KarMel
Scholarship 2008
|
Essay “An
End to Ignorance” By Athena
Birckbichler |
Desciption of Submission: “This work shows
why am upset with the ignorance of gays and lesbians in our society and poses
an answer to the problem.” - Athena
|
The lines that begin the infamous
and awkward sex talk that parents have with their children at some point
after they hit puberty go something like this: “Well, you see…when a man and
a woman love each other very much…” Almost never does this speech begin with
“two men” or “two women” or just simply “two people.” Children accept what
their parents tell them as absolute truths, as fact. If mom says a man and a
woman, then a man and a woman it must be. Oftentimes people are not trying
to discriminate by excluding gay relationships from this conversation. They
just overlook them, because they do not know much about them. I feel this is
extreme negligence by our society, and this is something that needs to
change. A lot of parents today do not expect their children to be gay,
because that is what their parents expected from them and what their parent’s
parents expected and so forth. Therefore straight relationships are all that
children are generally taught about. Instead of educating them about this and
telling them that love between two men or two women is the exact same love as
the love between a man and a woman, same-sex relationships become a mockery.
In fact, a popular insult among teens is “You’re so gay” which only breeds
anti-gay feelings. I was lucky enough to have parents
who did not segregate or hate. I was always told that I would be loved no matter
what I did with my life, whether I chose to work at the Dollar Tree for my
whole life or chose to work for a billion dollar computer company; whether I
was straight or gay. “I just want you to be happy,” mom and dad would always
say. They understand that I am only going to be happy if I allow myself to be
me. That is exactly what they have done, and this made it so much easier for
me to come out to my family and friends. So many other teens know they
would be disowned if they revealed that they were gay. I was lucky enough to
be accepted by the most important people in my life. I want everyone to not
have to worry about acceptance of their sexuality by their parents, by their
peers, or by the rest of the world. I honestly think that the reason people
are judgmental of same-sex relationships is because they are ignorant on the
matter. Gays and lesbians have made leaps
and bounds in the past ten or twenty years, but progress can be made, needs
to be made, and will be made. The most obvious and important step is to talk
openly about being gay. Ignorance is the biggest reason that people hate;
they do not understand and actually fear what is different from them. These
people need to know that nothing is wrong with us; we are what we are, and
there is nothing we could or would do to change that. |