts to unfair rule.

The U.S. welcomes with open arms those that would like to escape oppression and embrace freedom.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door,” says the famous poem by Emma Lazarus that is engraved inside the Statue of Liberty.

With all of this being said, it is simply illogical, unethical, hypocritical, and quite counterproductive for any state in the U.S. to pass or anchorage anti-LGBT laws.

On June 26, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage nationwide. Almost every American will remember where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt when they heard this news. I clearly remember sitting in a Waffle House a few miles outside of Georgia with my mom. I opened my phone to see my Twitter feed full of the good news and told my mom, we both smiled. I also immediately thought of my step sister and her girlfriend who had been saving money for years in order to move to a state where they could legally get married. They no longer had uproot their lives in Texas and I was full of joy for her and everyone else that it would affect.

“Honestly I didn’t get that excited at first, our family was more excited than I was. I thought it won’t last here in Texas but so far it has and now I have married the love of my life legally, everything just seemed possible,” she said. “I feel like we can accompany anything and so will our children because they will know that we are just as great as anybody else”

Of course not everyone in the U.S. was happy about SCOTUS’s decision. As ugly as it is blatant homophobia is still real around the world. I clearly am not homophobic however for those that are their usual defense is either religion, it’s just not the “American way”, or pure ignorance. I believe everyone is free to own opinions and beliefs but what I do no believe in is that one person should have control of other person’s sexual or gender identity. Sexual orientation or gender identity are a personal choice and a complex one at that.

According the the Human Rights Campaign sexual orientation is “, An inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other people”. Gender identity is “, One’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth”, and gender expression is “, External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, haircut or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine”.

American society is all for choice and although states have a choice, if the Supreme Court say’s something is now legal it should not be further questioned. Kim Davis, the city clerk who refused to approved a gay couple’s marriage license was put in jail because she broke the law. States and businesses that want to also ignore this law should also be punished. I understand that law exclusively protects the equality of same sex marriage, but if a LGBT couple goes into a wedding cake shop and they are denied service because of their sexual choice that is still denying equality to people who now legally have it.

The last paragraph of Supreme Court same sex marriage decision opinions says this: “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right”.

This story was originally published on Examiner.com, all written content is owned by Iyana Edouard.