Well, discrimination against LGBT people is still quite common place. And a lot of people just don't see the problem because they aren't being discriminated against personally, so clearly we are just whiners who want special privileges, right? I mean they have their rights, and this is the 'land of the free' (speaking as a citizen of the USA here), so everyone is equal, right?
No, we are not. LGBT people are still very much second class citizens. Despite the Constitution saying we are equal, we are not. When was the last time you heard of someone being legally fired from their work, or denied medical coverage or public services for being straight? How about denied or kicked out of their housing? Attacked and beat up on the streets or killed outright for being a straight, cisgendered "normal' person?
Yet these are daily considerations that LGBT people have to take into account. That we could be hurt, killed, fired, or otherwise discriminated against because of who we are. Something that we have no control over being.
Let's look at the whole gay marriage thing. People claim that it's against their religion, or harms traditional marriage or redefines it. Marriage, in a biblical sense, is a business transaction between two men. One man trades goods or money (the dowry) for another man's daughter. That is how the Bible defines marriage, because at the time it was written, that is how marriage worked. Clearly it is not that way now, so marriage has already been 'redefined'. And not bay homosexual people.
It is also impossible for one person's marriage to negatively impact another person's. Unless they are marrying someone who is already married... And if it would, the whole quicky marriages and divorces do far more to 'harm traditional marriage' than two loving people of the same sex who want to devote their lives together.
Finally, the fight for equal rights to marry is a political, legal battle. Not a religious one. Legal marriage and religious marriage just happen to share the same name. This is not a fight to force churches who are against same sex marriage to perform the ceremonies. Rather it is a battle so that two people, regardless of their gender, can commit to each other in a legal manner and share all the same legal rights and responsibilities. Civil Unions are not the same. The legal definition of a civil union denies 1018 individual rights to the couple in comparison to legal marriage. Including things like hospital determination rights, child custody rights and pensions. To create two different classes of 'marriage' in this way is by it's very definition discrimination.
Adoption is very similar. Studies and practical experience both in and out of this country show that children, adopted or natural, of same sex couples are just as like to succeed and be happy, and just as likely to turn out heterosexual or otherwise, as children of opposite sex couples. And far more likely to succeed and be happy than children in orphanages with no parents.
Religion and homosexuality. Every religion has the right to believe what they will and to ask and expect their members to obey the tenants of their religion. But none of them have the right to force other people not of their religion to follow their rules.
To sum up... The fight for gay rights is not people looking for special treatment, but people looking for the same treatment as other people. Something we do not have, and we have to deal with discrimination on a daily basis. The only way to get these things fixed is to keep making noise, and keep pushing. Racial and sexual equal rights didn't come about because black people and women sat back and stayed quiet. They fought, yelled, legislated and bled to be treated the way that we are supposed to be treated... as equals.
We're still not there yet. As long as people fear that which is different and fear losing control, even the illusion of control, we will have to keep fighting. For the sake of equality.
